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Tag: Poison

  • Poison

    I wish you good health of body, mind, and spirit.

    I bet you yelled – Amen!!  One thief of health is poison. Poison is a phenomenon of nature.  Many animal and plant species use it to survive and to thrive.  Commonly, the poison is used to weaken, to incapacitate, to destroy, or to kill the victim so that the predator can conveniently consume or use the victim or victim’s parts.  On the other hand, a victim can use poison to escape a predator or to eliminate a competitor.  The dynamics of wildlife and the dynamics of civilization are somewhat diametrically opposed.  It is civilization that enables mankind to renew, rule, and preserve the world.

    Nobody wants to be a victim, to let poison harm him or her, and people would generally keep away from themselves those things they know as poison.  But what do we really recognize as poison?  Holistic health cannot restrict itself to chemicals which poison the body alone.  The mind can be poisoned.  A person’s spirit can be poisoned.  If a chemical poisons someone, that person can die as the ultimate result.  A person with a poisoned mind may not die,himself or herself, but may kill everyone else around him.  The recent youtube videos of the very powerful Nigerian terrorist, Mr. Shekau, show a mind that is different from ordinary.

    Two thousand and more years ago, Jesus Christ (call him crazy if you like) gave his followers spiritual power over physical poisons, should they need that protection.  Of course, they needed to survive to pass on his message and/or they were bound to be hated by some enemy or other who would feel threatened enough to want to get rid of them.  Apparently, physical poisons are not the worst type of poison because our bodies can get rid of them and survive their assault if our blessed kidneys, livers, lungs, skin, and other excretory systems and body repairs are working well enough.  The Master of Human Nature, let’s nickname him, showed he could change human bodily realities from a state of ill health to well-being.  Yet, he warned his disciples about one type of poison that we need to be warned about.   “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees”.  The Pharisees, in those days, were perhaps the most powerful in affecting what people believed and did; they could influence the human will – free will.

    One hero of civilization, Nelson Mandela, did remind the world that we humans were not born hating.  As a scientist, I have not tested this assertion; I prefer to believe it because it is obvious.  We get poisoned along our journey in life.

    Poisoning of the mind affects our reasoning, is difficult to remedy, and the choices we make under such a state rub off on other people or on society.  Poisoning of the spirit determines our affinities and passion for evils.   But were we all, including MrShekau, not born innocent and naïve? Today, the poisonsthat change our minds and define our spirits come from religion, ideology, politics, economics, and culture.  May I echo: “beware of such yeast.” They all make us to hate or to love and they all determine our actions and reactions, our choices in life, and our abilities to be sane, to thrive, to prosper, and to leave the world a better place.For now, let us leave MrShekau (I would have said in peace, but he does not seem to have that yet) and turn to ourselves.  We do need to protect our total health – body, mind, and spirit, otherwise any of us is the next sociopath, psychopath, or terrorist in small measure or in great measure.

    So there are various types of poisons affecting the body, mind, or spirit.  Let us take a look at the poisons that affect our bodies and the known antidotes that could counteract their effects.

    Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA.   For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 08160944635.

  • How to poison the Iran talks

    How to poison the Iran talks

    Over the weekend, diplomats from Iran and six major world powers finalized the details of an interim agreement designed to stop progress on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program while negotiations proceed on a permanent deal to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons. But a bipartisan group of U.S. senators continues to press recklessly for new sanctions legislation.

    Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a cosponsor of the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, has called the legislation an “insurance policy” in case negotiations fail. A better description is “poison pill.”

    Not only would the legislation authorize new sanctions at a time when the world has decided to offer Iran relief from some previous penalties as an inducement to forswear nuclear weapons; it also ties sanctions relief to conduct by Iran that has nothing to do with nuclear power, and it expresses the “sense of Congress” that the United States should “stand with Israel” if that nation launches a military attack on Iran.

    Menendez and other supporters of the legislation profess to be trying to help to President Obama as he and the leaders of the so-called P5-plus-1 — the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany — strive to reach a comprehensive agreement with Tehran. They note that the new sanctions, including measures designed to drastically reduce Iran’s oil exports, wouldn’t take effect unless Iran breached commitments it already has made and refused to negotiate in good faith.

    But the best judge of whether enactment of such an “insurance policy” would undermine negotiations is not Congress but the branch of government that is actually engaged in those talks. In opposing the legislation, the State Department has cited an intelligence assessment that new sanctions “would undermine the prospects for a successful comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran.” Enactment of the legislation also could fracture the international united front that has put pressure on Iran.

    Obama has threatened to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk, but even if his veto were sustained — not a foregone conclusion — Congress’ kibitzing needlessly complicates already delicate negotiations.

