Toxie

avegansrecovery:

I went to the Smithsonian Museum and realized how many animals were victims of toxicology. I don’t know if they were killed or not, but it still freaked me out and made me uncomfortable. But they probably were killed and are being used for human knowledge, which is kind of awful, but I just have really mixed feelings about it. What do you guys think?

Would you rather people be dead? All living things have two basic goals, reproduce and don’t become energy. The first animal most tests start with are daphnia, really small aquatic animals. Billions of them die from water filtration each day. I guess they’re just a victim of life. Most toxicological tests have an aim to kill as few things as possible and, more importantly, save the most valuable species. 

A nurse was reprimanded for several occurrences. Her response: poison the boss. 

The office manager noticed her coffee had a strange flavor to it and poured it out, finding some gray goo, but she didn’t think much of it until she suffered from stomach cramps and sickness. After x-rays revealed metal flakes, the obvious conclusion was mercury ingestion. 

The most likely source of the metal was from a mercury amalgam, the silver filling dentists use, dumped directly into the coffee. 

The nurse thinks she was set up by the evil coworkers who dislike her ‘by-the-book’ attitude. 

These amalgams are inexpensive and routinely used in fillings. Only low levels are known to leech from the alloy when the filling is installed. They are considered safe because inorganic mercury doesn’t pose a great risk to humans through consumption. It’s usually passed without problem, but high concentrations can cause complications in the kidney. By consuming the whole lump, the concentrations may be high enough, and, if nothing else, consuming a lump of metal is bound to upset a stomach. (How many people would be clam about swallowing a filling anyway?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-22342320 

My roommate likes a few predictable shows, Scrubs and NCIS are good examples. 

In “My Princess,” an episode of Scrubs told through a fairy tale, they mention at some point toward the beginning that Wilson’s Disease is from copper accumulation. At which point I commented that copper accumulation in humans is pretty easy to see through a copper tinted ring around the iris.

This ends up being the big reveal at the end of the show.

In NCIS, I walked in on the episode “Obsession” right when Abby was looking at a small metal bead with holes that was pulled from a victim. I mentioned that the KGB was known for using an umbrella to assassinate a Bulgarian by injecting a ricin filled bead.. which was then explained in the episode about ten minutes later as the overall topic. 

I think he’s getting tired of me finishing his mysteries.