Need help on my science homework with rat poison?

Question

My homework is to do research on any type of poison and what the effects would be on the human body so i picked rat poison since my nan uses it to kill mice and rats in her flat so anyway i was wondering what would the effects be of taking rat poison and how much would need to be taken to kill a human what what would the systems be if any thanks allot.

Answer 1

There are many types of rat poison. A rat poison was developed in the 50's that caused rats to bleed to death by affecting their blood coagulation. It was developed into a medication that is commonly prescribed to patients as Warfarin (coumarin) and widely used as an anticoagulant. Look up warfarin in any of the pharmacy websites.

Whether this is the stuff you mean I don't know. Most rat poisons are highly toxic to humans. No, I'm not telling you the lethal dose (in fact there is no such thing as a 'lethal dose' in medicine, as individual animals do not behave in predictable ways when presented with drugs). If you thinking of taking it, don't. Whichever form of rat poison you are talking about, it is far more likely to make you horribly sick on ITU with tubes in all orifices rather than actually kill you.

Answer 2

I'm not going to do your homework for you, but:

The active ingredient in most rat poisons is called "Warfarin" - it is an anticoagulant that is used medically in humans (but is toxic in high doses).

The way in which toxicity is measured is the LD50 (or "Median Lethal Dose") - which is the dose that would kill 50% of the subjects taking it. Obviously, this is not done on humans - but you generally take a dose-per-weight calculation, and figure out from that what the dosage is that would kill an average human.