In September 1982, seven people died from poisoning in the Chicago metropolitan area in the US. Six of the seven victims belonged to the same family, and the other victim, Mary Kellerman, was only 12 years old.
All the victims had consumed acetaminophen capsules, branded as Tylenol, that had been laced with potassium cyanide, an extremely toxic substance that looks like sugar in appearance and is soluble in water.
A dose of 200mg of the substance can kill a human being. Within days, an investigation into the deaths was launched, and even before authorities could definitively determine the source of the poison, they held a press conference informing the public to not take Tylenol.
When all tampered bottles were determined to have been from the same lot, the manufacturer of the pills, Johnson & Johnson, issued a recall of all Tylenol bottles with the same serial number.
Soon thereafter, with evidence of a few more bottles from other lots uncovered, all Tylenol pills in the entire Chicago metropolitan area were recalled and a nationwide recall followed.
The manufacturer used various mediums to reassure the public and go as far as to distribute warnings to hospitals and distributors to not prescribe the medication. Eventually, the production of Tylenol was stopped, and all advertisements were also temporarily halted.
The recall and halting of Tylenol sales and the issuing of refunds to those who had purchased the medication, cost Johnson & Johnson more than $100m. When we account for inflation, that would amount to more than $300m today.
Forty years later, a spate of poisonings is happening in SA. Over the past year, several children have died from pesticide poisonings. Six of these deaths occurred just a few weeks ago.
It has since emerged that the children died from exposure to a pesticide called terbufos, commonly known as halephirimi. The same pesticide was determined to have also caused the deaths of five children in Soweto a year ago.
Despite this, and demands from experts such as the head of the University of Cape Town’s environmental division, Prof Andrea Rother, to have the pesticide banned, there have not been any efforts by officials to halt the sale of the toxic chemical compound. It continues to be sold on the streets of SA despite documented cases of deaths associated with it dating back to the early 2000s.
A study by professors Davies, Mendoza-Hlela and Rother, which looks at adolescent mortality associated with pesticide toxicity in Cape Town, found that in the period from 2010 to 2019, at least 54 deaths occurred in the city as a result of poisoning from terbufos. The pesticide is banned in the European Union and classified as “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organisation.
But in SA, it continues to be used to kill children. There are no recalls, bans, tight restrictions on its access, and no control of its sales. The deadly pesticide continues to be sold for domestic use, particularly in lower socio-economic areas.
The response to the deaths of seven people from substance poisoning in the US versus that of the response to more than twice that number in SA, tells a profound story about the value that different governments place on the lives of their people. The deaths of six adults and one child in the US resulted in the recall of Tylenol.
Despite the massive financial losses resulting from the recall and halting of sales of Tylenol, there was never a discussion that seven deaths were seven too many. But in SA, the deaths of children have only resulted in endless press conferences by various ministers and government officials saying a lot of nothing. It’s a tale of two poisonings.
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