Word: toxication
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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From the start, the company and an independent review board had agreed that if AZT proved to be toxic, the patients would immediately be taken off the drug and the test halted. But if AZT turned out to be clearly beneficial, it would immediately be offered to those patients who had been receiving only the placebo -- which would in effect also terminate the study. But everyone, including Dannie King, Burroughs Wellcome's AZT project director, was reasonably confident that the study would run its full course. Said King before the results were known: "It's going to have...
...help carry gold ore to the surface. Suddenly, an acetylene tank sparked and flared. Flames swept through the tunnel, igniting plastic-covered wiring, which in turn set fire to polyurethane foam that keeps the walls dry and solid. Within minutes the mine shaft filled with thick black smoke containing toxic fumes from the burning plastic. Choking miners immediately fell and died of asphyxiation. When the initial 9 1/2-hour rescue operation ended, 177 were dead, one was missing, and 235 were injured, making Kinross the worst gold-mine disaster in South African history. All but five of the victims were black...
Still more debate centers around safety concerns. Adversaries contend that the treatment changes the chemical composition of food and can create carcinogens, such as benzene, formaldehyde and substances called unique radiolytic products (URPs). Those who favor the process respond that the quantities of toxic chemicals are minute, that they occur naturally (like benzene in eggs), and that some cooking methods -- frying, for example -- also generate small amounts of carcinogens. As for the URPs, they are not new creations at all, says the FDA, but simply existing chemicals that have not been detected before in the human diet. "There...
...following literary form, sticks to the basic rules of science fiction. The first is never invent the future, just extrapolate the present. The second: the hardware and social order should always be more impressive than the quality of life. O-Zone's projection of industrial society as a spreading toxic stain is not farfetched. Neither is its assumption of a self-sealed managerial elite, the establishment of airport- like security in the streets or even the possibility of renewal...
...mounds of refuse, piled in fantastic configurations, looked like some strange, fetid form of sculpture. For 18 days, while municipal garbage collectors remained on strike, the waste mounted to an estimated 20,000 tons. Clouds of flies hovered everywhere; rats scurried from their rancid treasure. Plastic trash bags became toxic balloons, swollen tight by noxious fumes from the detritus inside. "Trash entrepreneurs," driving around in vans, carted bags away for 75 cents each. Along with their luggage, residents even began taking their rubbish with them as they left for vacations in the Poconos or for trips to relatives in nearby...