Several people on the ground seem to believe that it was a chemical agent.
He said the authorities had not yet ruled out the presence of some sort of biological or chemical agent.
Hair can also be examined, partly because it will pick up tiny traces of a chemical agent in the atmosphere.
BBC: Syria chemical weapons claims: UK and US tread cautiously
One advantage of photothermal ablation is the lack of a chemical agent.
There is no verification system known today or in prospect that will be able unfailingly to detect lethal chemical agent production and storage.
Dr. HILTERMAN: Well, I think so because each time it was using a new chemical agent and it was starting to gas civilians as well.
Soil samples can be taken in which you can look for either residue of a chemical agent or the product's characteristic of when an agent degrades.
BBC: Syria chemical weapons claims: UK and US tread cautiously
Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union has in place today the necessary facilities to dispose safely of the vast quantities of lethal chemical agent that would have to destroyed under the bilateral accord.
Before the uprising, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre (CERS) was believed to run at least four chemical agent manufacturing plants - at Dumayr, Khan Abou, Shamat and Furklus - and operate additional storage sites dispersed across the country in some 50 different towns and cities.
It says it was capable of carrying up to 60 litres of chemical nerve agent.
They would collect environmental samples such as soil, rubble or vegetation that may have been in contact with the chemical warfare agent and may still contain characteristic degradation products or even traces of it.
In January, Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group based in Berea, Kentucky, insisted that the arsenal's stockpile was a prime candidate for neutralisation, a process planned for bulk chemical-agent stockpiles at the sites in Maryland and Indiana.
If a chemical or biological agent binds to the electrode, it triggers a signal.
Researchers are developing lightweight, automated sensors that can provide long-range detection and automatic reporting of chemical and biological agent hazards.
But that would not be the same as using chemical weapons such as a nerve or blister agent.
American ex-servicemen exposed to Agent Orange have mounted a successful case against Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the companies that made it.
He says learned he had chemical diabetes nearly 10 years ago after he was exposed to Agent Orange during his Vietnam tours.
The chemical manufacturer has had a chequered history, including making napalm and Agent Orange for the US government during the Vietnam War.
When the agent made contact with a catalyst embedded in the material, a chemical reaction bonded the two faces of the crack together.
But that would not be the same as using a chemical weapons as defined by international treaties, such as a nerve or blister agent.
According to the October 1994 Reader's Digest, Mr. Mirzayanov is personally aware of Russia's development of a class of binary chemical weapons (formed by combining two relatively safe chemicals to produce a toxic agent) nicknamed "Novichok" (Newcomer).
At Dow Chemical, someone censored details about the company's birth-defect-inducing Agent Orange.
The test uses a chemical called florbetapir, known by the brand name Amyvid, which is a radioactive agent that tags clumps of a sticky substance called an amyloid.
Similarly, someone on a Dow Chemical computer deleted details of the company's development of birth defect-inducing Agent Orange and the continuing controversy around the Bhopal disaster, in which Union Carbide, a firm that Dow later acquired, was responsible for the death of as many as 22, 000 Indians.
Given the importance of all kinds of chemicals to industry around the world and the ease with which virtually any fertilizer, pharmaceutical or plastics manufacturing plant can be used, when required, to make a batch of weapons agent, no ban on production can solve or even substantially mitigate the chemical weapons problem.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Blowing Smoke About Making Deadly Gas
It's difficult to determine if chemical weapons have been deployed, unless you can recover a munition that retains traces of agent, said Martin.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs decided that the link between air-borne dioxin (an ingredient in Agent Orange, and also a common air-borne pollutant emitted by waste incineration, some chemical manufacturing processes, cars and trucks, and other industrial sources that burn fuel) and diabetes was so strong, it compensated 270, 000 veterans for diabetes linked to dioxin exposure.
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