    As the administration has acknowledged, an agreement in which Iran agrees to the purely peaceful use of nuclear power will be difficult to achieve. But the interim agreement, which admittedly came to pass only thanks to the pressure of U.S. and international sanctions, at least creates the possibility of such a breakthrough. If the current negotiations fail or Iran reneges on its commitments, there will be ample time for Congress to enact new sanctions. Meanwhile, the best congressional insurance policy for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is patience.

     

    – Los Angeles Times

     

  • Lead Poison: A village remembers

    Lead Poison: A village remembers

    When the National Good Governance Tour (NGGT) arrived at the village of Bagega on April 26th, the team was met by cheerful children. Energetic boys ran alongside the vehicles in the convoy; and the girls appeared to be no different from anywhere else, dressed gaily and already showing interest in eye-shadow and lip gloss. But behind this appearance of normality, Bagega, a remote village in the Anka Local Government Area of Zamfara State, is a stricken place; and the team had come to inspect the site of the worst lead poisoning in Africa and the world.

    Minister of Information Labaran Maku was accompanied by two other of his colleagues: Hadiza Mailafia (whose Environment Ministry is in charge of the ongoing remediation programme) and Bashir Yuguda (Minister of State for Works). “Bagega has become a national concern,” said Maku, who heads the team made up of civil society groups, official stakeholders and a sizeable media contingent.

    They had come to see for themselves the efforts being made to address devastating lead poisoning in this large village of about 7000 inhabitants, an estimated 1,500 of whom are children – the demographic that has suffered the most from the contamination. “If you are looking for obvious signs of sickness, you won’t see any, but every one of these children has lead in their blood,” an official told members of the team. Impaired brain development is one of negative impacts of lead contamination, caused by unsafe artisanal mining for gold and other minerals in and around the village.

    To the rescue

    “Children have died here and will be affected irrevocably,” said Simba Tirima of Terragraphics International, an environmental engineering organisation that arrived in the state in May 2010 and started work in February this year. Médecins Sans Frontières has also been very active in the village. However, as Mailafia stated during the Citizens Forum that concluded the tour of Zamfara State, “It is not true that foreign agencies got to Bagega first.”

    A massive remediation programme is under way, spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Environment in collaboration with Terragraphics, to rid Bagega of the lead poisoning that affected 417 homes and caused fatalities in 2010. The funds for the remediation are 100 per cent from the federal government, with over N800 million released by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to three MDAs for the clean-up exercise.

    As the team inspected residential Zone B, the Industrial Site and held a meeting with some of the locals in front of the traditional ruler’s palace, the women of Bagega stayed within the confines of their courtyards and counted the costs of Guba-Dalma – which means ‘lead poisoning’ in Hausa. The women spoke of deaths, “too many deaths in the same household”, especially among under-fives; as well as high childhood incidence of blindness, convulsion and polio manifestations. They also reported increased rates of impotence and miscarriage among adults. One woman, who gave her name as Luba, is the wife of a miner and suffered a stillbirth in the aftermath of the contamination. Her daughter died at age four; her five-year-old son is blind.

    Tales of tragedy

    Luba and the other women are in no doubt as to what brought lead poisoning into their midst. The ore from the industrial site was often brought into households for processing by family members including children, leading to the contamination of homes. “The soil used to be moved here,” said one woman, pointing to the middle of the small courtyard. “The soil mixed with the water, the food the children ate, and so on.”

    As Tirima explained at the Industrial Site (the main processing centre), the lead in Bagega is not soluble. “The particulate part stays in the water and is very dangerous when drunk.” Mountains of silted contaminated soil at the site must therefore be moved, as they pose a serious threat in the event of rain. “Children like to come and play here, but it is very dangerous for them,” said Tirima, whose team tests for lead contamination using XRF, a device that measures the presence of over 80 metals in the soil.

    Bagega women explained that that mining activities are no longer carried out in their homes, and have been moved to an isolated location. They are pinning their hopes on the remediation exercise, a delicate process that involves the removal of contaminated soil as well as mineral processing wastes from homes, compounds and open areas of the village. Even Bagega’s wells have to be remediated.

    The programme is on course. Over 300 homes have been remediated so far, and Terragraphics hopes to issue certification by the end of June to indicate that Bagega is clean. The remediation exercise utilises 90 per cent indigenous expertise; 19 Zamfara citizens are employed in the programme; and 164 unskilled workers are also engaged. The Minister of Environment emphasised the importance of knowledge transfer and continued to do so as she walked through the village with Tirima, his American colleague Casey Bartrem and their local counterparts to Terragraphics offices to sign the visitors register. “It is important that those working here pay attention and learn skills from Terragraphics,” Mailafia said. The XRF machines will be taken over by officials of the Ministry of Environment when Terragraphics leaves Bagega.

