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A Lake in the Hills man was arrested yesterday for possessing enough pufferfish toxin to kill about 100 people, according to the FBI. Tetrodotoxin possession without federal approval is a felony.
Edward F. Bachner IV allegedly posed as a doctor ("Dr. Edmund Backer," real creative) and tried to buy 98 milligrams of tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin that causes paralysis, from a New Jersey chemical company. But 98 milligrams is a lot of—researchers who legally use tetrodotoxin have about 1 milligram in their labs. The company contacted the FBI, and the feds arrested Bacher yesterday in Algonquin. A FBI haz-mat team was on hand while the FBI searched Bacher's house.
Authorities haven't announced what Bachner's motive or plans were, but they say the public is safe.
Tetrodotoxin is the danger juice in fugu. If ingested, it can kill a person in 20 minutes, but typically it's more like 4-6 hours. First, the person experiences numbness in their lips and face, and then a tingling or floating feeling through their extremities. Then more serious paralysis sets in, which causes breathing problems and can also cause cardiac arrhythmia, and then they die. [FDA, Trib, S-T, photo of a pufferfish by notsogoodphotography]
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on WGN this morning they mentioned something about the "good" or "beneficial" reasons for garnering tetrodotoxin. like what? is this another botox craze or something? maybe this was a belated mother's day gift.
Strangely enough Channel 11 was running an episode of Little Killers that focused on both the pufferfish and the blue-ringed octopus and their tetrodotoxin. At first I though maybe this guy was impulse buying after watching Sunday night, however, I discovered that he had ordered it earlier. Anyone know when the first airdate of "Little Killers Of The Sea" was? It could lead to boycotting public television for its dangerous influence on society.
TTX is a sodium channel blocker that has been a valuable tool for medical research for many years particularly cardiovascular and neuro research. By removing the effects of the ttx sensitive channels you can study the effects of other channels. The basic knowledge that we now have about action potentials, nerve communication, was pioneered with the use of TTX. In general poisons are powerful tools for research and even for medications many of which are low doses of potentially toxic chemicals.
The guy is very lucky he didn't kill himself we had some in a lab I worked in and I didn't like working with it even a small amount on your skin could be absorbed and lead to death. On the other hand in Japan fugu is a delicacy mainly because of the numbing sensation and alteration of your taste sensation that very minute amounts of the poison can cause, too much though and you are a goner.
I read somewhere that it was legal to purchase anything under 100 grams of this stuff.
And this guy bought 98 grams.
So what has changed in the law that they were able to arrest him?
Ingrid: according to the article, it's illegal without approval:
"Possessing the toxin, commonly known as TTX, without the proper federal approval is a felony."