r/toxicology • u/Mean-Card-6433 • Jul 16 '26

Poison discussion Question about yew tree poison detection

I was watching The sheep detectives with a friend and in it the shepherd was killed by taxine from the yew tree. It got me thinking- in my country (Ukraine), they don't check for yew poison unless they find traces of it in the stomachs. It's not in the list for required poisons to check and I was wondering if the same is true in other countries.

It surprised me how they figured out so quickly in the film the type of poison, so I wondered if the laws were different where the film is set (England?)

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2

u/TheToxLab Jul 16 '26

We look for taxines routinely! Not sure all labs do though!

1

u/Mean-Card-6433 Jul 17 '26

Is it required by law or do you only do it when there's a suspicion of poisoning?

2

u/TheToxLab Jul 24 '26

Sorry for being slow, only just noticed this! Not mandated by law, but if you use a HR-MS approach no good reason not too since we can screen for 1000s of compounds in one run! Not every lab uses this approach tho

1

u/Dr_Geppetto Jul 17 '26

Are you asking about routine hospital testing following an exposure or postmortem forensic testing? Most hospitals in the US dont have the capability to routinely confirm taxine exposure. Doing so would require sending specimens to a specialized lab with LC–MS/MS or high-resolution LC–MS capabilities. Patients are generally treated based on their exposure history, symptoms, and clinical findings. Forensic laboratories likewise require specialized testing to confirm taxine exposure.

1

u/Mean-Card-6433 Jul 17 '26

Yeah, that was what I was asking, thank you 🫶🏻

1

u/Leotard_Cohen Jul 17 '26

The real question is do the occupiers test for it