Cozy Corner

The bombs that terrorists use are among the most evil weapons ever invented. The explosives are bad enough, but palestinians have chosen to add metal pieces to the bombs to increase their deadliness, and to deliberately wound as many Israelis as possible. These extras are manufactured in not a tactical poison, so wouldn't necessarily be effective. As Meryl notes, focusing in on a small piece of the argument lets folks ignore that these weapons are among the most barbaric in use on the planet today.

But I decided to do 30 seconds of research into the rat poison "myth".

JWR, 2002:

Doctors in Israeli hospitals had been noticing that when they operated on people wounded in homicide bombing attacks, patients often continued to bleed even after being sutured. Eventually, a young medical resident figured out why: The terrorists filled their bombs with as many nails, screws, glass shards and pieces of shrapnel as they could, and these were first dipped in rat poison. The rat poison worked as an anti-coagulant.

Now Israeli emergency room doctors can treat bombing victims with Vitamin K to control the bleeding, but as the Rocky Mountain News reported, stronger drugs can cost up to $10,000 per vial.

WorldNetDaily, 2002:

X-rays taken from victims of suicide bombings reveal pieces of metallic fragments embedded in their skin, muscles, organs and bones, says Dr. Michael Messing, who visited the victims of suicide bombings while at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Suicide bombers pack their bombs with nails and other objects so even survivors of suicide bombings will suffer from the bomb's effects.

"They're trying to maximize the number of people they kill and injure," said Messing of the terrorists.

These bombs, which Messing says are sometimes funded by Palestinian authorities including Yasser Arafat, are packed with spikes, nails, screws, nuts, bullets, mortar, ball bearings and even rat poison.

Physicians for Human Rights, 2002:

Metal nuts removed from a patient after a homicide bombing by doctors at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. The hospital now has a collection of items such as screws, nails and rat poison residue, all added to the explosives presumably to increase the destructive power of the bombs. A PHR physician was present after the March 21st Jerusalem cafe bombing, and witnessed nickel-sized ball-bearings being removed from one injured man's back by medical center staff.

That last one, from a fairly reputable group, sounds a lot like firsthand knowledge.