2-Methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid and bromoxynil herbicide death

Abstract

Case report. We report a fatal case of a 37 year old gentleman who ingested a MCPA/bromoxynil co-formulation herbicide. Although clinically well on initial examination, our patient declined dramatically over his 18 h admission with increasing CO₂ production, hyperthermia and metabolic derangement to eventually die from cardiac asystole 20 h post ingestion. Two hours after ingestion the MCPA concentration was 83.9 μg/mL and bromoxynil concentration was 137 μg/mL. Discussion. The patients’ mechanism of death appeared to be uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation, excess CO₂ production and hyperthermia. There is limited knowledge on the acute toxicity of these herbicides, in particular bromoxynil, and this case highlights the relentless progression of severe toxicity in humans.

Keywords :

• Herbicides
• 2-Methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic Acid
• Overdose, Poisoning, Uncoupling agents, Analysis, Bromoxynil, Death

Funding

The collaboration was supported by an NHMRC Program Grant (1055176). Geoff Isbister is supported by an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship ID1061041 and Mike Roberts is supported by an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship ID1002611.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Appendix