Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests later showed that this can rapidly permeate different kinds of latex gloves and enter the skin within about 15 seconds
Despite aggressive chelation therapy, her condition rapidly deteriorated and three weeks after first symptoms appeared she fell into a coma described by one of her former students as not being "... the kind of coma I'd expected... She was thrashing about. Her husband saw tears rolling down her face. I asked if she was in pain. The doctors said it didn't appear that her brain could even register pain."
Wetterhahn died a few months later, less than a year after her initial exposure.
I worked at an aquarium store (probably one of the ones mentioned in the story) for a long time, and was a pretty experienced and dedicated reefkeeper at my peak, and I never knew this.
This situation must be incredibly unlikely though because I've dealt with thousands of Zooanthids and hundreds of customers over the years I never had anything like this happen nor heard about it from anybody. However, I certainly wish I had known so I could have warned customers about the risks, because in the aquarium world Zooanthids are considered a great starter coral because they are very hardy and don't require much light.
The advice I always see online about handling zoanthids is "always wear gloves". I've always done so, but seen plenty of people who don't.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other (often hidden) things in your average reef aquarium that can potentially injure you and leave your local emergency department at a loss. People don't normally get stung by fireworms (or whatever) 5000 miles away from the tropical ocean.
"a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived"
I am not sure what point you are trying to make with that sentence. That this proves it's not very toxic? We know how toxic it is. The LD-50 has been determined with some precision. What this would therefore prove was that his dose was low, which considering the suboptimal delivery method isn't that surprising.
a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived
This doesn't, specifically, mean anything about the potency of the poison. It means something about the potency and the size of the dose the guy received. There is a spectrum of possible conclusions between "huge dose and weak poison" or "tiny does and strong poison".
If, by "it", you mean the accuracy of the headline, then yes. If, by "it", you mean the availability of the poison, then no.
We live on the largest planet in our solar system, if you apply the appropriate qualification; just like this poison is the second deadliest, if you apply the appropriate qualification.
This was explained though, he received an aerosoled version of the drug, which was a very, very small dose, and not directly into the blood stream. Dipping a spear into one of these things then poking a living animal and that being is dead, quickly.
If you are talking about threat from terrorism, then as an aerosol is the only effective way to distribute it.
and if you were doing that, even something simple like Sarin is an order of magnitude stronger than this stuff
the agents that were being produced during the cold war by third-world countries are again stronger than sarin and probably easy to make for a small group
>second deadlist in the natural world, not overall.
The deadliest "synthetic" poison with a known toxic level is polonium-210, used in the murder of Alexander Litivenko. It comes in third to palytoxin and botulinum toxin in potency.
Saltwater aquarium owner here-- I own many palytoxin soft corals and have never felt any danger whatsoever; however that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful with these guys (zoanthids, palythoa, etc). I've never cut them open or anything, so I'm safe I think :)
You may be interested in this guy's comment (http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gj74k/man_cleans_fi...): "I was changing out my water and as being the usual idiot I am, I didn't condition or warm the water before dumping in 5 gallons of cold water into the tank. The zoos didn't like that and started squirting a long thin streamer of black tar stuff. I scooped it out with my hands to throw it away, a few minutes later I felt light headed and about 5 or so minutes later is when it kicked in full force."
WOW, I've never seen anything like that happen in my tank. I actually have moved them and got slimey stuff on my hands from them (as with all corals) and just washed my hands really well afterward. Irritating them is REALLY difficult to do though, they'll live through anything. Absolute beauties though, and well worth keeping :)
Not a saltwater aquarium owner myself, but given stories like this, I personally would not want to wear anything short of a spacesuit when the time comes to clean the tank.
If one goes by the minimum value which is 0.05mg, an equivalent amount of this stuff can kill 2,500 human sized mice with 50% probability. That's potent stuff.
Well, had written 'people' in place of 'human sized mice' but the LD-50 values used were those for mice, so it is only fair that I measure in "human sized mice" units.
In other news, post security-check airport janitorial closets and bathrooms contain tons of unguarded ammonia and bleach containers all over the place.
Guilty of not reading the article; I thought it was going to be about cyanide (sold for for killing algea in aquariums) being readily available for terrorist misuse (probably from reading about the 80's Tylenol/cyanide scandals).
In order for this toxin to be dangerous to humans, the average aquarist would need to ingest the zoanthid in sufficient quantities, or brush a recent cut over it. Average handling, propagation and aquarium maintenance is unlikely to pose any danger beyond a localized skin reaction.[citation needed] A 2010 study found toxic zoanthids in three Washington D.C. area aquarium stores.[7]
Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests later showed that this can rapidly permeate different kinds of latex gloves and enter the skin within about 15 seconds