Common toxin that could kill by injection

For the lethality and avalaibility, botulinum toxin is certainly a must. It's:

1) The main ingredient of Botox, widely distributed to cosmetic professionals. It occures naturally and in fact preventing infestation of food by clostridium botulinum bacteria (which are the main source of botulinum toxin) is a major health concern in developped countries, since the bacteria are pretty much present everywhere and can be particularly tough to eradicate.
2) The most toxic substance known to man, with a mere 160 nanograms (a nanogram is a billionth of a gram) enough to kill a man if injected intravenously.

It's a neurotoxin: it goes into the nervous system and damages a certain type of protein necessary for nervous impulse transmission, thereby preventing the latter; the victim is thus killed by paralysis, specifically inability to breathe.

The reason such a dangerous substance is used in cosmetics is that it's generally harmless if injected into a muscle; injecting it into facial muscles causes a partial paralysis of those muscles, which causes a temporary disappearance of wrinkles. It has other related medical applications (not all of which are comestics).

However:

I don't know about it remaining effective for years; I'd rather expect such a complex molecule to deteroriate rather rapidly. However, since it is created by bacteria, it seems reasonable to keep a culture of bacteria for years (especially since these bacteria are able to form "endospores", dormant bacteria that are much more resistant and can indeed spend years (in fact, in some case, millions of years) in inactivity before being reactivated).

Also, in case of food born poisonning, the toxin takes several days to kill the victim, but I don't know about intravenous injection of the toxin, this could be much quicker, especially if the quantity injected is several million times above the minimal lethal dose.

IIRC Clostridium botulinum is an obligate anaerobe, anyway, so it'd be difficult to maintain a colony under non-lab conditions, ready for toxin extraction.

High doses of KCl can kill very rapidly. It stops normal electrical function in the heart and if medical support isn't provided quick smart, that's it.

Lord, but this is a disturbing thread...

30ccs of air injected into a vein will cause a lethal air embolism.

Injecting nicotine would kill fairly quickly. The lethal dosage would run from 100 to 300 milligrams.

King Neptune said:

Injecting nicotine would kill fairly quickly. The lethal dosage would run from 100 to 300 milligrams.

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This was my first thought as well, followed by insulin. There are plenty of toxic materials that can kill quickly and remain viable for years, what do you need for the story to work? Any toxin? Something exotic? Something undetectable?

Jeff

lalyil said:

I need it to be commonly found... And have a shelf life of 20+ years minimum.

Problem with injecting air is that the only way it'd kill you within hours is if it reaches the arteries. In the veins it'd cause some problems but will take forever to kill you. And the only way apparently for it to reach the arteries through the veins is if you have some heart defect.

Insulin doesn't have a long enough shelf life. Only if stored in a refrigerator it is, but no refrigerators available.

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Then nicotine is it. It is common, and it is a stable compound (I will admit I don't know how long it would last, but it is persistent).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953858/

With the rise of e-cigarettes, I've read that there has been an increase of kids coming into ERs with nicotine overdoses. They get into mommy and daddy's e-cigs and drink the nicotine fluid. You may be able to find some examples of that by searching google news.

lalyil said:

Thank you! Read through it. Can't find an expiration date nor how long it'd take to kill someone by injection. I read online that one man in the US committed suicide using injected liquid nicotine, but no clue how long it took him (if it's a matter of second or more)

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I haven't been able to find how long nicotine lasts, but I believe that it would be decades or longer, because of old cigars and pipe tobacco that still have nicotine.

The symptoms of nicotine poisoning are caused by excessive stimulation of nicotinic cholinergic neurons. Nicotine is an agonist at nicotinic acetylcholine receptor which are present in the central and autonomic nervous systems, and the neuromuscular junction. At low doses nicotine causes stimulatory effects on these receptors, however, higher doses or more sustained exposures can cause inhibitory effects leading to neuromuscular blockade.[4][25]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning

"Heartbeat - pounding and rapid, followed by slow heart rate" I believe that death is by cardian arrest.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002510.htm

I can't find anything the states the time to kill, but it is not instantaneous, because it kills by overwhelming the acetocholine receptors. The last link lists symptoms. In large doses I believe that it interferes with breathing and pulse, because it messes up the neuro-muscular signals.

sheadakota said:

30ccs of air injected into a vein will cause a lethal air embolism.

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Not guaranteed, I don't believe.

lalyil said:

Thank you. According to some research I've found a large dose could kill in seconds. And the liquid nicotine available in the US does have an expiry date of about 2 years since it's mixed with other substances, but 99-100% liquid nicotine, as available in other countries, has no expiration date. So that's good.

Thank you very much. Looks like liquid nicotine it is

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Great! i thought it could kill very quickly in large doses, but I couldn't find it. I started a murder mystery where nicotine was used, and I may finish it.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned ricin yet. Easily made from Castor beans and very toxic. In the top ten, if not the top three most lethal substances.

King Neptune said:

Great! i thought it could kill very quickly in large doses, but I couldn't find it. I started a murder mystery where nicotine was used, and I may finish it.

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Nicotine's a great all-rounder. Can also be absorbed through the skin, I think, though I dunno how efficient that would be.

How long do most plant poisons -- nicotine, ricin, digitalis, atropine, morphine etc -- last before breaking down?

Wilde_at_heart said:

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned ricin yet. Easily made from Castor beans and very toxic. In the top ten, if not the top three most lethal substances.

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Ricin is indeed among the most toxic known substances, though it is topped by a number of very nasty toxins (botulinum, batrachotoxin, maitoxin), by dioxins, by nerve agents (sarin, VX), and by polonium-210.