An odorless, tasteless gas wafts into the crowded room,
unnoticed by anyone. Filtered through the air system, it spreads quickly.
And in minutes, everyone present will be dead.
Nerve agents target the nervous system with a chemical inhibitor that targets
acetylcholinesterase. That’s a mouthful - and it’s also one of the most important enzymes in
the human body, because it regulates the key neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Without it,
the body is unable to perform basic functions. Those exposed to nerve agents lose control of
their pupils, their salivary glands, and their excretions. They soon go into convulsions,
lose the ability to breathe independently, and soon die of cardiac arrest or asphyxiation.
And what makes these so deadly is how stealthy they are.
Most nerve agents are colorless, tasteless gases that can be aerosolized. Many have no odor at all,
while others have a faint fruity smell. Simply breathing in a small amount can
be fatal in minutes - and wearing a mask isn’t enough protection,
because they can be absorbed through the skin as well. First developed in Germany
during the lead-up to the Second World War, they’ve been the subject of much research
since - with countries in a deadly arms race to create the deadliest nerve agent around.
Nerve agents are stealthy, invisible weapons that may be the deadliest killers out there - and
they have a long and shocking history. These are the deadliest nerve agents in the world.
#10. Demeton
While nerve agents were most notorious for their use in war, that’s not their most common use. In
fact, they’ve been used to kill billions around the world - but not humans! Mild versions of
nerve agents are used heavily in insecticides and other pesticides to eliminate crop-damaging bugs,
and one of the first introduced was Demeton. An oily amber liquid that vaguely smelled like
sulfur, this organophosphate compound had much in common with weaponized nerve agents used
in warfare - so naturally, the best thing to do was to spray it all over our lawns!
What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out, a lot. The first systemic insecticide, it was developed by Bayer in
1951 and used for decades as a spray over large crop fields. Thirty years after its introduction,
162,000 pounds of it was being used in a single year to wipe out insects. But the problem was,
it was effective - a little too effective. While machines were largely used to distribute
the toxin, humans still had to load those machines and handle the substance. And
more and more reports started coming in of people having ill effects from exposure.
So how deadly was Demeton?
Fortunately, not nearly as deadly as some of the nerve agents on this list. Designed for insects,
it had a much lower toxicity and humans could only become sick from a massive
overdose. But there were some close calls - including a teenage boy who was exposed
by an industrial sprayer. He passed out and reported trouble breathing,
although he fully recovered. After multiple incidents like this, Demeton started to look
like a liability - and more effective, less dangerous insecticides were developed. Soon,
the once-ubiquitous nerve agent was pulled off the market, and its registration was canceled in 1998.
This next one was used as a deadly weapon - so why are people willingly exposing themselves to it?
#9. Paraoxon
Another organophosphate compound, Paraoxon was initially designed as an insecticide - and may
have been a little too good at its job. Easily absorbed through the skin and highly potent,
it affects just about every part of the body’s nervous system, and an overdose can quickly result
in death from asphyxiation or cardiac arrest. While not the most potent nerve agent around,
it’s around 70% as potent as some of the deadliest - and that’s a massive
risk factor for a compound that was designed for common use as a bug-killer.
But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have practical uses.
Some of the most poisonous compounds out there have benefits when used very carefully - just
ask all the people who get Botox, which is derived from the toxin that causes botulism!
In the case of Paraoxon, it can be refined and used as an ophthalmologic drug to prevent
glaucoma. But when used in large amounts, it stands the risk of poisoning anyone who is
heavily exposed and was quickly pulled off the market in most countries. It was even shown to
be potentially toxic to fetuses and to kill all forms of wildlife in the vicinity, not just bugs.
But to one country, that might have been a selling point.
Paraoxon, known as Parathion in its industrial form, was used by British
South African occupation forces during the Rhodesian Bush War. It was even used
to poison clothing - with the toxin affecting people through the skin. And the South African
government would eventually research its use as a chemical weapon during the 1980s,
as the Apartheid-era government desperately tried to hold on to power by any means necessary. Today,
it is banned as both an insecticide and a chemical weapon in most countries.
Vanity can have deadly consequences - and
some people found that out the hard way with this next agent.
