I read on one of the links that VX is the only persistent ] chemical agent around. Does anyone know what it is and if it is readily available? Are we talking about something so obscure that it's completely unavailable??
I appreciate getting this information from aware <img src="images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />citizens.

Are you talking about the nerve agent (read "chemical weapon")?

If so, I certainly hope its not readily available. They're incinerating a lot of it (getting rid of it according to treaty) out in the desert outside of Salt Lake City! But I think they might get pretty upset if you asked for some. <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

VX is a nurve agents that stays present after awile, instead of evaporating completely. Just like a other agent used in WW 1 ( mosterd ? ). VX is avaible in large quantaty's by various country's. Weather terrorist has them or not, nobody really knows ( exsept for terrorists, ofcorse... )

i'm by no mean a expert, this is just what i have read.... ( unless mine brains are letting me down again )

VX is a nerve agent. It is a colorless, oily liquid. <1 drop can be lethal. It can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin. It could be manufactured by terrorists if they had the $$ and a few well schooled organic chemists on staff. The doomsday yahoos in Japan used a homegrown variety of nerve agent in a subway (read confined space) and were only marginally successful. I guess the short answer is yes, it could be done but the odds are pretty long against it. The government does a pretty good job of monitoring who's buying precursor chemicals. If the average schmuck starts buying all of the neccesary ingredients for VX on a Visa card, said schmuck can probably expect a knock on the door from one of the TLAs (three letter agencies <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />)
Bear in mind, the media loves scare the bejesus out of people with real or imagined threats. It keeps us glued to the idiot box and they make more money. Your average 6 year old can't blow up a federal building with finger paint and bubble gum, 99.9% of high school students don't carry a gun, and and it's a lot harder to cook up anthrax or VX in your kitchen than Diane Sawyer were ever let on.

Ed

(Sorry about going off on a tangent there. Sometimes the soapbox is just too tempting <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />)

On the film "The Rock", starring Nick Cage and Sean Conery, some terrorists use VX poison gas. On the film they say something like "Your skin boils and you spasm so hard you break your back". Do you know if this is true? I don't think it would be, but surely the film producers would have done some research into it. Does anyone know?

As I recall, the Japanese terrorists used Sarin... I think that's a little easier to produce than VX. And as I recall, we can thank our WW2 era German friends for both creations.

They did totally flub up the distribution though... that's why it was so ineffective, thank God!

Traces of Sarin were found in a london flat about a month ago.

Watch a cockroach die after a shot of Raid. The roach isn't kicking, his muscles are spasming uncontrolably. That's how a person dies from nerve agent. So yes, you could potentially break your back. Skin boiling? No, that would be a blister agent. Very painful on the skin but even worse when inhaled. You develope blisters in your lungs and airway, these break, and you end up drowning in your own bodily fluids. If you can keep it external you'll probably live but you'll be in pure hell for awhile. And, no, chemical rounds are not really filled with little glass spheres in a string-of-pearls configuration

That's very disturbing!

Do the authorities have a clue of where it went, or who was using it?

thanks for the info

Noticed the thread on VX and have pasted this to hopefully clear the air. This is a rather lengthy posting and addresses more than you asked, sorry

Nerve Agents

There is no "nerve gas". Nerve agents are liquids, sprays, or vapors. Nerve agents are classified in two groups. The "G" agents; GA, GB, and GD, are non-persistent chemical weapons developed by the Germans in World War II. VX is a persistent nerve agent.

Terrorists have employed nerve agents with modest success in the past. Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese religious sect, deployed Sarin (GB) in an apartment complex in 1994 and in a Tokyo subway in 1995. In the first attack, 300 persons became ill with 7 fatalities reported. The 1995 subway attack caused 5,000 people to seek medical attention with 12 fatalities. More than 80% of those who sought medical care suffered no effect from the exposure.

The Sarin (GB) used in the Tokyo subway was NOT deployed in an effective manner. Rather than dispersing the agent in an aerosol, it was left in jars to spill on the ground. In a terrorist event, for non--persistent agents to be effective, they must be aerosolized in a confined space like a subway or a ventilation system of a building.

The military can employ a nerve agent through area bombardment with artillery or missiles or direct aerial application by bombing or sprays. Heavy application of the agent is required to achieve a lethal concentration in an open area. When these non-persistent agents are deployed in the open, they are degraded by UV light and simply evaporate in a short period of time.

Persistent nerve agent--VX--is a liquid of low volatility that evaporating slowly, well, persists. Sorry. The properties of VX are more akin to diesel fuel than a more volatile liquid such as water. It does not evaporate quickly and contaminates your clothing and skin when you walk through the area where VX has been applied.