    Though some (including Nasiru Kura of Basic Rights Action) have called for the relocation of Bagega’s inhabitants, it is not thought to be a feasible option, given the size of the village. And, asked if they want to be moved elsewhere, the village women posed a rhetorical question: “Where to?” They do not wallow in self-pity; they just want a solution and are happy that the end of their travails is in sight.

    “The ultimate goal of this intervention is to ensure this does not occur again,” said Maku, who called for all to be properly trained and instructed on prevention.

    Remediation is necessary before treatment, to prevent further contamination. The Federal Ministry of Health will then move in to administer medication to those affected. The third MDA, the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel, will train and sensitise residents on safe mining methods going forward. And then the detoxification of Bagega will be complete.

     

    Wood, a journalist and writer wrote from Abuja.

     

  • ‘Zamfara N800m lead poison remediation project ready soon’

    About 300 compounds, representing 75 per cent of lead contaminated houses in Bagega village of Zamfara State, have been remediated, the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia, has said.

    The minister said the project cost the Federal Government about N800 million, adding that it has made it possible for contaminated homes to become habitable.

    Receiving members of the Good Governance Tour, led by the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, as well as Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari, the minister said the work involved sequential and mechanical removal of exposed surfaces.

    In a statement yesterday in Abuja by the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations, Lawrence Ojabo, the minister said the work was consistent with international best practices and of the highest possible standards.

    She added that technical expertise and supervision was provided by Messrs Terra Graphics Consultants in partnership with Medicines Sans frontiers (msf).

     

  • Poison-Part 1

    It is necessary to have some knowledge about poison, perhaps not about the music band or the perfume named poison, but about the substance and phenomenon it produces. A Mormon friend of mine once spat out after tasting a lolly pop saying it had coffee flavour (Mormons do not take coffee). He then went against my approval of alcohol consumption until I asked him: “If you were accidentally poisoned with some food and taking half a bottle of wine would counteract the effect of the poison, would you drink the wine?” In actual fact, alcohol does indeed disturb the action of many drugs and that is one reason why your doctor would warn you not to take any alcohol while on a medication. However I am not encouraging you to try alcohol as an antidote (something that neutralizes poison) if you suspect you have been poisoned. Alcohol may even be a dangerous or fatal mix with certain poisons, such as brain depressants, within the body.

    Cigarette smoke is another poison and is well known to be associated with cancer. Cigarette smoking can also affect the way some body enzymes tackle drugs and chemicals and that is why your doctor would also ask if you smoke before prescribing certain drugs. Likewise, would cigarette smoke affect the action of certain poisons? It may be that chemicals that are dangerous can be useful in certain respects but it takes a knowledgeable person to differentiate such things.

    Here we arrive at the question: what is a poison? A poison is a chemical substance that causes harm, ill health, or death to our bodies. However, most chemicals, even those considered safe, can act as poisons. For each substance, it depends on how much is consumed, how quickly it is consumed, for how long it is consumed, and if nothing within the victim’s body or spirit can stop its action. It also depends on when it is consumed. For example, what can hurt an infant or an elder may not hurt a mid-lifer. Another factor is who consumes the substance; a Chinese may react to something that is safe for an African. The substances commonly known as poisons are generally harmful to most people in a single small dose.

    Examples of poisonous chemicals are cyanide, strychnine, and arsenic. When we talk of food poisoning, this is usually caused by bacteria such as Salmonella or E. coli and other microorganisms. Some of these microorganism produce toxins.

    Amongst the famous cases of poisoning that gained publicity worldwide are two interesting stories. Rev. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple orchestrated a mass suicide of 914 persons in Guyana in 1978 using cyanide in their drink – The Guyana Tragedy. A former KGB colonel, Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 was rumoured to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium (210Po).

    How do we know about poisons? Poisons are found in nature. Animals such as snakes produce venom that is injected into their prey or victim through their fangs when they bite. Some snake poisons paralyze the victim’s muscles, including the muscles used to breathe, thus causing death. Some weed plants produce poisons from their roots to prevent growth of other plants in their vicinity and limit sharing of nutrients so that the weed flourishes. Plants may also have poisons in their leaves or flowers to prevent insects from eating them. Antibiotics are actually poisons produce by some microorganism (such as bacteria) to destroy other microorganisms. Many natural substances that we use as drugs were originally discovered as poisons.

