Scenario:
Poisoner administers poison to victim, and then blackmails victim. Unless
the victim gets the antidote every day, victim will die a horrid death. Is this
possible?
The possibilities I can think of:
a) Poison destroys the body’s ability to produce a vital hormone, and the “antidote” is a hormone.
b) Poison is a replicating virus, and antidote doesn’t kill the virus, but curtails replication severely.
Are either of these realistic? Is there some other mechanism for my blackmail poison?
(Need answer relatively quickly - at least before the next dose is due).
It’s been done in fiction at least. The Fortress of the Pearl by Michael Moorcock springs to mind.
I’d say it’s theoretically possible. The poison itself would need to be administered periodically, or the body would just flush it out eventually. Maybe it could be contained in some sort of implant.
Dune by Frank Herbert had the mentat Thufir Hawat kept enthralled to Baron Harkonnen via a “latent poison” that required such an antidote, IIRC. Like everything in that book, I imagine it was supposed to be another heavy-handed bullshit metaphor of one sort or another.
Radioactive iodine could destroy the thyroid gland, after which, the victim would need regular doses of thyroxine, or would become seriously ill and eventually die.
Malaria - not sure if the medicines for that merely suppress the disease, or eradicate it, but it probably doesn’t have the immediacy of relapse you’re looking for.
However, in either case, the victim would not be solely reliant on the blackmailer for the antidote - the treatments are available elsewhere.
The only real world case I have ever heard of is chronic organochlorine poisoning. OCs tend to accumulate in the fat, and if a person loses weight fast the release of the accumulated chemical can be fatal. In cases of some diseases and injuries people have needed to remain on medication and diets to prevent rapid weight loss. That’s a pretty convoluted set of circumstances, but it has occurred in reality. Of course it’s also not all that longterm, since a gradual weight loss allows the poison to be safely excreted through normal channels.
The there are tissue transplants, where, if the transplantee stops taking immunosuppressants the transplanted tissue triggers a very nasty and likely fatal immune response.
There are also cases where a poison destroys a particular biological system, such as the kidneys, and the person needs to be on drugs (and dialysis) for the rest of their lives.
The spice itself had similar effects, being fatally addictive so that removal or even reduction of the dose proved rapidly fatal.
The more likely scenario for a virus is the production of a toxin; the virus itself doesn’t kill, and the antidote only destroys the toxin that’s been produced.
As for the first scenario, I’m hard put to think of anything in the body that would work on. A poison isn’t going to permanently knock out your ability to produce a substance unless it kills the structure that makes it, and I can’t think of any vital substance produced by a structure whose loss wouldn’t kill you anyway.
Which is why I provided a suggestion of how it could be done in the second part of my answer (implant that slowly or periodically releases a poison with an antidote).
I was wondering if something could induce severe hypothyroidism, because this question calls to mind a rather horrifying short story by Dorothy Sayers (“The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey”). Do I need to spoiler a short story from the 20s? I guess I should.
A man has a grievance against his wife, who has hypothyroidism. He takes her away to the wilds of Spain, where she can’t get any help, and withholds her thyroid supplement (thyroxine) from her for several months of the year, causing her to become basically retarded. Then for a month or two a year, he gives it to her so that she can become periodically aware of what he is doing to her.
If you could give someone something to induce permanent hypothyroidism, or otherwise destroy/impair the thyroid gland, then they would be dependent on thyroxine. But of course they could get that anywhere.
Doesn’t HIV fit the description? I understand there is no “cure” but there are antiviral drugs to keep it under control. Although you wouldn’t be dependent on the blackmailer, as you can get the drugs elsewhere. (Unless the blackmailer is your health insurance company, hmm…)
There are several varied Malaria drugs that treat the disease- they kill the parasites that cause Malaria, and thus can “cure” the disease with long enough treatment. Also, the drugs are easy enough that one can go to a doctor and just get a prescription for it (or try to find some quinineand create a “cure” by harvesting it from the bark of a chichona tree if we really wanted to dabble in fiction [brings to mind the Professor from Gilligan’s Island sort of scenario for that to work with no access to a pharmacy or such]). But again, the “antidote” would cure you after a few weeks.
