The Washington Post yesterday cited experts as saying that the plan by the estranged half-brother of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un to use an antidote was fatally flawed.
It quoted Cindy Vestergaard, an expert on chemical weapons at the Stimson Centre in Washington, as saying that the presence of atropine, an antidote for poisons including VX and insecticide, on his person would confirm that he feared being killed by chemical means.
However, she said, he seemed to have been “poorly advised on antidote efficacy.”
Based on reports that the antidote was being carried in a tablet form, she said it can take at least 15 to 20 minutes for atropine to reach the bloodstream if orally administered.
“By then, VX will already be wreaking havoc on the body’s nervous system (including vomiting, making orally-administered antidotes even more useless),” she was quoted as saying in an email.
She added that an oral form of atropine could only provide “a false sense of security.”
On Nov 29, the murder trial on Jong Nam’s death at the Shah Alam High Court had heard that 12 glass vials containing antidotes for poisons were found in his sling bag after the incident.
Malaysian Chemistry Department Alcohol and Toxicology Clinical Unit head Dr K Sharmilah had agreed with a suggestion by counsel Gooi Soon Seng, who was representing Indonesian national Siti Aisyah, that the vials containing atropine together with 12 other exhibits were received by her from the police on March 10 for toxicology tests.
Siti and Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong have been charged with the murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
In the incident, Jong Nam was allegedly assassinated when the two women suddenly appeared before him and wiped his face with the palms of their hands that contained what was later identified as the deadly VX nerve agent at klia2.
The WP report also quoted Matthew Meselson, a professor of biochemistry at Harvard University, as saying that atropine by itself is not an effective antidote for VX poisoning.
He said auto-injectors supplied by the US army to combat nerve agent poisoning contain not only atropine but also pralidoxime, another agent that helps prevent VX’s toxic effects.
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