Binary Poisons

[zeocrash]

Ok In a book I'm reading at the moment it mentions binary poisons, 2 chemicals that are harmless on there own but react to make some kind of toxin. The cunning part is that the 2 substances are not mixed before being administered to the victim. one substance will be served up to the victim at 1 time, and the other substance will be served up at another time, the second substance will react with the first substance, that is already present in the victim's body and produce the poison.

The advantage of this is that it will only affect the people who have already consumed the first chemical, so food tasters dinner guests etc. will be unaffected.

Now I was wondering, is this possible. Is there already a system like this in existance. Does anyone have any ideas of what chemicals could be used

Excuse me if it sounds like i'm talking out my ass, but the concept was interesting.

[simply RED]

In this case, very reactive chemicals should be used so they could react in the body in very low concentrations. I don't know if such exist...

Something interesting, very close to this topic is the synergic poisoning.
Two toxins (maybe very mild also) administrated at one time have greater effect than the summary effect of both.
If the enzyme which detoxicates a poison is destroyed by some other chemical, small ammounts of a chemical that has been harmless can kill a creature.
Two ogranophosphoric chemicals have synergic effect.
Organophosphoric cholynesterase inhibitor plus barbiturates also!

[FUTI]

As chemist first thing that cross my mind is binary chemical weapons. Two suposedly ordinary pesticides or OTC products combined by explosive device to produce and disperse deadly product ... mostly nervous agent (that is the line of work that most of the efforts by great countries where concentrated). Not the exactly the thread subject but very similar.

Well synergism is not unknown... for example you have barbiturate and ethanol. Liver degrade ethanol to detoxify organism, but barbiturate slow down that proces (and can also damage liver on chronical use) so you have double synergism of two mind altering chemicals. You can also kill yourself or someone by that combination.

[WMD]

Like simply RED said, if you block the detoxifying enzymes rather simple compounds can become quite dangerous. Examples are disulfiram/antabus which blocks alcohol dehydrogenase iirc and therefore can increase the toxicity of ethanol considerably or harmaline which blocks monoamine oxidase so that simple amines from food given as poisons have a far greater effect.

[zeocrash]

hmm, these ar epossibilities, but the idea suggested in the book is that neither chemical would have any effect on their own, but when they got together in your body they would form something toxic. Also that the first chemical could be served up days weeks or months before the second chemical.
Admitted this is from a tom clancey style novel, but usually those books do have quite a bit of truth in them

[FUTI]

I doubt that such poisoning is easy to achieve. Most chemicals have very fast metabolism. Any chemical that had ability to acumulate (or remain in organism for some time) within organism can be made toxic itself.

The way you described your last post... it turns out victim would be some kind of a reaction vessel. It wouldn't react with neither of the chemicals and so it wouldn't show physiological response alone, but combined chemicals give product or reaction with death outcome. I figured this from the start, and that is why the story of binary CW in the previous post.

If you want weird chemical reaction in the body look up on liver metabolism. Only one question... if something cause death, there it must exist, so it can be traceable (it can be tricky but...) so the cause can be found and death won't be traceless and without known cause (if this is the goal). If you just look for a poison with slow onset to have a time to leave crime scene, there are much better ways to achieve that.

If you look for synergism those compound must have physiological response or else there wouldn't be anything to enhance.

WMD I liked your harmaline idea:)

[WMD]

WMD I liked your harmaline idea:)

It's not my idea, it's ancient knowledge from the amazon natives. They drink a brew containing harmaline together with DMT, DiMethylTrypt[amine] (this is not nomenclature, just emphasis on the stuff that matters). The harmaline inhibts the MAO which is responsible for metabolizing amines, therefore the DMT isn't destroyed that quickly and you're in for a fascinating journey.
But the shamans that use this have to eat a certain diet, which is low on amines.

[FireFly]

I know this is an old post; however, I was researching toxins and wondered why no one mentioned using pharmaceuticals with adverse RXNs to each other? Something like Viagra and nitroglycerine? I know each of these would have their own effects, but, neither would be toxic on their own. Mixing the two at low doses wouldn't ensure death, but high doses should have some rewarding effects. Other antagonistic drugs should have some effects interesting to you as well. Sorry to bring an old thread to life but I just finished pharmacology class and have my head filled with many interesting ideas and this thread caught my eye.

[Telkor]

One example would be MAO-inhibitors.

Some of them are used as antidepressants, but combined with many other substances, exspecially other antidepressants, it can be fatal.

[Charles Owlen Picket]

Actually you are discussing something with some intelligence and forethought. To address an old post that may have some utilitarian value, adding concise original ideas are not verbotten in itself (see "The Rules") & obviously you searched & applied appropriate intellect.

Those individuals who react to Viagra enough to make use of the nitroglycerin are actually a percentage of a control group. As you know there are some folks who REALLY should NOT use Viagra; having a sensitivity to it. These are the individuals who experience hearing or vision impairment. Those fellows would very possibly fall victim to such a "binary". But we see there is no consistency to this concept as we have to rely on a select group with a pre-existing issue.

The "concept" should not have to rely on sensitivity for total, complete, unmitigated effectiveness.
....Think MAO inhibitors...& you'll have no need for a sensitivity as the healthiest heart and lungs, the 16 yr old marathoner, will drop dead from a mix of certain materials and MAO inhibitors spaced even a day apart!
It's a good exercise for a Pharm student.

[ciguy007]

The use of one chemical to inhibit the metabolism of another is quite common. The best example that crosses my mind at the moment is piperony butoxide added to carbamate or pyrethroid insecticides. Piperonyl butoxide has a very low order of toxicity but multiplies the effect of the insecticide by preventing its metabolism.

In drug abusers, a small portion of the population has low (say, 15% of normal) plasma cholinesterase activity - these people are very susceptible to cocaine poisoning because the primary route for detoxification is largely missing. Any cholinesterase inhibitor could artificially do the same thing to plasma cholinesterase.

[James]

A solid cynaide salt, an anhydrous organic acid and water. you can probably mix any two of the three without too much danger. mix all three though and you get hydrogen cyanide in salt water. OK not what the topic is about. Maybe concentrated bleach and acetone to generate phosgene (IIRC).

[Secong Nature]

My two cents worth is a bioaccumulative insoluble salt, HgSO4 springs to mind. Not very toxic by itself but if there's enough buildup in the body over time it could be released through a dose of nitrate all at once.

[fluoroantimonic]

Maybe concentrated bleach and acetone to generate phosgene (IIRC).

You mean chloroform. Not quite so deadly...

I do like the idea of slowly building up a accumulative compound that is fairly nontoxic and then releasing a highly toxic product by adding something else. There are many transition metals that are pretty toxic, other ideas?