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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 the street, to sit down, get on the computer, go to his local store, and create deadly ricin? >> unfo...

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 don't have any symptoms, am i out of the woods? >> yeah, you are pretty safe then. it's going to act, you know, within a day. and if there's serious consequences, including fatal dosage, that's 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-occurring plant toxin in the caster bean. the caster bean is widely distributed throughout the world, ce...

What form makes a big difference and whether it's 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 to send to people, not great to swallow or be exposed to but nevertheless, not as dangerous or toxi...

Facilities again are off site. mail is not supposed to come to the united states capitol. they have been closed down and people won't get mail until monday as they continue the investigation and continue to look around and make sure that there weren't any other letters that had traces of ricin or anything else as innthey're loog into what went to senator wicker of mississippi. >> we'll be back to you shortly. thank you so much. now, everyone is an expert in poison so let's find out more about ricin and how it can be used as poison. just how dangerous is it? joining us from new york is leonar...

Choice for a weapon of mass destruction as a biological agent, simply because it's 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 don't know that yet, because it could be a very crude form of ricin, it could be a caster bean that's been permitted to become ricin, it's been very crudely treated. it might not in any affect at all. everything fends on the quality of the ricin and...