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