All nerve agents have two types of effects on the body; muscarinic and nicotinic. The muscarinic effect is on the "glands" and the nervous system. For nerve transmission to occur, an enzyme, acetylcholine is released by the nerve ending and stimulates the gland or muscle that the nerve controls. The nerve impulse is terminated as acetylcholine is "reactivated" by acetylcholinesterase. Nerve agent prevents the "reactivation " of acetylcholine with a resulting continued stimulation of the glands and nerves.

Nicotinic effects of a nerve agent are those exerted on the striated or skeletal muscle. These effects are twitching and jerking of the muscles, seizures, and paralysis. These effects may initially be local following skin exposure or generalized following inhalation of a nerve agent.

The effect of an inhaled nerve agent occurs in a few seconds following exposure. Immediate muscarinic effects of exposure to nerve agent are increased salivation, water eyes, and a runny nose; shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, and increased mucous production; diarrhea, urination, and chest tightness. The nemonic "SLUDGE" facilitates recall of these effects.

SLUDGE

S Salivation, sweating
L Lacrimation
U Urination
D Defecation, drooling, diarrhea
G Gastric upset and cramps
E Emesis


Nerve agents are very deadly, a single drop of nerve agent on the skin, untreated, and you will die. Simple as that. The treatment for nerve agent exposure is simple. The first and most important step in treatment is decontamination. Simply removing a victim's clothing will remove as much as 85% of the chemical agent. A detergent scrub and fresh water rinse to remove any residual chemical from the skin allows medical treatment of the casualty to begin.

Atropine injection is the mainstay of treatment for nerve agent injury. Atropine blocks the muscarinic effects of the nerve agent and prevents the "gland" effects of watery eyes, runny nose, diarrhea, and the deadly lung effects of increased mucous secretion and bronchospasm (wheezing). The nervous system effects are also blocked, preventing seizures.

The second therapeutic agent utilized is 2-PAM Chloride (2-pyridine Aldoxime Methyl Chloride). 2-PAM Chloride acts like a crowbar to break the bond between the enzyme acetylcholinesterase and nerve agent that prevents normal nerve functioning.

Atropine and 2-PAM Chloride automatic injectors comprise the Mark-1 nerve agent antidote kit utilized by the military.

Gosh, no! That's not at all their concern. It's entertainment, pure and simple. Which means it has to sound cool. That's it: Look cool & sound cool. Accuracy is not an issue. Don't believe anything you see or hear in a movie. For that matter, don't automatically believe what you read, either. Check out MovieMistakes.com and/or SlipUps.com for lots of examples.

My favorite, from Die Hard II:
"That punk pulled a Glock 7 on me! You know what that is? It's a porcelain gun made in Germany. It doesn't show up on your airport X-ray machines, and it cost more than you make here in a month."

There has never been a Glock 7. They started at 17 & currently go up to 36.
Glocks are made of polymer (plastic) and lots of steel...
so they show up just fine in xrays and on metal detectors.
They are made in Austria, not Germany...
and are really quite affordable as guns go.

Don't believe what you see in print, either. Fiction is fiction and news is ... usually slanted by the editor's bias. Often, the editor has not even declared a bias, so it's up to you to work it out.

Stay safe,
J.T.

I heard about that, but it got pushed off the news pretty quickly with the war buildup and everything, but I imagine the story hung around longer there. Is there any new info that's been released that you know of?

I think vx is a chemical agent that attacks the liver and other vital organs. it's supposed to be really nasty and will almost certainly kill.

I posted this the other day, but I will re-post it as it will answer a lot of the misconceptions I have seen here

Nerve Agents

There is no "nerve gas". Nerve agents are liquids, sprays, or vapors. Nerve agents are classified in two groups. The "G" agents; GA, GB, and GD, are non-persistent chemical weapons developed by the Germans in World War II. VX is a persistent nerve agent.

Terrorists have employed nerve agents with modest success in the past. Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese religious sect, deployed Sarin (GB) in an apartment complex in 1994 and in a Tokyo subway in 1995. In the first attack, 300 persons became ill with 7 fatalities reported. The 1995 subway attack caused 5,000 people to seek medical attention with 12 fatalities. More than 80% of those who sought medical care suffered no effect from the exposure.

The Sarin (GB) used in the Tokyo subway was NOT deployed in an effective manner. Rather than dispersing the agent in an aerosol, it was left in jars to spill on the ground. In a terrorist event, for non--persistent agents to be effective, they must be aerosolized in a confined space like a subway or a ventilation system of a building.

The military can employ a nerve agent through area bombardment with artillery or missiles or direct aerial application by bombing or sprays. Heavy application of the agent is required to achieve a lethal concentration in an open area. When these non-persistent agents are deployed in the open, they are degraded by UV light and simply evaporate in a short period of time.

Persistent nerve agent--VX--is a liquid of low volatility that evaporating slowly, well, persists. Sorry. The properties of VX are more akin to diesel fuel than a more volatile liquid such as water. It does not evaporate quickly and contaminates your clothing and skin when you walk through the area where VX has been applied.

