A Lifesaving Shipment of Grain Turns Deadly
The only available image of a bag of grain from the 1971 Iraq poison grain catastrophe. The government suppressed images like this. Source: Wikimedia.
In the summer of 1971, the Middle East was hit with a devastating drought. In an effort to provide its people with food, the Iraqi government purchased 95,000 tonnes of grain from North America. Despite the good intentions, this grain would injure over 6,000 people and kill 459 officially, while more realistic estimates put the casualties at ten times those numbers.
The grain that proved so deadly to Iraqi families wasn’t meant to be eaten at all. A special coating applied to the grain was intended to protect it from rot while in transit. The coating was safe for grain that would be planted, but toxic if used to make bread, or feed animals. Governments around the world were aware of this risk, but in 1971 few had actually passed legislation to prevent the kind of poisoning that scarred Iraq forever.
INTERESTING INFORMATION
Bulletin of the World Health Organization - Poisoning caused by the consumption of organomercury-dressed seed in Iraq
NY Times article on the Iraq poisoning - Click here to open
Minamata Disease Museum website - minamatadiseasemuseum.net
Early NY Times article on Huckleby Mercury Poisoning - Mercury in Food: A Family Tragedy
Follow-up NY Times article on the Juckleby Family - New Mexico Family Wins Settlement In Suit on Children’s Mercury Blinding
MEDIA
*Note - Media on this catastrophe is difficult to find, as the Iraqi government actively suppressed images. There is a good amount of video and photographic documentation of the impacts of Minamata Disease available online.
Video of cat with “Dancing Cat Fever'“ - Click here to watch
Link to a blog that features Ernestine Huckleby and the powerful National Geographic photograph of her taken by James P. Blair - Who Remembers Ernestine Huckleby?
SOURCES
What Happened During The 1971 Iraq Poison Grain Disaster - WorldAtlas.com
Methylmercury poisoning in Iraq. An epidemiological study of the 1971-1972 outbreak - Greenwood, Michael R. - Journal of Applied Toxicology
Iraq’s Secret Environmental Disasters - Jernelov, Arne - Project Syndicate
Mercury rising: Niigata struggles to bury its Minamata ghosts - Gilhooly, Rob - Japan Times