#8. Thallium
Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol TL, discovered in 1861 as a residue from production of
sulfuric acid. Today, it’s produced commercially as a byproduct of refining heavy-metal ores,
and it’s considered useful for its toxicity as an insecticide and rat poison. However,
it also has its uses in other non-death-related purposes,
like infrared detectors and nuclear testing. But because it’s so rare and so hard to produce,
it’s highly valuable - which means that despite its danger, it remains in high demand.
But it’s also wanted for another, more nefarious purpose.
Thallium is a highly toxic compound that is believed to have carcinogenic properties - but
someone who is exposed to enough of it probably won’t have to worry about cancer. It’s colorless,
odorless, and tasteless, and those exposed to it usually experience hair loss and peripheral
nerve damage - which can cause agonizing pain. However, in the early days after its development,
people didn’t understand how dangerous it was, so it was commonly used as a
hair removal tool! Needless to say, the folly in that soon became very clear.
And today, it’s nicknamed “the poisoner’s poison”.
While it’s not the most readily available, Thallium is easily found for purchase on
rare elements markets, and due to how hard it is to detect, it was a popular choice
for assassinations and poisonings. Its deadly symptoms are slow-acting and can
easily be mistaken for many other ailments - and it was almost invariably fatal until the
antidote Prussian Blue was medically approved. This potassium-based medicine largely put the
Thallium poisoning industry out of business, and the assassin market moved on to other substances.
This next nerve agent never made its way onto the battlefield - and
a lot of powerful people hope it stays that way.
#7. EA-4056
Not all the deadliest nerve agents made their way out into the world - and that’s a very
good thing. During the Cold War, the arms race extended to just about every kind of weapon,
and that included deadly chemical weapons that had been long outlawed. During this period,
the US experimented with carbamate nerve agents, which killed by creating
an overdose of acetylcholine between the nerve and muscle cells. This would shut down most of
the voluntary and involuntary muscles in the body - including those needed for breathing.
So just how deadly was this toxin?
It’s hard to say, since the only thing we know about it is what has leaked from government
documents. Patents were filed by the US Army in 1967, but there is no evidence that the
weapons were ever deployed in the field. And given the potential of this weapon,
that’s a good thing. The toxin is easily absorbed by the lungs, digestive tract,
and skin, which means that it would be very easy to kick off the poisoning. While it could
be one of the most poisonous compounds in the world, it’s believed to not be
the most effective due to the difficulty of penetrating the brain-blood barrier.
So why was it never deployed?
The odds are that the compound was one of many weapons designed for an eventual Third World
War - which thankfully never happened. While the US did not use chemical weapons in the Second
World War - where they were outlawed - and was unlikely to resort to them as a first strike, it’s
possible that in an escalating war, they would have fallen back on them if the war escalated. No
one is sure how much of this compound exists in the classified stores of the US government,
and everyone hopes we never find out. It’s locked safely up in a lab - for now.
Now, let’s turn back the clock to World War
2 - as the Nazis developed weapons that could scour the battlefield.
#6. Cyclosarin
How did nerve agents make their way into the world originally? It shouldn’t surprise you
that the Nazis had something to do with it. Research into these new, deadlier chemical
weapons began in the 1920s, with the first weapons being developed in the early 1930s - just in time
for the Nazis to come to power and seek to turn the work of Dr. Gerhard Schrader into
Germany’s newest trump card. Multiple weapons were developed, but were never widely deployed
in combat - and the final one, Cyclosarin, wasn’t developed until years after the war.
But these weapons would be the deadliest nerve agents yet.
Cyclosarin is a colorless liquid with a vaguely sweet and musty odor - like a combination of
peaches and shellac. It evaporates slowly, but is flammable and as such rather tricky
to use as a weapon. It was first developed in commercial insecticide laboratories,
but as soon as its lethality was discovered, it was quickly moved into active development as a
weapon. As part of the G-series of nerve agents, it takes away the one saving grace of most of the
previous nerve agents - time. Unlike the previous weapons, it can kill in minutes.
So why did it never become the scourge of the world?
Essentially, it was a tricky compound to produce, and it wasn’t as easy to weaponize as its sister
nerve agents. Both the United States and Great Britain studied it after the war,
but no country weaponized it due to its cost - except for Iraq,
which used it in the Iran-Iraq war. When paired with other nerve agents and stabilizing compounds,
it can be used as an effective binary munition, but it’s not easy to turn into
a lethal gas - which makes it the odd sibling out in the infamous G-series.
