List of man-made mass poisoning incidents

Incidents

• 1857, Hong Kong. Esing Bakery incident: 300–500 people consumed bread adulterated with large quantities of arsenic. Only three deaths were recorded, since the amount of arsenic was high enough to induce vomiting and prevent digestion. It is unknown whether the contamination was deliberate or accidental.
• 1858, England. Bradford sweets poisoning: Sweets accidentally made with arsenic were sold from a market stall which led to the poisoning of more than 200 people, including 21 deaths.
• 1971, Iraq. Iraq poison grain disaster: A mass poisoning by grain treated with a methylmercury fungicide which was imported to the country as seed and never intended for human consumption. According to several estimates, the recorded death toll varies from 459 to 650 people, though much higher estimates have been offered.

• 1973, USA. Michigan cattle poisoning with insecticide: A grain chemical was accidentally mixed in with cow feed and consumed by over 30,000 dairy cows.
• 1981, Spain. An outbreak of Toxic oil syndrome supposedly caused by contaminated colza oil killed over 600 people.

• 1984, India. The Bhopal disaster (also known as Bhopal gas tragedy): A gas leak incident which led to at least 3,787 deaths.
• 1988, England. Camelford water pollution incident: The accidental contamination of the drinking water supply to 20,000 local people and up to 10,000 tourists of the town of Camelford with 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate. Officially, there were no deaths caused by the accident.
• 2010, Nigeria. A series of lead poisonings in Zamfara State led to the deaths of at least 163 people.
• 2016, Pakistan. Punjab sweet poisoning: An accidental contamination of baked confectionery with illegal agriculture pesticides led to at least 33 deaths.

See also

• List of food contamination incidents
• List of foodborne illness outbreaks
• List of medicine contamination incidents