All nerve agents have two types of effects on the body; muscarinic and nicotinic. The muscarinic effect is on the "glands" and the nervous system. For nerve transmission to occur, an enzyme, acetylcholine is released by the nerve ending and stimulates the gland or muscle that the nerve controls. The nerve impulse is terminated as acetylcholine is "reactivated" by acetylcholinesterase. Nerve agent prevents the "reactivation " of acetylcholine with a resulting continued stimulation of the glands and nerves.

Nicotinic effects of a nerve agent are those exerted on the striated or skeletal muscle. These effects are twitching and jerking of the muscles, seizures, and paralysis. These effects may initially be local following skin exposure or generalized following inhalation of a nerve agent.

The effect of an inhaled nerve agent occurs in a few seconds following exposure. Immediate muscarinic effects of exposure to nerve agent are increased salivation, water eyes, and a runny nose; shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, and increased mucous production; diarrhea, urination, and chest tightness. The nemonic "SLUDGE" facilitates recall of these effects.

SLUDGE

S Salivation, sweating
L Lacrimation
U Urination
D Defecation, drooling, diarrhea
G Gastric upset and cramps
E Emesis


Nerve agents are very deadly, a single drop of nerve agent on the skin, untreated, and you will die. Simple as that. The treatment for nerve agent exposure is simple. The first and most important step in treatment is decontamination. Simply removing a victim's clothing will remove as much as 85% of the chemical agent. A detergent scrub and fresh water rinse to remove any residual chemical from the skin allows medical treatment of the casualty to begin.

Atropine injection is the mainstay of treatment for nerve agent injury. Atropine blocks the muscarinic effects of the nerve agent and prevents the "gland" effects of watery eyes, runny nose, diarrhea, and the deadly lung effects of increased mucous secretion and bronchospasm (wheezing). The nervous system effects are also blocked, preventing seizures.

The second therapeutic agent utilized is 2-PAM Chloride (2-pyridine Aldoxime Methyl Chloride). 2-PAM Chloride acts like a crowbar to break the bond between the enzyme acetylcholinesterase and nerve agent that prevents normal nerve functioning.

Atropine and 2-PAM Chloride automatic injectors comprise the Mark-1 nerve agent antidote kit utilized by the military.


Jeffery S. Anderson, M.D.

"VX gas was developed in the Porton Down Chemical Weapons Research Centre, Wiltshire, England in 1952 and its devastating effects were tested. The British traded the technology of VX with the United States of America for information on thermonuclear weapons.

It is normally in its liquid state despite its name. It has a low volatility; is odourless and is an excellent adhesive. A special form has been developed that is so adhesive that it is virtually impossible to remove from the surface that it is in contact with. This leads to strategic attacks on enemy bases or airfields so that the VX remains stuck to the area and has the potential to kill any one attempting to use the base or airfield.

The "V" of VX signifies it long persistence. So it is more dangerous and toxic than its cousins of the "G" variety like GA (Tabun) and GB (Sarin), which dissipate quickly and have only short-term effects. In the liquid form of VX, it is absorbed through the eyes or the skin of the victim. It takes an hour or two to take effect and its effects result in death. The gaseous form is more deadly than the liquid form and acts almost immediately on the victim. The effects are worst when it is inhaled and death is an end to the suffering.

The LD50 can be as little as 10mg for humans. It operates by cutting off the nervous system. It binds to the enzyme that transmits signals to the nerves and inhibits them. Therefore the nerves become isolated and uncontrollable. The antidote, atropine, is a toxin itself but it counteracts the effect of the VX by removing it from the enzyme. It is an anti-nerve agent so does the reverse of the VX, a nerve agent. It is normally injected into the arm or thigh but for gaseous attacks the atropine must go immediately into the heart. So full body protection and gas masks are essential to avoid exposure in a VX missile attack.

VX has not been used to its fullest potential yet because it is too dangerous to use for local attacks with wind that could blow the VX back onto the base. This factor has helped to keep VX from being used to cripple local nations. If these weapons were launched against a nation then there would be the possibility of a nuclear counterattack because VX is a weapon of mass destruction that spreads from impact point killing all in its path. This would be countered by another, which in a lot of cases, would be a nuclear bomb. The only known countries to possess VX are U.S. France and Russia. England after inventing it abandoned the thought for thermonuclear warfare."

From:
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk
By:
Joe Lenthall, Magdalen College School, Oxford

I have the book movie mistakes, written by the bloke who owns that site. It was widely believed, when the glock first came out that it was a terrorists dream and was invisible to x-ray but....... rumours spread quickly.

No, nothing more was mentioned on the matter since, but other chemicals and bomb making materials have been found elsewhere around the country.

Plus, if you want combat tupperware, every terrorist knows that Sig makes a far superior weapon! <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />