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.
Definition of an incident 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.
Socio-economic impacts 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.
List of notable incidents
Ancient times Roman Empire – There is speculation that the Romans, in particular the elite, suffered severe chronic lead poisoning due to the ubiquity of lead in e.g. lined pots in which acidic foodstuffs were boiled, over and above any exposure to lead in water pipes. They also used sugar of lead to sweeten their wines.
Middle Ages Europe – Numerous incidents of human poisoning due to the consumption of rye bread made from grain infected with ergot fungi.
Early modern period England and France - In the 17th century, lead contamination in cider led to a condition called Devon colic in England and Poitou colic in France. The precise cause, extensive use of lead in the cidermaking process, was not discovered until the 1760s.
19th century 1850s – Swill milk scandal in New York. 1857 – Adulteration of bread with alum in London, causing rickets. 1857 – Esing Bakery incident: poisoning of bread with arsenic in Hong Kong targeting the colonial community. 1858 – Sweets poisoned with arsenic in Bradford, England.
1900 to 1949 1900 – 1900 English beer poisoning – Beer contaminated with arsenic. Traced to sugar manufactured with sulfuric acid that was naturally contaminated with arsenic from Spanish pyrites. An epidemic of 6,070 cases in London, including 70 deaths. Also printed as 1910–45 – Cadmium from mining waste contaminated rice irrigation water in Japan. The illness, known as itai-itai disease, affected more than 20% of women aged over 50 years. 1920 – In South Africa, 80 people suffered poisoning from eating bread contaminated with naturally occurring pyrrolizidine alkaloids. 1900s–49 – Agene process; Severe and widespread neurological disorders due to bread flour bleached with agene, 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. 1930s – An epidemic of OPIDN organophosphate poisoning occurred during the 1930s Prohibition Era. Thousands of men in the American South and Midwest developed arm and leg weakness and pain after drinking a "medicinal" alcohol substitute called "Ginger Jake". The substance contained an adulterated Jamaican ginger extract, which was contaminated with tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate (TOCP). The contamination 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 experienced outbreaks of TOCP poisoning from contaminated abortifacients. Morocco experienced outbreaks of TOCP poisoning from contaminated cooking oil. 1942 – Prisoners at the Vapniarka concentration camp, in present day Ukraine, were fed a diet containing significant quantities of Lathyrus sativus, a species of pea that was normally used to feed livestock. A team of doctors among the inmates, led by Dr. Arthur Kessler of Cernăuţi, reached the conclusion that the disease presented all the symptoms of lathyrism,"Dr. Arthur Kessler (1903–2000)" , in Lathyrus Lathyrism Newsletter, Vol. 3, pp. 3–4; Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania, 1940-1944. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2006, , p. 197; Kornis, pp. 228–229 a spastic paralysis caused by the oxalyldiaminopropionic acid present in the pea fodder. Within a few weeks, the first symptoms of the disease appeared, affecting the bone marrow of prisoners and causing paralysis. By January 1943, hundreds of prisoners were suffering from lathyrism. 1942 – On November 18, inmates and employees at Oregon State Hospital were served scrambled eggs into which sodium fluoride, used by the hospital as an insecticide to control cockroaches, had accidentally been mixed. Subsequent investigation concluded that another inmate, while assisting cooks at the asylum, confused the insecticide with powdered milk that was similarly colored and stored in the same location. 467 people became violently ill shortly after consuming the poison-contaminated food, and 47 subsequently died from its effects.
