The Suicide Tree (Odollam Tree; India)

[Mighty_Emperor]

India's "suicide tree" a tool for murder

Agence France-Presse

Paris, November 25



An Indian tree with poisonous fruit is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant in the world and has a barely-investigated role in murder, French and Indian scientists say.

In one Indian state alone, deaths from the Cerbera odollam tree are running at an average of almost one a week, they say.

According to their investigations in the southwestern state of Kerala, 537 deaths can be attributed to odollam poisonings in the 11 years between 1989 and 1999, with the annual toll running from 11 to as high as 103.

"The odollam tree is responsible for about 50 per cent of the plant poisoning cases and 10 per cent of the total poisoning cases in Kerala," say the team, led by Yvan Gaillard of France's Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology.

"To the best of our knowledge, no plant in the world is responsible for as many deaths by suicide as the odollam tree."

Between 70 and 75 per cent of suicide victims are women, raising questions about marital strife and in-law problems in India, and the fruit "is also occasionally used for homicide," according to their probe.

The odollam tree grows to a height of 15 metres (48 feet), with dark green lives and a milky white latex sap.

It has large white flowers with a delicate, jasmine-like perfume and a fruit that, when still green, looks like a small mango and is sometimes eaten by children, with tragic consequences.

Those who commit suicide mash up the white kernel with sugar and eat it, while for murder, "a few kernels are mixed with food containing plenty of chillies to cover the bitter taste of the poison. Death is likely to occur three-to-six hours after ingestion."

Odollam's weapon is a toxin called cerberin, which works by stopping the heart, which is why many poisonings -- unless samples are tested by liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry -- are likely to to be written off as fatal heart attacks, Gaillard's team say.

The risk of using odollam for suicide or worse may also apply in countries where it does not grow naturally, because the fruit may be brought in by the Asian diaspora, Gaillard's team says.

Odollam is "an extremely toxic plant that is relatively unknown to western doctors, chemists, analysts and even coroners and forensic scientists."

Their study is published in the October issue of a US publication, the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. The British weekly New Scientist reports on the findings in next Saturday's issue.

C. odollam grows in coastal salt swamps and creeks in south India and along riverbanks in southern and central Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In Kerala, the tree is known as othalanga maram, while in the adjacent state of Tamil Nadu it is known as kattu arali.

In Southeast Asia, where the oily seeds are used as insect repellent or are burned for light, the common names for it are pong-pong, buta-buta or nyan.

One of its relatives, Cerbera venenifera, grows widely in Madagascar, and was used as an "ordeal poison" in previous centuries to determine guilt or innocence among suspected witches or groups accused of plotting against the king.

In Madagascar's central province, as many as 6,000 people are thought to have died in a single ordeal, according to a 1991 study.

Source

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon

15:56 26 November 04


A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths caused by plant-derived poisons.

Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say. But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to detect how often it is used to murder people.

A team led by Yvan Gaillard of the Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology in La Voulte-sur-Rhône, France, documented more than 500 cases of fatal Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the south-west Indian state of Kerala alone. Half of Kerala’s plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera.

But the true number of deaths due to Cerbera poisoning in Kerala could be twice that, the team estimates, as poisonings are difficult to identify by conventional means.


Unnoticed homicides

Using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to examine autopsy tissues for traces of the plant, the team uncovered a number of homicides that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This also suggests that some cases put down to suicide may actually have been murders, they say.

Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove.

Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to western toxicologists, Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten the plant. “It is the perfect murder,” he says.

Three-quarters of Cerbera victims are women. The team says that this may mean the plant is being used to kill young wives who do not meet the exacting standards of some Indian families. It is also likely that many cases of homicide using the plant go unnoticed in countries where it does not grow naturally.

Journal reference: Journal of Ethnopharmacology (vol 95, p 123)

Source

The paper:

Abstract

Cerbera odollam is a tree belonging to the poisonous Apocynaceae family, which includes the yellow and common oleanders. The seeds are excessively toxic, containing cerberin as the main active cardenolide. Cerbera venenifera, a related species found in Madagascar, has a long history as an ordeal poison, and was responsible for the death of 3000 people per year in previous centuries.

The odollam tree is responsible for about 50% of the plant poisoning cases and 10% of the total poisoning cases in Kerala, India. It is used both for suicide and homicide. The aim of this retrospective study is to call attention to a powerful toxic plant that is currently completely ignored by western physicians, chemists, analysts and even coroners and forensic toxicologists.

