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Very sick. i would question, though, the -- the comment that you made about just contact would be a danger. because it is not going to penetrate skin. conceivab conceivably, could get through an open sore or abrasion. compared to anthrax, as you suggest. a little bit of anthrax in the air inhaled would pose a larger danger. >> how easy is it, as fran was saying, these people are probably getting the information from the internet, manuals and so on. how easy is it for somebody, a regular joe in t...

Bloodstream. so you are going to want to be cleaned off and treated and watched for symptoms. >> if i handled it about five or six days ago and i dont have any symptoms, am i out of the woods? >> yeah, you are pretty safe then. its going to act, you know, within a day. and if theres serious consequences, including fatal dosage, thats going to usually happen within three or four days. >> how easy is it to get ricin or to develop it into something that is a threat? >> ricin is a naturally-occurrin...

What form makes a big difference and whether its going to be terribly dangerous or not. ricin is a product within a caster bean which comes from the caster plant which is found in nature. if i put a bunch of caster beans on the table there would be ricin on the table. the question is how pure, how refined and in what constituency the powder was? was it light and fluffy so that it would easily float into the air and possibly be inhaled? or was it a more crude mix which, yes, is not a great thing ...

Facilities again are off site. mail is not supposed to come to the united states capitol. they have been closed down and people wont get mail until monday as they continue the investigation and continue to look around and make sure that there werent any other letters that had traces of ricin or anything else as inntheyre loog into what went to senator wicker of mississippi. >> well be back to you shortly. thank you so much. now, everyone is an expert in poison so lets find out more about ricin...

Choice for a weapon of mass destruction as a biological agent, simply because its so hard to work with. jon: kind of interesting, then, that these letters that we know were sent to president obama and senator wicker of mississippi, that they have ricin on them. i mean somebody with some amount of chemical knowledge put these things together. >> we dont know that yet, because it could be a very crude form of ricin, it could be a caster bean thats been permitted to become ricin, its been very crud...