'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996701>
 
 | New Scientist
 

'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon

 

15:56 26 November 04

 

A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian
communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic
toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths
caused by plant-derived poisons.

Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by
more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say.
But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to
detect how often it is used to murder people.

A team led by Yvan Gaillard of the Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology in
La Voulte-sur-Rhtne, France, documented more than 500 cases of fatal
Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the south-west Indian state of
Kerala alone. Half of Kerala's plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all
fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera.

 But the true number of deaths due to Cerbera poisoning in Kerala could be
twice that, the team estimates, as poisonings are difficult to identify by
conventional means.


 Unnoticed homicides


Using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry
to examine autopsy tissues for traces of the plant, the team uncovered a
number of homicides that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This also
suggests that some cases put down to suicide may actually have been
murders, they say.

Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised
if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart
toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the
foxglove.

 Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which
disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to
western toxicologists, Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to
identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten
the plant. "It is the perfect murder," he says.

Three-quarters of Cerbera victims are women. The team says that this may
mean the plant is being used to kill young wives who do not meet the
exacting standards of some Indian families. It is also likely that many
cases of homicide using the plant go unnoticed in countries where it does
not grow naturally.

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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