What Is Ricin, How Is Ricin Used, Has Anyone Died From Ricin?
10:07 AM, Apr 17, 2013   |    comments   • Share   • Print   • -
A A A +  WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- Now that several suspicious
letters have been found in the past two days, some laced with
ricin, you may be wondering exactly what ricin is and how it has
been used.   According to the CDC, "Ricin is a poison found
naturally in castor beans. If castor beans are chewed and
swallowed, the released ricin can cause injury.  Ricin can be
made from the waste material left over from processing castor
beans." Ricin can be a powder, a mist, or a pellet, or dissolved
in water or weak acid, according to the CDC.  Castor beans are
typically used to make castor oil, and ricin is a by-product of
that process, according to the CDC.    The CDC notes that ricin
has been used experimentally in medicine to kill cancer cells,
but that it "would take a deliberate act to make ricin and use
it to poison people."  Once inside the cells of a person's body,
it stops cells from m