Because some of the others are among the most feared names in
chemical weapons - and there may be tons of them still out there.
#5. Tabun
The first of the G-series nerve agents, it was the first to be produced under the
Nazi regime - and Germany was ready to invest heavily in it. During the 1940s,
as the war started slipping away from the Nazis, over 12,000 metric tons of the toxic
compound was produced - but its history was a lot more complicated. It was first discovered
by accident in 1936, when Dr. Gerhard Schraeder was experimenting on creating a new and more
effective insecticide - and instead he created a compound that was deadly to just about everything.
How toxic was it? Everyone involved was about to find out.
The product was so dangerous that tests had to be conducted behind double-glass walls,
and it soon became clear that anything mammalian would suffer lethal effects from exposure.
When someone is exposed, they immediately experience restlessness, pupil contraction,
and excessive salivation before the toxin starts affecting their nervous system more seriously.
The heartbeat slows down, the body becomes paralyzed, convulsions begin, and eventually
the victim falls into unconsciousness - with death to follow within two hours at most when
applied through the skin. But an inhaled lethal dose will typically kill in under ten minutes.
So why was so much Tabun produced?
Tabun is the easiest nerve agent to produce from the G-series, but it was never used in combat by
the Nazis due to Hitler’s personal distaste for chemical weapons after being exposed to
mustard gas as a soldier during the Great War. It’s more likely however that Germany
realized it was completely outgunned by the allies in the chemical weapons department,
with both the US and Britain stockpiles an order of magnitude greater than anything
Germany could produce. The German stock of Tabun was ultimately captured by the Allies
when Germany fell, but at the Nuremberg trials, one ironic twist came to light. Albert Speer,
one of the only Nazis to cooperate with the tribunal, admitted that he had planned to
assassinate Hitler during the last year of the war - using Tabun in the ventilation shaft!
And the next G-series nerve agent might have done
it one better - because it doesn’t just affect the body. It can affect the mind.
#4. Soman
During the dying days of World War II, Nazi scientists continued to work on developing
new and deadlier nerve agents. While Hitler was largely opposed to the use of chemical weapons,
that didn’t stop the research - and in 1944, they hit jackpot. Soman,
a colorless liquid with a faint odor of camphor, was developed by a team of
Richard Kuhn and Konrad Henkel. These two renowned scientists - one a Nobel
Laureate - soon realized that they had created possibly the most lethal nerve agent ever.
And the tests would confirm just how dangerous it was.
This nerve agent targets the generation of acetylcholine like many others,
but it also affects other enzymes - giving it even more chances to shut
down the body’s vital symptoms. However, some of these reduce its toxicity,
making it more of a wild card. But the odds of surviving a significant dose of Soman is minimal,
with the common symptoms being vomiting, extreme muscle pain, nerve damage, and death when exposed
to a significant amount. Additionally, those who survive a non-lethal dose of Soman have shown
significant psychological effects - including interrupted sleep and antisocial tendencies.
So why isn’t Soman more widespread?
It’s mostly a question of timing. Soman is considered the most potent of the G-series
nerve agents, but it was only produced in small amounts and was never used in
World War II. While over 9,000 raw tons of it were discovered when it was outlawed in 1993,
few had been refined into weapons. Its uses are limited, although it can be
used as a chemical spray or a binary chemical weapon when paired with another compound. But
its lack of easy use is probably the biggest thing keeping the world safe.
Because only one member of the G-series became truly infamous - in
a horrifying attack that killed 14 civilians.
#3. Sarin
There is no chemical compound that strikes more fear in the hearts of scientists than
Sarin - the most effective of all the G-Series nerve agents. While not the
strongest nerve agent in the world, it is considered the deadliest due to how
effective it is as a weapon. Colorless and odorless, it can be easily turned into a gas
for easy distribution. First discovered in 1938 Germany as part of pesticide research,
it was quickly passed onto the Nazi weapons research divisions and mass-produced. By
the end of the war, as much as ten tons were produced by Nazi Germany.
And that was only the beginning.
While Hitler didn’t use Sarin as a chemical weapon, it was soon accepted as a weapon after
the war and both the United States and Soviet Union would be mass-producing it in short order.
