| Dioxin exposure incidents |
- In 1963 a dioxin cloud escapes after an explosion in a Philips-Duphar plant (now Solvay Group) near Amsterdam. Four people died of dioxin poisoning, and 50 more suffer severe health problems. In the 1960s Philips-Duphar produced 2250 tonnes of 'Agent Orange' for the US Army.
- In 1976 large amounts of dioxin were released in an industrial accident at Seveso, although no human fatalities or birth defects occurred.
- In the 1960s, parts of the Spolana chemical plant in Neratovice, Czechoslovakia, were heavily contaminated by dioxins, when the herbicide 2,4,5-T (also a component of Agent Orange) was produced there. Workers in this factory were exposed to high concentrations of dioxins at that time. Dozens of them fell seriously ill. A possibly large amount of dioxins was flushed from the factory into the Labe river during the 2002 European flood. No direct consequences of this incident have thus far been recorded.
- In May 1999, there was a dioxin crisis in Belgium: quantities of dioxin had entered the food chain through contaminated animal feed. 7,000,000 chickens and 60,000 pigs had to be slaughtered. The scandal that followed caused a landslide in the elections one month later.
- In a 2001 case study [5], physicians reported clinical changes in a 30 year old woman who had been exposed to a massive dosage (144,000 pg/g blood fat) of dioxin equal to 16,000 times the normal body level; the highest dose of dioxin ever recorded in a human. She suffered from chloracne, nausea, vomiting, epigastric pain, loss of appetite, leukocytosis, anemia, amenorrhoea and thrombocytopenia. However, other notable laboratory tests, such as immune function tests, were relatively normal. The same study also covered a second subject who had received a dosage equivalent to 2,900 times the normal level, who apparently suffered no notable negative effects other than chloracne. These patients were provided with olestra to accelerate dioxin elimination.
- In 2004, a notable individual case of dioxin poisoning, Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko was exposed to the second-largest measured dose of dioxins, according to the reports of the physicians responsible for diagnosing him. This is the first known case of a single high dose of TCDD dioxin poisoning. Although experts suggest his face could clear up after several years, it is highly unlikely. One news report explained, that during the cold war, the KGB used dioxin to induce suicides. Dioxin was described as a mind-altering substance, that caused depression and would definitely cause the person to commit suicide, sooner or later.
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