Keywords: Forensic science; Odollam tree; Suicide; Homicide; Poisoning; Ordeal; Plant; Cerbera odollam; Cerberin; Apocynaceae

 

[ramonmercado]

Poison plant fuels suicide bids

Poison plant fuels suicide bids
By Jolyon Jenkins
Producer, Me and My Poison

Sri Lanka has been suffering from a growing epidemic of suicide attempts.
It is fuelled by the ready availability of poison from the fruit of a common roadside plant.

Michael Eddleston is a British doctor who has spent much of the past ten years in Sri Lanka.

It is becoming the suicide capital of the world. The poison of choice is the seed of the Yellow Oleander tree.


The Yellow Oleander is an ornamental plant often used for hedging that grows all over the island.


Often young people use it as a way of getting back at people
Michael Eddleston

It has yellow trumpet-like flowers and a fruit the size of a conker. Inside is a single large seed. One is enough to kill you.

Although the plant grows in large parts of the tropics, it's only in Sri Lanka that it has become associated with suicide - and only fairly recently, with an incident 25 years ago.

Two girls in the northern part of the island took the seed and died.

Publicity

As a result of the newspaper publicity it entered the public consciousness.

"The next year," says Michael Eddleston, "there were 23 cases; the year after that 46, then 126, and ever since then it has continued to rise year on year as it spreads across the island.

"It completely overwhelms the health service. Often young people use it as a way of getting back at people. They get scolded and they take a yellow oleander seed.

"I remember one girl said her mother wanted her to get up and do the shopping. She said no, her mother scolded her and she took a Yellow Oleander seed.

"I remember a Muslim girl - her mother said she couldn't watch TV during Ramadan, so she took a seed in front of her mother.

"We had no ambulance to get her in time and we had no good treatments. She died."

Family strife

It's not just young people. In a remote hospital in Pollonaruwa, where Michael Eddleston has done much of his research, I met an old man, a strict Buddhist, recovering from a suicide attempt.

He had fallen out with his wife, over his habit of feeding the neighbourhood dogs. You care more about those dogs than me, said the wife.

The man, feeling that his Buddhist principles were under attack, walked out and swallowed a seed from a tree in his garden.

Luckily, relatives discovered him and got him to Pollonaruwa in time.

Many of these protest suicide attempts are only semi-serious but up to 10% of them are fatal anyway - a much higher percentage than in the west, where we have good anti-poisoning drugs and facilities.

Michael Eddleston wanted to do something about that.

The poison from Yellow Oleander is similar to a drug used in the West to treat heart beat irregularities, digoxin. Digoxin slows down the heart beat.

Dramatic effect

An oleander seed is like 100 digoxin tablets in one container, and the effect on the heart is dramatic: it gets slower and slower, and then stops.

Western doctors have at their disposal an anti-body against digoxin.


I feel very sorry about these innocent people
Dr Kachana

Michael Eddleston thought it might also work against Yellow Oleander, and ran a trial in Sri Lanka to test the theory.

The drug did indeed work, but no anti-digoxin is currently used in Sri Lanka. Why? Because it's too expensive. To treat one patient could cost in the region of $3000.

The price is held high because of the American market: most clients are American doctors who have accidentally given their patients too much digoxin and need to get the heart going again.

For them, it's worth paying almost anything to avoid a law suit.

So the price of the drug remains high, geared to a market which demands the highest quality, purest drug - a purity that is an unaffordable luxury in Sri Lanka.

Money pressures

For much of the last decade, Michael Eddleston has tried to find a local manufacturer in the Indian subcontinent that can make anti-digoxin at a price the Sri Lankan market can afford.

But, I wondered, will this ever be seen as a priority in a country that has so many calls on its health care budget?

Isn't there bound to be a lack of willingness to spend money on people who have brought their problems on themselves?

If so, it's not an attitude I found at Pollonaruwa hospital. Dr Kachana, one of the doctors on the poison ward told me: "I feel very sorry about these innocent people.

"Most of the time they get oleander with very small, minor reasons. I think we have to do something to reduce the rate of admission to the hospital."

And she recommends a government campaign to get people to cut down their Yellow Oleander trees.

It won't be easy. In a village I spoke to a poisoning victim who still had the plant that nearly killed him in his garden.

Had he thought of cutting it down, I asked. Yes he had, he said. But the plant was still there.

Radio 4's Me And My Poison is on Tuesdays at 0930 BST from 11 April. Or hear the programmes after broadcast at Radio 4's Listen again page.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/h ... 888840.stm

Published: 2006/04/10 08:57:27 GMT

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