Pathological and toxicological findings in glyphosate-surfactant herbicide fatality: a case report.

Glyphosate herbicide is promoted by the manufacturer as having no risks to human health, with acute toxicity being very low in normal use. In Thailand, however, poisoning from glyphosate agricultural herbicides has been increasing. A case of rapid lethal intoxication from glyphosate-surfactant herbicide involved a 37-year-old woman, who deliberately ingested approximately 500 mL of concentrated Roundup formulation (41% glyphosate as the isopropylamine salt and 15% polyoxyethylene amine; Mosanto Company). The postmortem examination revealed that the stomach contained 550 mL of yellow fluid. The gastric mucosa of anterior fundus revealed hemorrhage and the small intestines had marked dilatation and thin walls. We used the high-performance liquid chromatography method for determination of serum and gastric content levels of glyphosate. The glyphosate levels of serum and gastric content were 3.05 and 59.72 mg/mL, respectively. Toxic effects of polyoxyethylene amine and Roundup were caused by their ability to erode tissues including mucous membranes and linings of the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts. A mild degree of pulmonary congestion and edema was observed in both lungs. We proposed that the characteristic picture of microvesicular steatosis of the hepatocytes, seen predominantly in centrilobular zones of the liver, resembled drug-induced hepatic toxicity or secondary hypoxic stress.

Serum aluminium in alumina exposed workers.

This study was performed after skepticism occurred in 1994 when alumina, or aluminium oxide, was thought to be the cause of sickness and death for certain workers at the Northern Industrial Park, Lumphun province, Thailand. Zeeman-graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometric method has been developed to quantify the aluminium (Al) levels in the serum of 399 workers and 500 blood donors. The results showed that Al levels in the directly (n = 62) exposed workers was significantly different from the indirectly exposed (n = 130) and non-exposed (n = 207) workers and donors. However, symptoms found in the directly exposed workers were not significantly different from those in the indirectly exposed workers. In addition, a high percentage of headache and fatigue found in both directly and indirectly exposed workers suggested that more than one hazard could be involved in the incidence of alumina.