Its deadliness would soon be proven - in 1953, a British Air Force engineer would die during
human testing of Sarin. Due to how fast it killed its victims by paralyzing the nervous system, it
would be adopted by just about every country that wanted deadly poisons would weaponize it - and
soon missiles around the world would be loaded with Sarin bomblets.
But things rarely stay where they’re supposed to be.
While few countries used Sarin in combat, - besides Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in an
infamous attack on a Kurdish city - it became commonly used as a poison. Most infamously,
the Japanese terrorist sect Aum Shinrikyo used Sarin in multiple gas attacks in Nagano and Tokyo,
including a deadly Subway attack that killed twelve people. Even today,
it’s being frequently used in the Syrian Civil War against civilians - proving that
once things get out of the bottle, it’s nearly impossible to put them back in.
And that means that a horrifying attack like the one in Japan could happen again.
Sarin is the most commonly-used deadly nerve agent - but these two are so deadly
that they’ve become popular assassination tools.
#2. VX
Humanity never leaves well enough alone, and research continued into nerve agents well into the
Cold War. In the early 1950s, British scientists continued to experiment on these deadly toxins
- and Ranajit Ghosh created a whole new series of them known as the V-series. While many were
essentially prototypes that were never used to any significant degree, they hit a deadly jackpot with
Venomous Agent X, soon nicknamed VX. Highly potent and with a similar mechanism of action to Sarin,
it can be absorbed through the skin or inhalation - and it only takes tens of milligrams to kill.
Which makes it a highly inviting poison.
VX can shut down the respiratory and nervous system within minutes,
with no antidote available and little treatment possible given the speed of death. The only
saving grace for those in proximity is that it takes direct exposure to be fatal,
and dispersed vapor is not considered a danger. The lethal poison can be used to contaminate an
area and prevent enemy forces from entering it, although due to its extreme danger it is
not commonly used in combat. It was used by Cuba when they invaded Angola in 1975 in support of
a communist group and targeted the pro-western group with chemical weapons, as well as by the
Aum Shinrikyo sect in a 1994 assassination - a year before the cult’s infamous subway attack.
But one incident made this poison notorious worldwide.
Kim Jong-Nam was living an unusual life for a son of the North Korean Kim dynasty. The
oldest son of the late Kim Jong-il, he had been exiled from North Korea in 2003 and
had been living abroad - far from his younger brother, the ruling Kim Jong-un. But he was
still seen as a threat - and so, in 2017, when he arrived at an airport in Malaysia,
he was accosted by two women. He didn’t seem to be injured at first - but quickly collapsed.
He died less than twenty minutes later from VX poisoning, applied on his face with a cloth. It
was one of the most brazen assassinations in the world - and it drove home just how deadly VX was.
But Russia may have invented the deadliest nerve agent in the entire
world, and if backed in a corner could be prepared to unleash it!
#1. Novichok
It was the 1970s when the Soviet state chemical research facility cracked the
code of what might be the deadliest nerve agent in the world. The Novichok group of
nerve agents is either solid or liquid in its natural form, depending on the variant,
and can be distributed in either form - including as a powder. This makes it very
easy to weaponize - and it’s believed to be the most potent nerve agent out there, with
some variants being up to eight times more potent than VX and up to ten times deadlier than Soman.
But what we know about it is limited.
Russia is notoriously tight-lipped about their weapons program - unless they’re
threatening to unleash it in the middle of a war. But what is known is that it was
designed for a war against the United States and NATO, to be undetectable,
and to be able to get through NATO protective gear. And because it was designed so late,
it circumvented the Chemical Weapons Convention’s list of prohibited
substances - leading to its eventually being added in the only major amendment to the treaty.
But unlike many other chemical weapons,
we’re still seeing it in use today - in the worst way possible.
In the last decade, Russia has become notorious for using poison to target its
critics. Victims included dissident Alexei Navalny and former spy Segei Skripal and
his daughter Yulia - both targeted abroad. While those three survived,
they suffered serious ill effects - and other victims died quickly. In all cases, finding the
source of the poison was difficult, which made treating it even trickier. Currently, Russia
refuses to admit any role in the poisonings, and the deadly Novichok agents are currently being
produced in Iran - which makes many people worry they could show up on the battlefield.
Russia is using other deadly weapons too. Check out “Death By Polonium-210 - How Russia
Takes Out One of Its Own Spies” for another tale of murder, or watch this video instead.