List of man-made mass chronic poisoning incidents

This list concerns incidents of man-made mass poisoning or chronic ill health which have occurred accidentally or at least non-deliberately i.e. where there was no intention to cause the poisoning as a main aim, and society was as a whole unaware of the issue until after the event. It excludes incidents such as bacterial contamination. It also excludes most cases of industrial exposure where a relatively small number of workers are highly exposed in specific industries - e.g. bladder cancer in rubber workers, and arsenic poisoning in tin smelters etc.

List

• The use of lead as an anti knock agent in petrol leading to suspected widespread depression of IQ scores in children in cities and near major roads.^[1]

• The agene flour breaching process which may have caused widespread neurological poisoning up until the 1950s, causing possibly Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and rickets.^[2]

• 1970 Michigan cattle poisoning with insecticide.^[3]

• Zamfara State lead poisoning epidemic
• Toxic oil syndrome-contaminated colza oil sparked an outbreak which killed over 600 people in Spain in 1981.

• Bhopal disaster

• Camelford water pollution incident

• 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning

• 1971 Iraq poison grain disaster -- Methylmercury-treated seed grain, inappropriately labelled, officially killed 650, though much higher estimates have been offered.

References

1. ↑ http://www.unep.org/transport/pcfv/PDF/Pub-AECLP-Myths.pdf
2. ↑ Nitrogen trichloride
3. ↑ ^ http://greatlakesecho.org/2010/06/04/poisoning-michigan-an-author-revisits-the-most-widespread-contamination-30-years-later/