Synthetic chemicals Thalidomide

A number of chemicals, fortunately a limited number, become dangerous either when they are used wrongly, or when they are accidentally set free. Thalidomide, put on the market in 1957 by the German company Chemie Gruenenthal, was indeed a powerful sedative. But it took three years to perceive that when prescribed to pregnant women, it dramatically crippled the newborn children. The synthetic intermediate for insecticides, methyl isocyanate, which Union Carbide has used for years without incident in its West Virginia Institute plant, caused over 2,000 deaths when it escaped in 1984 from a storage tank in Union Carbide s Bhopal plant in India. 

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