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.
• 1970 Michigan cattle poisoning with insecticide.^[2]
• 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.
• 2016 Punjab sweet poisoning

See also

• List of food contamination incidents
• List of foodborne illness outbreaks
• List of medicine contamination incidents

References

1. "Myths and Realities of Phasing Out Leaded Gasoline" (PDF). Unep.org. Retrieved 2016-05-05.
2. Gleason, Rachael (2010-06-04). "Poisoning Michigan: Author revisits PBB crisis 30 years later". Great Lakes Echo. Retrieved 2016-05-05.