Cyanide Exposure: A Threat to Health and the
Environment
Introduction
This commentary is
about the vulnerabilities of our local communities to cyanide, and more
especially the fire victims, those who work in manufacturing/industrial
operations where exposure to cyanide is possible; fire fighters, water
treatment specialists, and other emergency responders who could be easily
exposed to either residential fires or environmental fire outbreaks. The
commentary is aimed at educating these stakeholders, as well as the general
public on the dangers and/or the lethality of cyanide exposure and poisoning
and how much health threat it poses to all of us as well as the environment.
What Cyanide is; and Pathways to Exposure
The lethality and
toxicity or the adverse effects of cyanide exposure and poisoning to health and
the general wellbeing of humans have been well documented. Cyanide is colorless,
taste bitter-almond-like, and a group of chemical that comprises of a single atom
of carbon in connection to a singular atom of nitrogen through three molecular
bonds. Cyanides could be naturally made, or artificially created by human
beings. The gaseous forms of cyanides are the hydrogen cyanides (HCN) whereas,
the simplified cyanide compounds are the cyanide salts (ATSDR, 2006). Also,
some types of fungi, bacteria, or algae equally have the potentials in creating
cyanide. However, apart from these, cyanide is traceable in various kinds of
plants as well as foods. Cyanide has been traced in foods such as: almonds,
sprouts, millet, Lima beans, cassava, spinach, soy, tapioca, as well as in
bamboo shoots etc (ATSDR, 2006). Cyanide is also natural in these: leaves, in
flowers and seeds of apples, in plums, peaches as well as apricots, cherry
laurel, chokecherry and wild black cherry, fruits, pears, flax, in elderberry,
and in hydrangea as well as in medicinal drugs like nitriles, laetriles,
nitroprusside, and succinonitrile (Penney, 2006). While cyanide has been known for its
lethality to humans, the pathway to exposure are mainly through personal
contact and/or poisoning of the agent, eating foods that are contaminated by
the agent or by drinking water and/or other substances contaminated, breathing
or inhaling the substance in the air or by industrial exposure, breathing smoke
filled air during residential fires or wide fires, second hand tobacco smoking,
people who resides near waste hazardous cyanide containing cites,
photoengraving and photograph developers, firefighting, people who work in pharmaceutical companies where drugs are
manufactured, gas workers/gas work and
cyanogenic materials as well (ATSDR, 2006; Baud, 2007; Penny, 2006).
According to
(Baud, 2007), in the study titled; Cyanide: Critical Issues in Diagnosis and
Treatment, it has been recalled that
much attention in the treatment and
diagnosis of cyanide poisoning have received wide spread attention given the
chances that cyanide may emerge as a weapon or machinery for terrorism, and
also the vulnerability of fire victims to cyanide poisoning. However, cyanide
continues to be one of the most outstanding and dreadful chemicals because of
its severity. Research have demonstrated that the Nazis during World War II
used Zyklon B (aka gaseous or hydrogen cyanide) as an agent for genocide, as
well as the Iranian and Iraqi wars of the 1980s against the populations in the
Kurdish city-Halabja, in the northern part of Iraq, and also, cyanide poisoning
was used in one of the history’s most preventable stupendous widely televised
mass-collective murder of Jim Jones’ sect, (in Guyana) in the 1970’s (Baud, 2007;
CDC, 2004). Other sources of cyanide are evident through soil water, chemical producing
plants and industries, manufacturers of papers, plastics, textiles, steel,
mining facilities, waste water treatment agencies, pesticides containing the
agent, while potassium cyanide, sodium cyanide, hydrogen cyanide, and runoff
waters are most commonly avenues for environmental sources of the agent as a
direct result of industrial uses (ATSDR, 2006).
Accordingly,
Baud’s study correlates the symptoms of cyanide poisoning to some of those
found in people exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning, while maintaining that
cyanide pose great challenges to both diagnostic and disaster medicine, and on
the other hand, calls for early-timely intervention in treatment, if effective
prevention of morbidity and mortality is hoped for (Baud, 2007). The National
Occupation Exposure Survey (NOES) statistical data accounted for the following
cyanide exposure: 4,005 to hydrogen
cyanide exposure; 66,493 to sodium cyanide exposure; 64,244 to potassium
cyanide exposure; 3,215 to potassium silver cyanide exposure; 3,606 to calcium
cyanide exposure; 22,339 to copper (1)
cyanide exposure; and finally, 1,393 to cyanogen chloride exposure (ASTDR,
2006). The lethality of cyanide, no matter the pathway to exposure has been
clearly demonstrated in the efficacious level of damage it brought to bear, in
that, even a very little amount of the agent could result into death or more
severe circumstances, although the severity of harm is dependent on the form of
cyanide, whether cyanide salts or hydrogen cyanide gas, the length of exposure,
time and place of exposure, and means of exposure (CDC, 2004; ASTDR, 2009).
References
Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry (ATSDR) (2006) Public Health Statement: Cyanide Retrieved from
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp8-c1-b.pdf
Baud, F.J. (2007) Cyanide: Critical
Issues in Diagnosis & Treatment Journal of Human and Experimental Toxicology.
Vol. 26 Issue 3
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) (2004) Facts about Cyanide Retrieved on January 20, 2010 from http://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp
Penney, D.G., (2006) The Toxic Twins:
An Advanced Perspective on Cyanide and Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. Cyanide
Poisoning Treatment Coalition (CPCT) Retrieved from http://nvfirechf.org/assets/%5Cdept_1%5Cdocs%5CSMOKEIISupplementFinalv5-FS%20-%20Dr%20%20Penney.pdf
