Lead, Cyanide and Food Poisoning

Lead, Cyanide and Food Poising

It has been confirmed that children whose blood stream contain five times or more than their healthy peers are less intelligent, with lower IQs. They may have impaired kidney, anemia, severe stomachache, muscle weakness, and brain damage. The extent of damage depends on how long they have been breathing in lead-contaminated air, and consumed lead-contaminated water and food. Other sources of lead dust are from industrial paints, gasoline, and lead oxide fumes.

For both children and adults, lead poisoning impairs brain function, making them irritable, and affecting the ability to concentrate and remember.  People who live near manganese, zinc and lead smelters were found to have as much as 499 micrograms of lead per litre of blood; the normal safe limit must not exceed 100 micrograms. For adults, it causes high blood pressure, infertility, impotence, nerve disorders, muscle and joint pain. An adult in advanced country would not normally have more than 20 micrograms of lead per litre of blood.

Continuous exposure to lead for more than a few weeks may result in nerve damage, inhibiting electrical signals and slowing the transmission of oxygen to the brain, resulting in lower intelligence, irreversible learning disabilities, behaviour problems, and mental retardation.

In many parts of the world, flat bastard files are used to sharpen choppers, knives etc. The teeth of these bastard files are grooved diagonally in both directions.  They remove metal rapidly and are very convenient and effective for sharpening tools. Unfortunately, the metal surface of these files are hardened  with cyanide, which is a deadly poison. With cyanide in your blood stream, your body is unable to use oxygen, and life cannot be sustained.

In many food courts, the cooks use these files to sharpen their knife. So there is a chance that you will consume some portion of the poison, though the amount may not be critical at the moment. Other chances of cyanide ingestion are from household fires, when rubber, plastics or silks are burn.

The symptoms of cyanide poisoning are: general weakness, confusion, bizarre behaviour, excessive sleepiness, comma, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, and seizures. If the ingestion is acute, the onset is immediate and it affects the heart, causing sudden collapse. The heart beats will be extremely fast or extremely slow.

If a casualty has some of the above symptoms, seek medical treatment immediately.

The latest case on dead after consuming food I heard was a four-year-old-boy who died after eating tainted food. So the inspection of food establishment s must be done more thoroughly and those officers must be independent hygiene inspectors. Do they know the food handlers are using bastard files at the eateries?

Vegetables packed in the farm are sent directly to the food stall owners. These owners do not wash the vegetable before chopping and cooking them. This is another serious issue.