The Thyroid and Pancreas are two great answers- type I diabetes, via destruction of the beta islets would certainly require life-long treatments daily with insulin. Though again- if the victim has access to a doctor he’ll get a prescription from anyone for it- so not quite a “poison” but it certainly will require daily doses for survival.
The thyroid as well- radioactive iodine, or withholding iodine both can cause hypothroidism (though if the captor withholds iodine (basically by giving the victim a controlled diet), the prisoner would develop a goiter and become more and more sluggish. Again, thyroxine drugs (or Iodine for the goiter) would be the treatment for the hypothyroidism. But again, if the victim has access to a doctor, the “blackmail” aspect doesn’t quite come into play.
Another organ system you can target: destroy the host’s Bone Marrow. It’d destroy his immune system, his RBCs, and his platelets and basically induce leukemia. The victim would basically require daily transfusions of blood, and antibodies to help fight off any infection, and again no cure. But it’s not a “poison” just a single one time insult that wipes him out and he’s stuck in a hospital for life.
A variation: if the victim had Sickle Cell Anemia- withholding oxygen (inducing hypoxia) would induce a sickle cell crisis, which wouldn’t kill the patient right away but cause him to have clotting and usually is described as one of the worst pains ever induced. A horrific torture would be to induce a sickle cell crisis and then withhold pain medications from the victim.
The viral aspect you suggest though certainly does bring to mind quite a few guys:
HIV, Herpes, Hepatitis B, C, D all are things that never really go away.
Oh, here’s another idea:
Rabies. I’ll put it behind a spoiler, because it’s rather long and random.
[spoiler]
The virus is a lethal killer if it can infiltrate your nervous system (once it gets there, it’s out of reach of your immune system, and a horrific death ranging on madness), but it’s an extremely slow replicator. Usually taking around 2months or so for the virus to make it’s way from the skin surface wound to the nearby nerves in the tissue.
This very property is how we deal with it- the fact that it takes SO long for the virus to replicate is why we immediately give Rabies vaccines AFTER a person is bitten by a suspected animal- because the vaccines should work within a few weeks- creating antibodies, and lymphocytes trained to attack and destroy the rabies virus- that process takes a few weeks, and voila we have an army ready to go vs. the slow moving Rabies virus that’s still making it’s way along to the nerves. This is why we give such high repetitive shots of the rabies vaccine- we want to MAKE DAMN SURE that the virus is eradicated before it reaches the nerves, or else we’re really stuck. Hence the immediate rabies vaccinations, because more often than not our vaccines will ramp up the immune system faster than the virus can replicated and evade the human body.
So back to your story:
If you had someone infected with the Rabies virus via a scratch or a tissue, they’d need the rabies vaccine right away. However, if the blackmailer could continuously ensure every few weeks (2 months would be best) that he could reinfect the person with the Rabies, then the victim would constantly require vaccinations vs. rabies (but again, this sorta falls away for a long term sort of thing as the high levels of antibody would get rid of the rabies, and if re-inoculated with rabies, the high antibodies levels should be there to fight it off still (which is why the captor would have to reinoculate every few months rather than weekly. Though if I were re-infected with rabies, I’d want the full vaccine treatment again just to be safe no matter how far apart.[/spoiler]
My idea/solution will come in the next post, as it’s way more fictional but i really like it.
Have the Blackmailer inject small capsules (into the tissue, not the blood, so that it stays in the body) filled with various viruses into the victim, and point out to the victim that the capsules are biodegradable but in various thicknesses, so they will release their contents over a long period of time. The Blackmailer has the correct order and sequence of diseases (if he wants he can randomly list a few of them for the victim, things such as Rabies, Hep B, Hep A, HPV, Rubella, and so on- just find the viruses with vaccines and/or curable anti-viral treatments). But basically if the Victim does not pay the blackmailer, they will get these viruses and slowly die over time. HOWEVER, if he pays up, the blackmailer will provide the next correct vaccination to prevent the disease caused by upcoming capsule’s content. However, the victim has to pay for each of the vaccines, and will not know which one he is being given each time.
