Russian Agents Used Dart Frog Toxin
Five European governments have accused Russian agents of poisoning Alexei Navalny with epibatidine, a toxin from South American dart frogs that permanently blocks acetylcholine receptors and has no known antidote. The exotic biotoxin represents an escalation from previous nerve agent attacks like Novichok.
- Epibatidine was first identified in 1974 from the skin of the Ecuadorian frog *Epipedobates anthonyi* and is about 200 times more potent as a painkiller than morphine. Researchers, however, abandoned it as a potential drug because the therapeutic dose is extremely close to the toxic dose. - The toxin can be created synthetically, and scientists at Russia's State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology — the same institute that developed the Novichok nerve agent — have published papers on its synthesis and toxic effects. - This was the second time Navalny was targeted with a sophisticated poison; in August 2020, he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent and fell into a coma, surviving only after being flown to Germany for treatment. - The joint announcement of the discovery was made by the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, who have reported Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for violating international conventions on chemical and biological weapons. - Symptoms of epibatidine poisoning are rapid and severe, including hypertension, convulsions, full-body paralysis, respiratory arrest, and death. - Russia has a documented history of using poisons against political opponents, including the 2006 assassination of Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 and the 2018 Novichok attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK. - The use of poison is a long-standing tactic of Russian security services, dating back to a Soviet-era program established in 1921 known as "Kamera" or "Lab X," which was dedicated to developing untraceable toxins. - Unlike the Novichok agent used on Navalny in 2020, for which the antidote atropine was administered, there are no known effective treatments for epibatidine poisoning.
