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Of ricin, all those things will help investigators lead down the path to who, and once you determine the who you'll be able to understand the why. >> how dangerous is this stuff, ricin? >> it can be very dangerous, it's a potentially toxic substance. a couple things that are important to note is that in and of itself, this is a poison that comes from caster beans as a lot of people know, you can get that ricin, the poisonous substance out of the caster beans without a lot of difficulty. the challenge is to actually turn that into something that can get into the lungs and make someone sick or e...

Turn it into a weapon? >> it's really not that difficult to get hold of ricin. there are people who can purify it. it comes from what is known as caster beans. so it's a naturally occurring poison. does it have to be purified. and it can be concentrated. it can be delivered in a variety of ways. unfortunately, letters is an effective way of delivering this poison. it's not an infection. it's not as though it can spread from one person to another but the toxin can be deadly. >> and, fran, just last week authorities arrested a man in washington state as part of an investigation into a threatenin...

Very small, granular spore type things, it sounds unlikely. >> in the world of terror and people who follow and track this stuff, how high is ricin on the list of things people are concerned about? i mean, is it difficult to obtain? is it difficult to break down and weaponize as you said? >> well, the component pieces to a ricin compound are actually readily available. sanjay mentioned caster beans, that's the basic component, you crush it down and grind it. in the terrorism context, the way we saw it was as a contact poison which is the highly weaponized would be aerosolized. sanjay gupta des...

Envelope and possibly be poisoning other people. it can happen. but, again, based on what deb is describing, this sort of oilier substance as opposed to very small, almost granular spore type things, it sounds unlikely. >> in the world of terror and people who follow and track this stuff, how high is ricin on the list of things people are concerned about? is it difficult to obtain? is it difficult to break down and weaponize, as you said? >> well, the component pieces to rice income pound are actually readily available. sanjay mentioned caster beans, that's the basic component. and you crush i...

Of the compound, how competently it was mixed. they'll analyze whether the two letters, whether it was from the same batch of mixture of the compound of ricin. all those things will help investigators lead down the path to who and once you determine the who, you'll be able to understand the why. >> right. san gentleman, how dangerous is this stuff, ricin? >> it can be can very dangerous. it's a very potentially toxic substance. a couple things that are important to note, is that in and of itself, this is a poison that comes from caster bieeans,s a lot of people know and you can get that ricin,...