Poisoning incidence

Pesticide poisoning incidents from 1959-68 in Uzbekistan were analyzed. The acute poisoning analysis permitted us to divide sufferers into three groups the first indudes workers who have direct contact with pestiddes the second includes collective farm workers who worked in the fields shortly after the crops were treated and the third includes people who suffered the effects of pestiddes introduced into their bodies through water, food, and inhalation. 

Edwards, W.C. and B.R. Clay. 1977. Reclamation of rangeland following a lead poisoning incident in livestock from industrial airborne contamination of forage. Vet. Human. Toxicol. 19 247-249. 

A patient who consumed endrin-contaminated bread had serum levels of endrin of 0.053 ppm (0.053 mg/L) no endrin was detected in cerebrospinal fluid. The sample was taken 30 minutes after a convulsion (Coble et al. 1967). In another bread poisoning incident, blood from patients hospitalized with acute symptoms contained 0.007-0.032 ppm of endrin. Tissues taken at autopsy (elapsed time not specified) contained endrin at the following concentrations stomach wall, 0.16 ppm liver, 0.685 ppm and kidney, 0.116 ppm (Curley et al. 1970). 

In a poisoning incident in Pakistan, patients with convulsions (sampling time not specified) had measurable blood levels of endrin ranging from 0.0003 to 0.254 ppm (Rowley et al. 1987). Tissues of a suicide victim contained the following concentrations of endrin 11 days after ingestion of 12 g of endrin in a formulation product 0.07 mg/L in blood, 89.5 mg/kg in adipose tissue, 0.87 mg/kg in heart, 0.89 mg/kg in brain, 0.55 mg/kg in kidneys, and 1.32 mg/kg in liver (Runhaar et al. 1985). 

Information from case reports is primarily on acute toxic effects and the clinical symptoms can in some cases be rather well described. For some substances, however, effects may be observed only after a latency period and therefore, may not be recognized as being linked to the poisoning incident. 

The threshold toxic dose for histamine in foods is not precisely known. Estimates are difficult to acquire from outbreaks of histamine poisoning because of the variability in histamine content in the fish (1,65). Simidu and Hibiki ( ) estimated the threshold toxic dose for histamine in fish to be approximately 60 mg/100 g, but their methods were not terribly precise. Based on experience acquired in the investigation of hundreds of scombroid poisoning incidents, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently established 50 mg/100 g as the hazard action level for histamine in tuna. They have not yet established regulatory limits for histamine in other fish or cheese. 

Sensitive individuals children (account for majority of poisoning incidents around the home)... 

Glyphosate-related poisoning incidents are commonly reported. Most injuries are minor, although some lethal outcomes have been reported. 

Hwang et al. developed a rapid and sensitive HPLC-UV method for the analysis of nine derivatized BAs, with benzoyl chloride as the derivatization agent. The reaction is faster than with tosyl chloride and leads to stable products with shorter elution times than do dansyl derivatives. The amines were previously extracted after acidification with TCA. The method was applied to detect BAs in fried marlin fillet, implicated in a food poisoning incident (in Taipei City in 1996) and indicated that a high level of His (84.1 mg/100 g) was present in the sample (80). 

Triphenylphosphate is a colorless, odorless, crystalline solid (mp, 49°C bp, 245°C). It is moderately toxic. A similar, but much more toxic, compound is tri-o-cresyl-phosphate (TOCP), an aryl phosphate ester with a notorious record of poisonings.3 Before its toxicity was fully recognized, TOCP was a common contaminant of commercial tricresylphosphate. Tricresylphos-phate is an industrial chemical with numerous applications and consists of a mixture of phosphate esters in which the hydrocarbon moieties are meta and para cresyl substituents. It has been used as a lubricant, gasoline additive, flame retardant, solvent for nitrocellulose, plasticizer, and even a cooling fluid for machine guns. Although modem commercial tricresylphosphate contains less than 1% TOCP, contaminant levels of up to 20% in earlier products have resulted in severe poisoning incidents. 

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