The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body by Frances Ashcroft Page B
Authors: Frances Ashcroft
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found in the cardiac sodium channel, which helps explain why your heart continues to beat even when your respiratory muscles are totally paralysed.
Saxitoxin was exploited by US agents engaged in covert government operations both as a suicide and an assassination agent. It has the advantage that it is highly poisonous so that only tiny amounts (which can be easily concealed) are needed, and it is faster and more effective than cyanide. Because it is stable, water soluble and about a thousand times more toxic than synthetic nerve gases such as sarin, saxitoxin (known as agent SS or TZ) was also stockpiled by the US government as a chemical weapon. It was extracted from thousands of butter clams laboriously collected by hand in Alaska. In 1969/70, President Nixon halted the US biological weapons programme and ordered existing stocks to be destroyed, in accordance with a United Nations agreement. But five years later, Senator Frank Church, Chair of a Select Committee on Intelligence investigating the CIA, discovered that a middle-level official had failed to do so. About 10 grams of the toxin, enough to kill several thousand people, still remained in downtown Washington in direct violation of the presidential order. It had been packed into two one-gallon cans and stored in a small freezer under a workbench, which must have caused some consternation to its discoverer.
This information interested Murdoch Ritchie, of Yale University School of Medicine, as he realized that the toxin could be of considerable value to scientists studying how nerves work. He immediately wrote to Church requesting that it should not be incinerated. To his surprise, the CIA offered Ritchie the entire supply, with the proviso that he organize its distribution to the scientific community. Ritchie quickly realized that safeguarding the stockpile would be an enormous responsibility. Moreover, as the supply was limited and the demand was likely to be considerable, he might ‘be forced to ration it, or even deny some applications, and would surely make enemies’. Wisely, Ritchie recommended it be given to the National Institutes of Health for distribution. The outcome was a happy bonus for ion channel research.
Saxitoxin has always been hard to obtain because of its colourful history, and the first laboratory synthesis of saxitoxin (in 1977) led to even more stringent controls. It is now listed in Schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention. In contrast, for many years tetrodotoxin could be routinely ordered from suppliers of laboratory chemicals. Since 11 September 2001, however, things have tightened up worldwide. Researchers can only hold tiny amounts of the toxin, and all stocks must be registered. They are also carefully monitored, as I discovered recently myself when we received an unsolicited visit from the anti-terrorist branch of the British police to check on our tetrodotoxin supplies.
The Queen of Poisons
Not all sodium channel toxins work by blocking flux through the pore. Some produce equally devastating effects by locking the channels open, resulting in overstimulation of nerve and muscle fibres. One of the most potent is aconite, which has been used as a murder weapon for centuries. A recent victim was Lakhvinder Cheema, who came home, took some leftover vegetarian curry out of the fridge and heated it up for himself and his fiancée, Gurjeet. They sat down to eat their dinner, chatting happily about their forthcoming wedding. But not for long. Ten minutes or so later, Lakhvinder found his face becoming numb and very quickly both he and Gurjeet started to go blind, became dizzy, and lost control of their arms and legs. They called for an ambulance, but Lakhvinder died within the hour and Gurjeet was left fighting for her life. She survived only because she had eaten less curry. The dish had been laced with aconite by Lakhvinder’s jealous ex-mistress Lakhvir Singh, who had slipped into his flat when he was out.
Aconite, or more
Saxitoxin was exploited by US agents engaged in covert government operations both as a suicide and an assassination agent. It has the advantage that it is highly poisonous so that only tiny amounts (which can be easily concealed) are needed, and it is faster and more effective than cyanide. Because it is stable, water soluble and about a thousand times more toxic than synthetic nerve gases such as sarin, saxitoxin (known as agent SS or TZ) was also stockpiled by the US government as a chemical weapon. It was extracted from thousands of butter clams laboriously collected by hand in Alaska. In 1969/70, President Nixon halted the US biological weapons programme and ordered existing stocks to be destroyed, in accordance with a United Nations agreement. But five years later, Senator Frank Church, Chair of a Select Committee on Intelligence investigating the CIA, discovered that a middle-level official had failed to do so. About 10 grams of the toxin, enough to kill several thousand people, still remained in downtown Washington in direct violation of the presidential order. It had been packed into two one-gallon cans and stored in a small freezer under a workbench, which must have caused some consternation to its discoverer.
This information interested Murdoch Ritchie, of Yale University School of Medicine, as he realized that the toxin could be of considerable value to scientists studying how nerves work. He immediately wrote to Church requesting that it should not be incinerated. To his surprise, the CIA offered Ritchie the entire supply, with the proviso that he organize its distribution to the scientific community. Ritchie quickly realized that safeguarding the stockpile would be an enormous responsibility. Moreover, as the supply was limited and the demand was likely to be considerable, he might ‘be forced to ration it, or even deny some applications, and would surely make enemies’. Wisely, Ritchie recommended it be given to the National Institutes of Health for distribution. The outcome was a happy bonus for ion channel research.
Saxitoxin has always been hard to obtain because of its colourful history, and the first laboratory synthesis of saxitoxin (in 1977) led to even more stringent controls. It is now listed in Schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention. In contrast, for many years tetrodotoxin could be routinely ordered from suppliers of laboratory chemicals. Since 11 September 2001, however, things have tightened up worldwide. Researchers can only hold tiny amounts of the toxin, and all stocks must be registered. They are also carefully monitored, as I discovered recently myself when we received an unsolicited visit from the anti-terrorist branch of the British police to check on our tetrodotoxin supplies.
The Queen of Poisons
Not all sodium channel toxins work by blocking flux through the pore. Some produce equally devastating effects by locking the channels open, resulting in overstimulation of nerve and muscle fibres. One of the most potent is aconite, which has been used as a murder weapon for centuries. A recent victim was Lakhvinder Cheema, who came home, took some leftover vegetarian curry out of the fridge and heated it up for himself and his fiancée, Gurjeet. They sat down to eat their dinner, chatting happily about their forthcoming wedding. But not for long. Ten minutes or so later, Lakhvinder found his face becoming numb and very quickly both he and Gurjeet started to go blind, became dizzy, and lost control of their arms and legs. They called for an ambulance, but Lakhvinder died within the hour and Gurjeet was left fighting for her life. She survived only because she had eaten less curry. The dish had been laced with aconite by Lakhvinder’s jealous ex-mistress Lakhvir Singh, who had slipped into his flat when he was out.
Aconite, or more
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