Discussion for article #234562
If the first test was negative (correctly, it turns out), why was there a second test?
Is it SOP to just keep testing something until a false positive can be had?
There is probably a less sensitive screen and then a more sensitive test. Good forensic testing usually relies on two tests, sometimes from two reference labs.
The breath of the person who sent this is probably as toxic as cyanide.
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The guy could have also been chewing apple seeds or been sucking on cherry, apricot or peach pits too prior to sending off that letter. All contain small amounts of cyanide. Its good to know that the WH has such a high level of security when it comes to detecting teeny-tiny amounts of poisons though.
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Saliva chock full of DNA…excellent!
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Well, cherries and milk killed ol’ Zach Taylor, so you can’t be too careful.
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Frequent smoker from Illinois who has a grudge against Obama?
First, do a DNA match with Boehner’s tears.
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Why of course! We should have expected Republican bigot spit to have poison in it.
I bet the guy who did this squirts phosgene out his pecker if his spit contains cyanide.
I bet they actually found venom in the sample and they’re just not telling us.
In that case, it must be from the House.
I think that’s arsenic, not cyanide.
Because results should always be doublechecked and independently verified. Single-point-of-failure systems are bad.
It’s not surprising to find some radical right wing hater would spit venom or poison. In fact, it’s well known.
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp
It is as I said in the pits and seeds of some fruits, but also in cig. smoke and other items.
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I would love to see the 1st lady hold a press conference regarding threats to the president and her family. She would proceed to walk out to the podium, decontaminated envelope in hand, wave it in front of the camera and ask the press corp and the world. "Who is doing this? and “Why do you hate me and my family?” It would be priceless and knock some of these fools who do this and their enablers down a notch.
Ah, cool. Thanks for the info. As Penn Jilette once said, “I love finding out I’m wrong. It means I’m learning.”
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No problem. The reason I remembered this was because of that drug Laetrile, which was advocated as a cure for cancer in the US by people desperate for something to treat the disease. Laetrile turned out to be a quack cure. It was banned in the US by the FDA in the late 70’s, but its still available in places around the world. At the time however, it was thought the drug, which is an extraction from almonds, peach pits and apricot pits could be a viable treatment for the disease. Later, it was found that the substance inherent in the drug broke down in the body in the form of cyanide. People quickly began getting sicker from the cyanide poisoning, while still having little or no effect on their cancer.
I have a friend, whose mother was desperate and tried the drug in the 70’s…Needless to say it didn’t help, and she died of terminal cancer anyways.