CDC raises ricin alert

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The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is studying data reports from the nation's poison control centers.

The Oct. 15 discovery of the poison in Greenville was the first time it was found in a public facility in the United States, said Dr. Martin Belson, a CDC toxicologist.

In the two weeks after the poison was found, CDC officials studied 97,000 poison calls nationwide, looking for anything unusual that might be an outbreak of the toxin. They didn't find it, the CDC said Thursday.

Officials initially investigated two South Carolina cases in which there was "multi-organ failure," which can occur in ricin poisoning, but both cases turned out to be caused by other illness, Belson said.

He said officials also asked health departments and emergency rooms to look for any possible ricin-related illnesses, once the CDC confirmed the substance was ricin on Oct. 21.

The CDC and state health officials examined each of the mail facility's 36 postal workers between Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, Belson said, and found no illness that could be linked to ricin.

The federal agency also took more than 70 samples from inside the mail center, which had been closed Oct. 22, to test for ricin and reported no contamination. The mail facility reopened Oct. 24.

The report did not discuss the week-long delay in notifying the public about the ricin or the five days it took for state officials to send samples to the CDC for testing.

Belson said the report is intended for public health and laboratory officials to help inform them about ricin and how to spot it. He said the agency is watching poison control reports because the suspect is at large and the toxin could be used.

"Obviously the investigation is not ended so we can't assume this won't occur again," Belson said.

The symptons of ricin poisoning mimick those of the flu, making it difficult to tell if someone's been exposed, he said.

No one has been arrested in the incident, which is being investigated by the FBI. Authorities have said they believe the package was meant as an extortion attempt, even though the state's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is made up of FBI and State Law Enforcement Division agents, investigated it. A note inside the package threatened to use the poison unless a federal regulation requiring rest for truckers was repealed, authorities said.

The package contained the words "caution — Ricin — poison" on the outside but no postmark or address, according to the Greenville County Sheriff's Office.

Ricin is derived from castor beans and can be deadlier than nerve gas. A dose the size of a grain of salt can kill a 200-pound person.

Belson said symptoms of the poison, if taken by mouth, can appear first like a respiratory or intestinal flu, making it hard to spot. Eventually the poisoning can lead to vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain, in mild cases, according to the report. More severe poisoning can cause liver and kidney damage and death.

Inhaling the toxin, which is deadlier, can cause breathing problems, circulatory collapse and death.

The CDC initially said it studied poisonings related to water contamination because of the threatening note.

The package was not sent to the CDC any sooner, state health officials say, because they were convinced the package had not been breached, was not exposed to anyone and there were no reports of any illness that might have been tied to the toxin.

"We did exactly what we should have done," said Jim Beasley, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.