    When some early British explorers in Nigeria observed some Calabar rituals with the poisonous esere beans or Calabar beans, they took away the beans to Britain to study the actions of the beans and in no time extracted a drug, eserine. It is also called physostigmine from the botanical name of the plant, Physostigma venenosum. Physostigmine is very important in medicine today and is used for the treatment of a number of conditions such as glaucoma, myasthenia gravis, Alzheimer’s disease, and delayed stomach emptying. It can also improve short term memory. Similarly, many poisonous microbial, plant, and animal chemicals have found use in medicine as drugs. These are numerous and examples are botulinum, digitalis, strychnine, colchicine, atropine, vincristine, and quinine. Therefore what is medicine for a sick person is poison for a healthy person. This is one reason why we have to keep medicines out of the reach of children. Some of us abstain from anything considered poisonous, some of us use drugs and substances selectively and with measure, and some of us do not know how to use them and can get poisoned if we use them.

    Traditional African practitioners are sometimes dreaded because they have poisons that scientists are ignorant about how they work since they have been shrouded in secrecy. In warfare, knowledge of poisons is regarded as power. In everyday life, knowledge of poisons is a source of some security.

    Poisons can get into our bodies through breathing, consumption, injection, bites, and contact. We will look at various poisons and various ways by which we can be poisoned.

     

    Dr. ’Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA. For any comments or questions on this column, please Email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 07028338910

     

  • Poison

    It is necessary to have some knowledge about poison, perhaps not about the music band or the perfume, but about the substance and phenomenon it produces. A Mormon friend of mine once spat out after tasting a lolly pop saying it had coffee flavour (Mormons do not take coffee). He then went against my approval of alcohol consumption until I asked him: “If you went to a party and you were accidentally poisoned with some food and taking half a bottle of wine would counteract the effect of the poison, would you drink the wine?” In actual fact, alcohol does indeed disturb the action of many drugs and that is one reason why your doctor would warn you not to take any alcohol while on a medication. However I am not encouraging you to try alcohol as an antidote if you suspect you have been poisoned. Alcohol may even be a dangerous or fatal mix with certain poisons, such as brain depressants, within the body.

    Cigarette smoke is another poison and is well known to be associated with cancer. Cigarette smoking can also affect the way some body enzymes tackle drugs and chemicals and that is why your doctor would also ask if you smoke before prescribing certain drugs. Likewise, would cigarette smoke affect the action of certain poisons? It may be that chemicals that are dangerous can be useful in certain respects but it takes a knowledgeable person to differentiate such things.

    Here we arrive at the question: what is a poison? A poison is a chemical substance that causes harm, ill health, or death to our bodies. However, most chemicals, even those considered safe, can act as poisons. For each substance, it depends on how much is consumed, how quickly it is consumed, for how long it is consumed, and if nothing within the victim’s body can stop its action. It also depends on when it is consumed. For example, what can hurt an infant or an elder may not hurt a mid-lifer. Another factor is who consumes the substance; a Chinese may react to something that is safe for an African.

    Examples of poisonous chemicals are cyanide, strychnine, and arsenic. When we talk of food poisoning, this is usually caused by bacteria such as Salmonella or E. coli and other microorganisms. Some of these microorganism produce toxins.

    Amongst the famous cases of poisoning that gained publicity worldwide are two interesting stories. Rev. Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple orchestrated a mass suicide of 914 persons in Guyana in 1978 using cyanide in their drink. A former KGB colonel, Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 was rumoured to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium (210Po).

    Poisons are found in nature. Animals such as snakes produce venom that is injected into their prey or victim through their fangs when they bite. Some snake poisons paralyze the victim’s muscles, including the muscles used to breathe, thus causing death. Some weed plants produce poisons from their roots to prevent growth of other plants in their vicinity and limit sharing of nutrients. Plants may also have poisons in their leaves or flowers to prevent insects from eating them. Antibiotics are actually poisons produce by some microorganism (such as bacteria) against other microorganisms. Many natural substances that we use as drugs were originally discovered as poisons.

    When some early British explorers in Nigeria observed some Calabar rituals with the poisonous esere beans or Calabar beans, they took away the beans to Britain to study the actions of the beans and in no time extracted a drug which they called eserine. It was later called physostigmine from the botanical name of the plant, Physostigma venenosum. Physostigmine is very important in medicine today and is used for the treatment of a number of conditions such as glaucoma, myasthenia gravis, Alzheimer’s disease, and delayed stomach emptying. It can also improve short term memory.

    One of the reasons why traditional African practitioners are dreaded is that they have poisons that scientists are ignorant about how they work since they have been shrouded in secrecy. In warfare, knowledge of poisons is regarded as power.

    Poisons can get into our bodies through breathing, consumption, injection, bites, and contact. We will look at various poisons and various ways by which we can be poisoned.

    Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA. For any comments or questions on this column, please Email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 07028338910