Talk:VX (nerve agent)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is there a source for France possessing VX? David.Monniaux 12:30, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I wasn't the one that put that info in the article, but I was interested too. Search is difficult, because the information pool is tainted with lots of Iraq data (it was interesting running across the deeply pro- and anti- American opinions). Here's what I found in my brief search:
  1. Per Human Rights Watch], "[In] April 1997 ... eight states declared former or existing chemical weapons production plants (China, France, India, Russia,South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan) and pledged to destroy their stockpiles of chemical agents.". This doesn't specify VX, however.
  2. This Daily Times article (Google cached here) mentions that a French company was supplying a VX predecessor to Iraq. It's not much (especially considering that nobody ever prooved that Iraq had VX after ).

Hope this helps. Also, I will be coming back to this article in the next few days. I want to fact check and find references for everything in here, and in the course of that I will try to find a definitive answer for you if you don't have one already. ClockworkSoul 22:16, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we should put too much faith in articles pretending that France sold this or that to Iraq, in view of the large amount of disinformation that was made around such topics. :-) David.Monniaux 15:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree entirely. When I get back from my "real life" in a couple of days , I'll fully fact-check this article. ClockworkSoul 03:49, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Researchers in Porton Down, England in 1952 invented the chemical; the British government later abandoned the project.

THAT IS TOTAL CRAP!!!! VX was invented accidently in nazi-germany before of world war two, as they did research for pesticides

• You're thinking of tabun. Take a look at the article nerve agent for a timeline. – ClockworkSoul 19:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your statement "The VX is in the process of being diluted into VX hydrolysate" misses an important point. The VX is being destroyed chemically (by hydrolysis) by the adding of aqueous sodium hydroxide. The VX continues to decrease in concentration, the longer it is in the resulting hydrolysate. The target concentration is 20 parts per billion (ppb) before shipping the hydrolysate for secondary treatment at DuPont. From an environmental point of view, simple dilution of bulk amounts of toxic materials as a means of disposal is discouraged. The actual amount of dilution (waste volume increase) occuring at Newport is about 3- to 6-fold. The reduction in VX concentration, however, is (1 billion ppb)/(20 ppb) = 50 million-fold. Drbillellis 21:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Effects? 2 Aum Shinrikyo 3 Use of atropine 4 Edit of "footnotes"

[edit] Effects?

Perhaps it would be effective to include the effects of exposure to the gas in this article? If I knew them, I'd probably add them in now, but seeing how I don't...(it's something that can be used to see if the TV show 24 is accurate or not)Ctifumdope 03:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

It causes all your muscles to contract, so you can't breathe. Nerve agent goes into more detail. 24 was pretty realistic about the symptoms, although I doubt even a government agency could design a building as bad as CTU headquarters. (Computers that can't be accessed remotely? No atropine or respirators in the safe rooms?) —Keenan Pepper 03:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Effects include unexplainable severe headache, trouble seeing, pinpointed pupils, unexplainable runny nose, trouble breathing, tightness of chest, severe vomiting, spasms or twitching of muscles,defecation and urination, and in large amounts of exposure convulsions then death. This is apart of my job. I am a chemical operations specialist. Basically, i prepare and test for chemical and biological warfare within the US Army. As for the appearance of VX, i have seen it myself. It is a oily light tan color, but when it is in a lesser pure form it is more amber colored. Atropine can be used to help prevent further effects in small or mild cases, but in severe cases atropine can only save so much from nerve damage. I had a lab i went to where we watched effects of psuedonerve agent on lab animals. Hard to stomach when you are having to inject them and then watch as they go through the steps. One thing i noticed though was the fact that their palms and face excreted large amounts of sweat, that would be one good clue to look for. When we adminstered the atropine the effects were reversed and the animals we were told were back to 100% health. Gas masks and full MOPP(Mission oriented protective posture) gear are needed to protect oneself from VX. People also become delerious when exposed and are often unable to realize that they are exposed, so watch your buddies closely. Also let us dearly hope the government never does build a building as bad as CTU hjeadquarters, LOL, or God help the people in my position!-Stephanie Riley US ARMY CHEM CORPS

Reply to Above: Hey, do you think you can find me a real picture of actual VX? I always wondered what it really looked like.

The effects are detailed in nerve agent. – ClockworkSoul 03:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aum Shinrikyo

I added the reference to VX being used by the terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo. raptor 09:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the Aum Shinrikyo used an impure form of Sarin gas, which is far less toxic than VX.

Aum Shinrikyo exposed the public to sarin in in Matsumoto and Tokyo but they also synthesised VX amoung other things and used it against individual targets, either directly or by contaminating doors, cars etc. with it. Some attacks were successful while others were not. raptor 08:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The way the article currently stands (Nov 2006), there's a stand-alone sentence about sarin gas used by Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo subways. It does not link in any way to the rest of the article. Better to leave that sentence to the sarin page, or make a link to Aum Shinrikyo and have the sentence repeat what raptor said above, that they are a terrorist group known to have synthesised VX. 82.93.133.130 11:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of atropine

The article states that atropine can be used as an antidote because it blocks mAChRs preventing the depolarizing block associated with organophosphate cholinesterase inhibitors. Shouldn't that mean that one would still experience all of the sympathetic effects (SLUD) of the nerve agent? --Selket ^Talk 07:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit of "footnotes"

Could anyone point me to a guide of how to edit the last lines of this article? E.G., I'd like to edit the links in the "This article is part of the chemical weapons"-box, since HN definitely is NOT a gas. THx, Lost Boy 05:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)