Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday.
An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made.
Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening.
Photo: CNA
Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death.
Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them dying the next day.
Terbufos cannot be diluted or washed from the body by drinking a lot of water or milk, said Yen Tzung-hai (顏宗海), director of the Clinical Poison Center at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
The chemical is a highly toxic organophosphate that is used as an insecticide, Yen said.
The acceptable daily intake of terbufos for a healthy adult weighing 60kg is about 0.036mg, he said on the sidelines of a seminar organized by the center, adding that more than that would risk adverse health effects.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday said that test results showed all four ingredients in the dumplings contained traces of terbufos — as did the leaf wrapping — with the millet having an abnormally high level at 405mg/kg.
FDA Director-General Juang Shin-hun (莊聲宏) said that 12,390 agricultural products sold at markets in the past three years had been tested for terbufos, with the pesticide found in 41 samples (0.33 percent), including 11 that had “excessive” levels, but still between 0.01mg/kg and 0.51mg/kg.
The Centers for Disease Control said that blood samples of eight of the people who had symptoms tested positive for terbufos.
Almost every month there are people who are admitted to his hospital after consuming toxic organophosphates, Yen said.
The common symptoms include nausea, vomiting, excessive salivation and constricted pupils, Yen said, adding that respiratory failure and death can occur in serious cases.
However, drinking would not help, as terbufos has a high lipid solubility, he said.
What does help is getting the patient to a hospital as fast as possible for proper treatment, he added.
This week’s food poisoning cases might be the first in Taiwan caused by terbufos and it is rare to find such high concentrations of the substance in food, Yen said, adding that even crops in the field should not have such high levels.
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