11/28/2023 0 Comments Aspirin poisoning antidote![]() ![]() Sergei Skripal who was granted refuge in the UK following a 'spy swap' between the US and Russia in 2010 and his daughter remain critically ill after being attacked with a nerve agent. SALISBURY, ENGLAND - MARCH 11: Military personnel wearing protective suits remove a police car and other vehicles from a public car park as they continue investigations into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal on Main Salisbury, England. ![]() With any nerve agent, though, how fast a patient develops symptoms depends in part on the exposure method – whether they inhaled an aerosolized nerve agent, say, or consumed it as a liquid. Novichok is so deadly in part because it is “essentially engineered to prevent the antidote from working,” Chai said. The antidote “gets around” the organophosphate nerve agent and “essentially cleans the binding site so that you basically liberate the sealed cholinesterase and allow it to work again.” Novichok and other nerve agents bind to a receptor site in the brain where they disrupt cholinesterase, a type of enzyme needed for proper functioning of the nervous system, Chai explained. Giving the antidote, a nitrogen-containing chemical compound known as an oxime, is step three. “That essentially buys you some time to give an antidote,” Chai said. Along with drying out secretions, it increases the heart rate, which slows after exposure to a nerve agent. “So we immediately give atropine to prevent that from happening.”Ītropine works in two ways, he said. “If you look at the people who were poisoned by sarin gas in Syria, for example, if you look at those videos, everybody’s foaming at the mouth,” he said. The exercise, dubbed 'Event Horizon,' was staged to test the coordinated emergency response to a mock attack on the US Embassy in Kuwait by terrorists using deadly sarin nerve gas. KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT - DECEMBER 13: Czech soldiers in chemical protection suits take part in a chemical attack response drill conducted at the US Embassy by civil defense authorities and troops from the United States, Germany, and Czech Republic Decemin Kuwait City, Kuwait. Zheleznyakov survived the exposure but developed difficulties concentrating and became withdrawn, according to his colleague Vil Mirzayanov, who described the incident and the Soviet chemical weapons program in his memoir, “State Secrets: An Insider’s Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program.” I sat down on a chair and told the guys, ‘It’s got me,’ ” Zheleznyakov said, as quoted by Chai. And a sense of fear: like something was about to happen. “Circles appeared before my eyes: red and orange. In 1987, while working on a secret Soviet chemical weapons initiative, he was exposed to the chemical compound when his fume hood malfunctioned. Our recovery has been slow and extremely painful.”Ĭhai’s research paper on these chemical compounds – “novichok” means “newcomer” in Russian – and potential therapies was published last week.Īndrei Zheleznyakov, a Russian military researcher, is the first person known to be exposed to one of the Novichok nerve agents. Yulia Skripal, who spent 20 days in a coma after being poisoned by Novichok, described the treatment as “invasive, painful and depressing. The cure itself is also far from pleasant. “But they’ve been modified to make them potent.” The weaponized nerve agents commonly called Novichok, VX and sarin “mostly possess the same chemical structure backbone of other organophosphate pesticides,” Chai said. Chai of the Division of Medical Toxicology in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, described Novichok as a “weaponized organophosphate,” a category of pesticides commonly used in agriculture. He also said all areas decontaminated after the Skripal poisoning are safe and pose “no significant risk” to the public.ĭr. “Our strong working assumption is that the couple came into contact with the nerve agent in a different location to the sites which have been part of the original clean-up operation,” Javid said. Two people poisoned by same nerve agent used on ex-spy, police say (Photo by PA Images/Sipa USA) *** US Rights Only *** Press Association/Sipa USA A police officer stands outside Amesbury Baptist Church in Amesbury, Wiltshire, where a major incident has been declared after it was suspected that two people might have been exposed to an unknown substance.
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