It’s a horrific torture, and one that actually could fit the Poison/Antidote theme very well, though not on a daily scale, but certainly on a paying the blackmailer over time sorta deal- as he’d have to pay every week or so for his next drug.
The only key you’d need: some explanation as to why the victim can’t go to a hospital and try to find the location of these implanted capsules in his tissue. If the capsules were tamper-proof in some way, this idea would work for a pretty good run. And would certainly cause a huge fear and worry on the part of the victim, never knowing which virus could be released into his system next and basically requiring the vaccines in order to prevent getting a disease which could potentially kill him or cause him tons of problems.
And a bonus- even if he misses one, so he gets really sick, it might be to something like HepA which is treatable at a hospital but still really painful, even after he gets his treatment and all- he’s still got to pay for the next vaccine in fear that the next virus may be really fatal.
First off, malaria is nowhere near a sure kill. Your age, general health, and previous exposure will all make a huge difference. And the different strains of malaria are remarkably different in their effects. The deadliest malaria (p. falciparum) is not generally prone to relapse. Reoccurring malaria is often less immediately deadly.
In any case, malaria’s high death rates come from the fact that pretty much everyone in malarial regions contracts malaria over and over and over again. Even a disease with a 1% mortality rate will soon reach horrific death tolls if everyone gets it all the time. Even with our 99% effective prophylaxes, most Peace Corps volunteers that I knew ended up getting it at least once during their two years. Imagine life without the prophylaxes.
The death rate of a single untreated case would be high, but probably manageable. It’s remarkably hard to find real statistics on this- I see everything from falciparum has a 100% mortality to studies saying most falciparum infection is asymptomatic. I imagine the 100% statistic would be for cerebral malaria, which would not be a sure thing even for a p. falciparum infection. So I’d say even a worst case-scenario of a never-exposed person getting a dose of p. falciparum would be looking at a death rate of maybe 30%.
Most malaria can be wiped out with a relatively simple drug regime. Coartem, an Artemisinin based drug, has cure rates of 97% and costs around $1.00 for a round of treatment. There is another one-dose drug you can follow up with to eliminate any parasites hiding out in your liver. Pretty simple. FWIW, Artemisinin has a fascinating story behind it and I encourage everyone to read up on it.
Of course drug-resistant malaria will be drug resistant, so it’d be pretty useless for this particular plot.
There may be some way to use outdated drugs to keep a low-level chronic malaria infection going. But you’d probably need a huge amount of expertise and close monitoring to keep things right. And if you did let the malaria bloom, there is a good chance it’d still be pretty survivable. So there are surely better candidates.
To combine this with scr4’s reference to AIDS, I think it’s conceivable that one could engineer a retrovirus that incorporates genetic code for producing a toxic protein–snake venom would be a good place to look for such a protein. The retrovirus would integrate itself into the victim’s DNA and cause the body to start manufacturing the protein internally. Regular doses of an appropriate counteragent–an antivenom, perhaps, or even a tailored enzyme that breaks down the toxic protein, will keep the victim alive.
Of course, there are problems with this scenario above and beyond engineering the virus itself.
You need to keep the virus from killing the host directly.
You need to keep the virus from becoming contagious (bearing in mind that it could mutate after being introduced).
The victim could develop a tolerance for the toxin, making the counteragent unnecessary.
The victim could develop an immune resposne to the counteragent , reducing or eliminating its effectiveness, and die despite regular doses.
Either the toxin or the counteragent could cause anaphylaxis, potentially killing the victim.
If the counteragent is an antivenom, the victim could suffer from serum sickness.
It seems like alcohol in sufficiently high quantities would fit this pattern, with the twist that the poison and the antidote are the same thing. You can die from alcohol withdrawal, so you have to keep drinking if you get far enough gone.
Of course, you could slowly wean yourself off it unless you were forced to keep drinking a sufficient quantity.
I was thinking something similar, but you probably don’t want your victim to be continually drunk. Is there anything physiologically addictive that produces relatively few other effects?
