What Is Ricin Toxin?
Ricin is a protein material which is extracted from the beans of the common castor bean, ricinus communis. The protein toxin is composed of two polypeptide chains. When the toxin enters a cell, it rapidly inactivates protein synthesis by inactivating the ribosomes, a key component of the cell’s synthetic machinery. Castor beans are grown for their oil which is used in various industries, including paints, cosmetics, textiles, and others. The main countries producing castor beans are India, China and Brazil. Ricin can be extracted directly from the castor bean or from the “wet mash” by-product produced by crushing and extracting the castor oil. The annual world production of castor oil is 460,000 tons, requiring over 1.1 million tons of seeds and producing 550,000 tons of wet mash. Thus, a tremendous amount of raw material exists at a cheap price for terrorists to use for ricin production. Only five percent by weight of the wet mash is ricin. However, from 100 pounds of this material, y
