Tetramine poisoning in China: changes over a decade viewed through the media's eye

Abstract

Background: Tetramine, or tetramethylenedisulfotetramine, is an internationally banned compound that had been used primarily as a rodenticide. Despite its regulatory status, there are widespread reports of its intentional use in human poisonings, primarily in China, and often in mass poisonings. Enhanced governmental regulations were implemented in 2003 to further reduce the availability of tetramine, though the effects of these regulations, and the current use of tetramine, remains unknown.

Methods: Reports from the website of the China News Agency were collected from 2000 to 2012. Details such as the location, date, and intent of the events were compared before and after the regulations were implemented.

Results: There were a total of 148 events during the study period (95 from 2000 to 2003, and 53 after 2003). There were a total of 3526 victims, including 225 fatalities. The majority of the events were homicidal/terroristic in nature. The incidence of events fell after 2006. More poisoning events occurred in central China, such as Henan and Jiangsu province, and an increase was noted in April and September.

Conclusion: Tetramine poisoning events, as reported in the national Chinese media, fell after the implementation of strict regulation on tetramine. The causal relationship is not known.

Figure 1

Annual number of events (right axis, solid line) and number affected (left axis, dotted line). Number of events and number affected by year. The solid line is number of events per year, the dotted line is the poisoning number.

Figure 2

Number of events (right axis, solid line) and number affected (left axis, dotted line) by month average over 13 year (2000–2012). The x-coordinate is month.

Figure 3

The distribution of tetramine events. The colors on the map darken as the number of events increase.