Soap may be used to fight killer gas

Press, 3 August 1976, Page 8

Soap may be used to fight killer gas

NZPA Seveso Flame throwers, bacteria, ultra-violet radiation, and plain kitchen soap are among the counter-measures being studied to decontaminate Seveso, Northern Italy, which has been poisoned bv a cloud of gas which escaped from the Icmesa chemical plant on July 20. Hundreds of villagers living downwind from the factory have been evacuated. Agence France Presse reported Some of them are suffering from severe rashes and vomiting. and fear that worse is to come. Domestic and wild animals have died, blood dribbling from their mouths and nostrils. The toxic vapour (half a ton in liquid form) has seeped into the surrounding topsoil. Principally composed of trichlorophenol, the cloud also contained a dioxin labelled T.C.D.D. Dioxins are virulent poisons, but their toxic mechanisms are not understood.. The poison is known to invade the human organism through the skin and mucous membranes. Laboratory tests have shown it can cause irreversible chromosomic damage, affecting heredity. Families living in Seveso, half way between Lake Como and the industrial city of Milan, have been advised not to conceive children for months, or even years. Abortion is still illegal in Italy, but members of Parliament have asked that it be authorised for the women of Seveso. T.C.D.D. wa,s one of the constituents of Agent Orange, one of the defoliants used by the United States armed forces in Vietnam to strip away jungle cover. On Seveso’s trees, the leaves are as withered and sere as they would be in autumn. Tons of water were sprayed

on fields and crops after the accident at the chemical ■ works, and there were heavy rains as well. But this became immaterial after experts advised that T.C.D.D. is insoluible in water. Napalm and flame throwers [have been at least temporarily ruled out, not only because of the danger of spreading fires but because it is not certain that the chemicals would be destroyed. Professor Rodolfo Negri, director of the Health Ministry’s microbiology labor[atories, pins his hopes on use of bacteria to break down the poison biologically. Professor Arnaldo Libent, director of Rome's Atmospheric Research Laboratory, thinks the use of ozone would intensify ultra-violet rays from the sun. He says this would step up the natural tendency of solar radiation to destroy the organic molecules of the poison gas. What appears to be the simplest solution has been advanced by North Vietnamese professor, Dr Ton That Thut, of Hanoi’s Viet Due Hospital: ordinary yellow soap. The Vietnamese doctor, who has been officially invited to come here following the appearance of his recipe in the Italian weekly, “Tempo Illustrate.” reported the kitchen soap treatment was used to scrub down people (and buildings contaminated by the T.C.D.D. in American defoliants. It had been found effective against the herbicide sprays. Experts from Britain, the United States, West Germany, and other countries have also been called on for help with the decontamination problem. While some of them have talked in complicated chemical terms, health experts in Rome said over the week-end that the old fashioned soap scrub might be the best hope.