Last year I chose the exhumation of Yasser Arafat as one of my stories of the year and promised I would come back to it if further information was given. Here’s what I wrote back in December last year: The biggest story in November was Yasser Arafat’s exhumation….
Tag: poisons
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Ricin – the castor bean poison
Watching Breaking Bad last night ‘Heisenberg’ proposed extracting a castor bean and poisoning the crazy drug dealing ‘Tuco’. Is this real and what is the science behind it? What was the James Bond style killing they talked about? Breaking Bad is my new box set of choice, as suggested…
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Khat – a UK legal high
Khat is a plant grown in parts of Africa and is chewed for mild stimulant effects. Last week the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs issued a review of khat and made recommendations to the Home Secretary with regard regulation. Khat, the more common name for Catha edulis, is grown…
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Forensic toxicology and carbon monoxide poisoning
Carbon monoxide is often called a ‘silent killer’, a gas without smell or taste than can accumulate in the blood and cause death. It is an often encountered poison in forensic toxicology. This week a Coroner for Shropshire, UK, recorded a verdict of accidental death in the case of a girl…