1950 to 2000 1951 – 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning in France, probably caused by ergot. 1950s – Minamata disease: Mercury poisoning in fish in Japan, contaminated by industrial discharge. By 2010 more than 14,000 victims had received financial compensation. 1955 – Morinaga Milk arsenic poisoning incident: Arsenic in milk powder in Japan. An industrial grade of monosodium phosphate additive which inadvertently contained 5–8% arsenic, was added to milk fed to infants. Over 600 died, and over 6,000 people suffered health effects such as severe intellectual disability. Those health effects have continued in the remaining survivors today. 1956 — Bread made from flour inadvertently contaminated with eldrin (an insecticide) caused serious illness in 49 people in the Welsh town of Pontardawe. 1957 – In the United States, millions of chickens died after eating dioxin-contaminated feed, and 300,000 more were killed to prevent consumption. It was later discovered that the feed was made with contaminated tallow, eventually traced to the use of trimmings from pentachlorophenol-treated cow hides at rendering plants. 1959 – Moroccan oil poisoning disaster: several thousand people in Meknes suffer flaccid paralysis caused by deliberate contamination of cooking oil with jet engine lubricating oil containing tricresyl phosphate got as surplus from a US airbase at Nouaceur. 1965 – Epping jaundice outbreak: 84 people became ill due to accidental contamination of flour with 4,4'-methylenedianiline (a curing agent for epoxy resin) in Epping, Essex, United Kingdom. 1968 – Yushō disease: mass poisoning resulting from rice bran oil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls in Kyūshū, Japan. 1971 – 1971 Iraq poison grain disaster: 100 to 400 died of mercury poisoning by eating seeds intended for planting and treated with mercury as a fungicide.: "Informed travelers from Baghdad say Iraq is in the grip of a severe mercury-poisoning outbreak. The travelers, who arrived last night, reported that 100 to 400 people had died since the outbreak began early in February." 1973 – Michigan PBB contamination incident: Widespread poisoning of people in Michigan by meat from cattle fed feed contaminated with polybrominated biphenyl flame retardant.Rachael Gleason Poisoning Michigan: Author revisits PBB crisis 30 years later 4 June 2010, Great Lakes Echo 1974–1976 – Afghanistan: widespread poisoning (an estimated 7800 people affected with hepatic veno-occlusive disease (liver damage) and about 1600 deaths) was attributed to wheat contaminated with weed seeds known as charmac (Heliotropium popovii. H Riedl) that contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids. 1976 – Seveso dioxin contamination in Italy. 1979 – In central Taiwan, Over 2,000 individuals were affected by dioxin-contaminated cooking oil in what came to be called Yu-Cheng. 1981 – Spanish toxic oil syndrome. Thousands permanently damaged by eating industrial colza oil denatured with aniline and sold as olive oil. There was strong suspicion that the cause was in fact insecticide in Spanish tomatoes, and that official agencies actively supported the contaminated oil position, suppressing evidence contradicting it. 1984 – Rajneeshee bioterror attack: Cult members of a small town in Oregon spiked the salad bars of ten local restaurants with salmonella in an attempt to incapacitate voters ahead of an upcoming election. About 750 people contracted salmonellosis. 1984/85 – "Hamburger thyrotoxicosis" among residents of southwestern Minnesota and adjacent areas of South Dakota and Iowa.Hedberg CW, et al.: An outbreak of thyrotoxicosis caused by the consumption of bovine thyroid in ground beef. N Engl J Med 1987;316:993-8.Janet S. Kinney u. a.: "Community outbreak of thyrotoxicosis: Epidemiology, immunogenetic characteristics, and long-term outcome". In: The American Journal of Medicine. Volume 84, Nr. 1, January 1988, S. 10–18. 1985 – Aldicarb pesticide residue present in watermelons grown in California caused an outbreak of pesticide food poisoning which affected over 2,000 people, and lead to a temporary ban on watermelon sales. 1985 – Adulteration of Austrian wines with diethylene glycol. 1986 – Adulteration of Italian wines with ethylene glycol killed more than 18 people. 1987 – Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation paid $2.2 million, then the largest fine issued, for violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by selling artificially flavored sugar water as apple juice. John F. Lavery, the company's vice president for operations was convicted in criminal court and sentenced to a year and a day in jail; Niels L. Hoyvald, the president of the company, also convicted, served six months of community service. Each of them also paid a $100,000 fine. 1989 – Milk contamination with dioxins in Belgium. 1993 – Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak: Escherichia coli O157:H7 bacterium originating from contaminated beef patties killed four children and infected 732 people across four states in the United States. 1994 – Ground paprika in Hungary was found to be adulterated with lead oxide, causing deaths of several people, while dozens of others became sick. 1996 – Odwalla E. coli outbreak: Apple juice made using blemished fruit contaminated with E. coli bacterium, which ultimately killed one and sickened 66 people. 1996 – Japan E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in Osaka, Japan schools, with over 7,000 students affected. Linked to white radish sprouts. 1996 – Wishaw, Scotland E. coli outbreak. Butchers John M. Barr & Son sold contaminated meat products to several events. Deadliest outbreak of the 0157 strain, with 21 people killed. 1998 – Delhi oil poisoning. In New Delhi, India, edible mustard oil adulterated with Argemone mexicana seed oil caused epidemic dropsy in thousands of people, because Argemone mexicana seed oil contains the toxic alkaloids sanguinarine and dihydrosanguinarine. Over 60 people died and more than 3,000 were hospitalized in the 1998 incident. Similar incidents have occurred in India since that time: in 2000 at Gwalior, in 2002 at Kannauj, and in 2005 at Lucknow.