Effects of ricin poisoning depend on whether ricin was inhaled, ingested, or injected. Eventually this is harmful to the whole body, and death may occur. Ricin works by getting inside the cells of a person’s body and preventing the cells from making the proteins they need. However, if you come into contact with someone who has ricin on their body or clothes, you could become exposed to it. 
Ricin-associated illness cannot be spread from person to person through casual contact. In some reports ricin has possibly been used as a warfare agent in the 1980s in Iraq and more recently by terrorist organizations. military experimented with using ricin as a possible warfare agent. The umbrella had been rigged to inject a poison ricin pellet under Markov’s skin.
In 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian writer and journalist who was living in London, died after he was attacked by a man with an umbrella. If made into a partially purified material or refined into a terrorist or warfare agent, ricin could be used to expose people through the air, food, or water. Unintentional exposure to ricin is highly unlikely, except through the ingestion of castor beans. It would take a deliberate act to make ricin and use it to poison people. Ricin has been used experimentally in medicine to kill cancer cells. Ricin is part of the waste “mash” produced when castor oil is made. Castor beans are processed throughout the world to make castor oil. It is a stable substance under normal conditions, but can be inactivated by heat above 80 degrees centigrade (176 degrees Fahrenheit). It can be in the form of a powder, a mist, or a pellet, or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid. Ricin can be made from the waste material left over from processing castor beans. If castor beans are chewed and swallowed, the released ricin can cause injury. Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans. 
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