Metals in the News!

News and links of interest to the Chemistry 2211a course

Rev r16-a – will be updated as new terms are introduced into the course.

I think you will find these sites of interest during the course – this first one is an historical list of known metal-contamination incidents..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_contamination_incidents

List of food contamination incidents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Food may be accidentally or deliberately contaminated by microbiological, chemical or physical hazards.

In contrast to microbiologically caused foodborne illness, the link between exposure and effect of chemical hazards in foods is usually complicated by cumulative low doses and the delay between exposure and the onset of symptoms. Chemical hazards include environmental contaminants, food ingredients (such as iodine), heavy metals, mycotoxins, natural toxins, improper storage, processing contaminants, and veterinary medicines.

Incidents have occurred because of poor harvesting or storage of grain, use of banned veterinary products, industrial discharges, human error and deliberate adulteration and fraud.[1]

Definition of an incident[edit]

An "incident" of chemical food contamination may be defined as an episodic occurrence of adverse health effects in humans (or animals that might be consumed by humans) following high exposure to particular chemicals, or instances where episodically high concentrations of chemical hazards were detected in the food chain, and traced back to a particular event.[1]

Socio-economic impacts[edit]

Information on the impacts of these incidents is fragmentary and unsystematic, ranging from thousands of dollars to meet the cost of monitoring analysis, to many millions of dollars due to court prosecutions, bankruptcy, product disposal, compensation for revenue loss, damage to brand or reputation, or loss of life.[1]

List of notable incidents[edit]

Ancient times[edit]

Roman Empire – There is speculation that the Romans, in particular the elite, suffered chronic to severe lead poisoning due to the ubiquity of this metal in e.g. lined pots in which acidic foodstuffs were boiled, over and above any mere exposure to lead in water pipes. They also used sugar of lead to sweeten their wines.[2]

19th century[edit]

1880s – arsenical contamination of sugar in beer[3]

1857 – adulteration of bread with alum in London, causing rickets[4]

1858 – sweets poisoned with arsenic in Bradford, England.

1900 to 1949[edit]

1900 – Beer contaminated with arsenic. Traced to sugar manufactured with sulphuric acid that was naturally contaminated with arsenic from Spanish pyrites. An epidemic of 6070 cases in London, including 70 deaths[5]

1910–45 – Cadmium from mining waste contaminated rice irrigation water in Japan. Illness known as Itai-itai disease affected more than 20% of women aged over 50 years[6]

1920 – In South Africa, 80 people suffered poisoning from eating bread contaminated with naturally occurring pyrrolizidine alkaloids.[7]

1900–47 – Severe and widespread neurological disorders due to bleaching of bread flour with the agene process for bleaching of flour with nitrogen chloride, a process no longer in use. The denatured protein in the treated flour is toxic and causes a condition of hysteria in dogs eating biscuits made from the flour.[8]

1930s – A striking example of OPIDN Organophosphate poisoning occurred during the 1930s Prohibition Era when thousands of men in the American South and Midwest developed arm and leg weakness and pain after drinking a "medicinal" alcohol substitute. The drink, called "Ginger Jake," contained an adulterated Jamaican ginger extract containing tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate (TOCP) which resulted in partially reversible neurologic damage. The damage resulted in the limping "Jake Leg" or "Jake Walk" which were terms frequently used in the blues music of the period. Europe and Morocco both experienced outbreaks of TOCP poisoning from contaminated abortifacients and cooking oil, respectively.[33]

With a good news focus

https://www.copper.org/consumers/health/cu_health_uk.html

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1492621-crops-in-china-ruined-by-heavy-metal-contamination/

https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/metalsheavy/index.html

http://www.who.int/ceh/capacity/heavy_metals.pdf

http://www.academia.edu/543847/Effect_of_Toxic_Metals_on_Human_Health

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/04/protein-drinks/index.htm

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/25/heavy-metal-electromagnetic-fields.aspx