Foodborne Illness Could Have Sinister Causes

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Public Health;  Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 04 Jan 2013 - 0:00 PST


Doctors should consider the intentional addition of medicine to food as a potential cause of foodborne disease outbreaks.

The World Health Organization suggests possible sources of foodborne disease outbreaks are pathogenic bacteria, viruses, protozoa, parasitic worms, natural toxins, and chemicals, but not medicines.

A 2010 foodborne disease outbreak in Beijing, China was a result of clonidine, a medication used to treat hypertension and ADHD, being intentionally added to lunch ingredients. Eighty travelers who had just finished lunch in a Beijing restaurant began to feel faint. Within a few hours they developed dizziness, weakness, lethargy, dry mouth, and nausea, among other troublesome symptoms. At a nearby hospital, the travelers were treated for low blood pressure and low heart rate. With no response to treatment, the patients were referred for a screening for common toxins and drugs. The screening found clonidine in the patients' systems. The patients were treated for clonidine poisoning and symptoms resolved in all patients within 48 hours. After six days, all patients had been discharged from the hospital and at one year no patients had residual symptoms. An investigation found that two persons put clonidine into the starch used to make certain dishes (the kitchen staff would not notice the addition because starch and clonidine are both white, odorless powders) to gain a competitive advantage for a nearby restaurant.

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