Disasters toxicological

THE ROLE OF CLINICAL TOXICOLOGY IN MINIMIZING ADVERSE HEALTH EFFECTS RELATED TO CHEMICAL DISASTERS... 

Sulfanilamide disaster left its mark on regulatory law, and hence on pharmaceutical manufacturing, and prompted significant innovation in toxicology. 

Most, if not all, occupational illnesses associated with 2,4,5-T (such as chloracne) have been found to be the result of product contamination with TCDD. TCDD is extremely toxic to animals, and exposure has also been associated with liver function impairment, peripheral neuropathy, personality changes, porphyria cutanea, hypertrichosis, and hyperpigmentation in humans. TCDD is a chlorinated dioxin, one of a large number of related compounds referred to as dioxins it has no functional use and is not intentionally produced. It has been identified as the responsible toxic agent in several industrial disasters, such as accidental releases at Nitro, WV in 1949, and at Seveso, Italy in 1976. " The role of dioxin contaminants must also be considered in the discussion of 2,4,5-T toxicology. 

A second lesson from the disaster is that toxicological knowledge of the chemical would have helped in the treatment of the victims. There was... 

Yoshida, T. (1994). Toxicological reconsideration of organophosphate poisoning in relation to the possible nerve-gas sarin-poison disaster happened in Matsumoto-city, Nagano. Jpn. J. Toxicol. Environ. Health 40 486-97. 

Li, Q., Hirata, Y., Kawada, T., Minami, M. (2004). Elevated frequency of sister chromatid exchanges of lymphocytes in sarin-exposed victims of the Tokyo sarin disaster 3 years after the event. Toxicology 201(1-3) 209-17. 

For the next 20 years from 1964 to 1984 no follow-up of these studies was done. The world had to have its worst industrial disaster in the last month of 1984 to prompt a renewed interest in the toxicology of MIC this provoked The Lancet (Editorial, 1984) to comment In a year s time we will have learned a lot more about methyl isocyanate - at an appalling price. It is to the credit of Kimmerle and Eben (1964) that their stringent observations were confirmed by all the studies since 1984. On the other hand, acute toxicity studies are not predictors of long-term effects (Salmon,... 

Coppock, R.W. (2009). Potential agents that can cause contamination of animal feedstuffs and terror. In Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents (R.C. Gupta, ed.), pp. 739 5. Academic Press/Elsevier, New York. Cunningham, S.A. (2005). Incident, accident, catastrophe cyanide on the Danube. Disasters 29 99-128. 

Gomez de la Camara A, Abaitua Borda I, Posada de la Paz M (1997) Toxicologists versus toxicological disasters toxic oil syndrome, clinical aspects. Berlin/Heidelberg, Springer Verlag. 

Terrorism—Government policy—United States. 5. Disaster medicine—United States. I. Institute of Medicine (U.S.). Committee on R D Needs for Improving Civilian Medical Response to Chemical and Biological Terrorism Incidents. II. National Research Council (U.S.). Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. 

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