Word: toxins
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...natural substances are more lethal than the toxin of the poisonous mushroom Amanita phalloides. Commonly known as the death cap, it causes, after a day's delay, severe abdominal pain, followed by diarrhea, cramps and vomiting and finally liver failure and central nervous damage. In Europe, where mushroom collecting has long been a favorite hobby of gourmets, the hard-to-identify Amanita phalloides accounts for perhaps 95% of the dozens of deaths that occur every year from mushroom poisoning of some kind. Until recently the death cap was considered relatively rare in North America, and only a few cases...
...records on the research program to preserve its secrecy from all but a handful of CIA officials. Church committee staffers are investigating reports that the CIA prepared detailed plans to poison Congolese Radical Leader Patrice Lumumba in 1960 and even shipped an undetermined quantity of poison, possibly the shellfish toxin, to the African nation. Richard Bissell, ex-director of covert operations for the CIA, told a reporter last week that the agency had investigated "the feasibility of an action of that kind" but abandoned the idea "for various operational reasons." He insisted the CIA was not involved in Lumumba...
...hearing, Richard Helms recalled orally ordering the destruction of the CIA stockpile of shellfish toxin and venom, and an end to the M.K. Naomi program which by then had cost about $3 million. Asked why the poisons were saved, Colby replied: "I think that it was done by people who were so completely enmeshed in the subject and the difficulty of production [100 Ibs. of shellfish produces 1 gm. of toxin] that they simply couldn't bear to see the stuff destroyed." But Nathan Gordon, the stooped and bushy-browed ex-CIA chemist who was in charge...
Agency Defenders. Eventually, Gordon transferred the venom and toxin from Fort Detrick to the CIA storeroom in Washington, which held other toxic substances that were considered exempt from the presidential order because they were not intended for use as general weapons of war (see box). Helms called the episode "an aberration -something that happened once, to my knowledge." That assessment doubtless would be shared by many of the agency's defenders, who believe the CIA is being unfairly hounded, partly for political reasons. But committee members thought otherwise. Said Church: "We have found out that ambiguity seems to plague...
...addition to the celebrated 11 gm. of deadly shellfish toxin and 8 mg. of lethal cobra venom, the CIA stockpiled eight substances that can kill people and 27 others that will temporarily incapacitate them. A sampling, drawn from an inventory that was made public last week at a hearing conducted by the Senate committee investigating the agency...