Word: methylated
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Italy's tainted-wine scandal con- tinued to spread in ugly fashion last week. More than five weeks after a number of vintners were first discovered to be adulterating their low-priced table wines with methyl alcohol, which is more commonly used as a paint solvent, at least 22 Italians had died and about 90 others were hospitalized after drinking the contaminated product. As the death toll rose, the Italian government listed some 300 labels as suspect, prompting worldwide concern and threatening the country's $953 million wine-export trade...
...across Western Europe last week, consumers were looking at bottles of Italian wine with suspicion and alarm. And with good reason: eight Italians died and some 30 were hospitalized after drinking red Odore Barbera, a northern Italian wine that was contaminated by as much as 5.7% methyl alcohol, a deadly dose way above the legally permitted limit of .3%. The scandal widened when a woman from the Piedmont region of northern Italy was hospitalized after drinking a bottle of Fraris Dolcetto del Piedmonte that contained methyl alcohol, which is normally used in antifreeze...
...contamination may have resulted from a criminal effort by one or more wine dealers to boost their profits. Because the price of bulk wine is determined in part by its alcohol content, some wine dealers have on occasion added methyl, or wood, alcohol to their product. That increases the alcohol content of the wine and thus raises its value. But unlike the ethyl alcohol that is naturally found in wine, methyl alcohol in sizable doses can produce blindness and death. In this case, someone negligently or maliciously added too much methyl alcohol to the wine...
Fifteen hundred protesters gathered at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal last week to mark a grim anniversary: deadly methyl isocyanate gas had leaked from the plant exactly a year earlier, killing at least 1,750 people and injuring thousands more. The protesters burned effigies of Warren M. Anderson, the firm's chairman, and demanded a trial. Others spent the day at Bhopal's hospitals, where some 60,000 victims are still receiving treatment. Said Nassur Khan, 36, who suffers breathing difficulties and severe stomach pains: "I wish I could...
Compared with the misfortunes of Union Carbide, Job had it easy. The company's problems began nearly a decade ago with a profit slump that has persisted ever since. Then this past December came the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from a plant in Bhopal, India, which killed 2,500 people and provoked more than $100 billion in lawsuits. Last month Union Carbide fell deeper into trouble when a toxic leak in Institute, W. Va., sent 135 people to the hospital and prompted an additional $88 million in suits. Now Union Carbide faces a potential assault by corporate raiders...