What's Lethal in Miniscule Amounts?

[Mangetout]

This being the SDMB, I must point out that there is nothing that is lethal in miniscule amounts, because the word is Minuscule.

No need to thank me.

Yes, I am aware that some sources consider it a valid variant.

[Szlater]

@jk1245

Polonium-210 (the stuff used to kill Alexander Litvinenko) has a lethal dose of 50 ng (ingested) and 10 ng(inhaled).

That’s total dose, not per kg (at least according to wiki)

Is it the radiation from that amount that kills, or does it have a non-radiological effect at that dose?

[Connecting_Rod]

@Szlater

Is it the radiation from that amount that kills, or does it have a non-radiological effect at that dose?

It’s the radiation. http://hps.org/documents/po210factsheet.pdf

[jk1245]

@Szlater

Is it the radiation from that amount that kills, or does it have a non-radiological effect at that dose?

That’s the radioactive damage at that dose (also an acute dosing), which answer’s the OP’s “What if we included radioactive elements” portion.
For straight toxins, I think botulism is it.

[bouv]

@Szlater

C. botulinum is a very common soil bacteria, and it can be found in honey too.

Which is why honey is bad for infants. Their stomach acid is too weak to kill the bacteria before they can reproduce and make botulism toxin.

[Connecting_Rod]

As far as how many compounds are lethal at 1 milligram ingested by an adult, the UN system for categorizing acute toxicity has 5 milligram/kilogram as the threshold for the most toxic category, which should be roughly 300 milligrams for an adult person. So there shouldn’t be all that many below 1.

Although some of them are classes of compounds, EPA’s list of acutely hazardous waste materials (P-list) only has 189 materials. And a lot of them aren’t anywhere near 1 mg/adult. Cyanide for instance is around 100 mg/kg LD50.

[Henrichek]

@Szlater

Botox is Botulinum toxin, so you might find bottles of it in illegally dumped medical waste.

C. botulinum is a very common soil bacteria, and it can be found in honey too.

It was C. botulinum. However, we knew nothing about it and Wikipedia said it produced one of the most toxic substances, so we were worried for a little while. Of course we were informed that it wasn’t a problem. So we didn’t get to uncover any biological weapon terrorist plot

[neutron_star]

@Henrichek

My mother found a small bottle on the ground containing this when she was walking the dog once. We didn’t know what it was and I checked it online. Then we became quite worried since it seemed to be quite dangerous. We contacted some authority about it, but they said we could just throw it away. I guess it had contained the bacteria who create the toxin, or something of that kind. The label said clostridium botulinum or something of that kind.

“Hmm there’s a little bottle on the ground here with some kinda scientific name written on it. I’m not sure if it’s a junkie’s drugs or a lethal poison or what. I know! I’ll take it home with me!”

[WarmNPrickly]

I can’t find an LD50 but Dimethyl Mercury has to be way up there. It goes right through your skin aqnd latex gloves as well.

[Oregon_sunshine]

Thst’s the same thing I thought of, after reading this story http://ehs.okstate.edu/NEWS/KAREN.HTM not too long ago.

[WarmNPrickly]

It is a pretty standard chemistry lesson in grad school these days thanks to Karen RIP. I had an unopened bottle of diphenylmercury, and beleive me it scared the bejeezus out of me just being there.