Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
Residents have the right to personal items only if the items do not interfere with the rights, health, or safety of others. If these personal items are found to be unsafe, facilities may confiscate the items if it is safe to do so and promptly contact the proper authorities.
FBI agents arrested a 70-year-old woman living in a continuing care community and charged her with possession of an unregistered select agent, ricin. How authorities became aware that the deadly substance was on the premises of the facility was not disclosed. A search of the facility that included the woman’s living quarters uncovered the ricin in a bottle labeled “ricin.” A forensic lab confirmed that the bottle contained ricin, a toxin regulated by the federal government due to the severe threat it poses to public health.
Ricin is found in the seeds of the castor oil plant and is very toxic. A few grains of pure powder-no larger than a few grains of table salt-can cause death in an adult.
During her questioning by the authorities, the woman said she was interested in plant-based poisons, and conducted internet research on how to make them. The four to six tablespoons of ricin she made came from 30 to 40 castor beans she found growing on facility’s property. She tested the poison’s potency, by placing it in the food or beverages of other residents on at least three occasions. At least one victim became ill, but no one died from the poison. The woman said that she wanted to harm herself and planned to take the ricin herself.
A team of specially trained FBI agents from across the Northeast were brought in to complete the searches of the facility and the woman’s vehicle. The searches turned up no ricin or other hazardous material outside the confines of the woman’s residence. Inside her residence, the FBI located the poison, along with components from several plants, including apple, yew, cherry, castor and foxglove, which can all be used to produce toxins.
