This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (38)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

A Review of Methyl Isocyanate Toxicity

Pushpa S. Mehta, MD; Anant S. Mehta; Sunder J. Mehta, MD; Arjun B. Makhijani, PhD

JAMA. 1990;264(21):2781-2787.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

SIX YEARS AGO, on December 3, 1984, a toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released methyl isocyanate (MIC) and its reaction products. The number of persons "exposed" and "injured" remains uncertain.¹ Official estimates from the Indian government place the dead at around 1800.² Others estimate mortality to have been between 2500 and 5000 and the number of injured to have been up to 200 000.^3,4

Until the Bhopal incident, neither deaths nor cases of toxic effects from MIC exposure had been recorded in Index Medicus.⁵1 We have extensively surveyed the medical literature concerning effects of MIC exposure on the victims of the disaster and laboratory studies in animals. A great deal has been learned, but many questions still remain unanswered.

THE BHOPAL PLANT

In 1969, the Union Carbide Corporation built a formulation plant in Bhopal, India, to mix and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From Humana Hospital, Aurora, Colo (Dr P. S. Mehta); School of Business, University of Texas, Austin (A. S. Mehta); the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver (Dr S. J. Mehta); and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Takoma Park, Md (Dr Makhijani).

Footnotes
Reprint requests to 5760 S Geneva St, Englewood, CO 80111 (Dr P. S. Mehta).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?