"There's no antidote to it, but I didn't expect anyone to take the initiative to drink him!”
Li Dejun, the father of paraquat in China, could never have imagined that the paraquat that his team had worked so hard to develop would end up like this.
From widespread use to total ban, it has become a "savior" for farmers and a "disaster" for countless families.
Many people have problems and choose to end their lives with paraquat on the spur of the moment.
When they were first taken to the hospital, doctors would treat them with gastric lavage and infusions according to the usual methods of treating pesticide poisoning, but they soon found that these measures were completely ineffective.
When paraquat enters the body, its toxins spread rapidly from the mouth to all organs of the body.
It first attacks the throat area, causing bleeding and ulceration;It then invades the central nervous system, blurring the person's consciousnessThen it endangers the respiratory tract;Eventually, the toxin penetrates into the internal organs.
Throughout the process, the victim experienced immense pain while awake and eventually had fibrosis of the lungs to the point where he could not breathe and died of suffocation.
Doctors have tried all kinds of methods, such as infusions, exchange transfusions, etc., but none of them are beneficial to the patient.
Once the toxin has penetrated into the lungs, they are exhausted and can only watch helplessly as the lungs slowly fibrosify until they lose their function.
Pulmonary fibrosis is irreversible, like a stick that can no longer be turned back into a tree.
How terrible is it to take the highly toxic pesticide paraquat on the spur of the moment?Here's what another lad, Gangzi, really experienced in the last 10 days of his life:
A violent quarrel detonated Gangzi's long-suppressed emotions, and a wave of reluctance and anger made him want to escape from this world with the help of half a bottle of paraquat.
The obvious bitterness caused Gangzi to vomit part of it immediately after drinking it, but a large amount of it still traveled with the body fluids to his body, starting his deadly path.
Between 5% and 15% of paraquat entering the stomach is absorbed into the intestine and enters the bloodstream, while the remainder is excreted during bowel movements.
Two hours later, the concentration of paraquat toxin in the body is at its peak.
Although the diffuse toxicity changed slowly, Gangzi only experienced symptoms such as oral numbness, pain, nausea and vomiting.
Gangzi's parents, who saw the empty medicine bottle, instantly realized the seriousness of the situation and rushed him to the hospital.
Doctors quickly performed vomiting, catharsis, gastric lavage, and enemas in an attempt to speed up the elimination of toxins from the body as quickly as possible.
About 15-20 hours after drinking badry grass, the toxin begins to become deeply involved in the body's circulation.
When they pass through the kidneys, 90% of the toxins are sent out of the body, but the remaining 10% is enough to destroy every active cell of the gangster.
Doctors urgently administer diuretics to speed up the excretion of toxins, while hemoperfusion and dialysis are performed to remove toxins from the blood using semi-permeable membranes and adsorbents.
After repeated efforts, Gangzi's physical condition was slowly stabilized. He gradually regained his senses, and Gangzi, who was tormented by the pain, deeply regretted it, and felt self-blame and regret for his previous impulsive behavior.
However, there is no such thing as a regret pill. The improvement is only temporary, and the vicious paraquat has begun to build up in the lungs, like a killer, waiting to strike hard.
At that time, alveolar cells mistakenly took paraquat for a beneficial amine, resulting in 10-90 times the concentration of paraquat in the blood.
By the third day, paraquat recovered, and the oxidation released was extremely strong. Catalyzed by enzymes, paraquat produces large amounts of reactive oxygen species, which wither away alveolar cells and cause irreversible fibrosis of lung tissue.
Gangzi began to feel deep breathlessness and wheezing frequently. The inside of his mouth and esophagus also began to ulcerate and sores, and it became increasingly difficult to speak and eat.
At the same time, paraquat successfully penetrates the liver, hijacks the mitochondria, and injures liver cells, resulting in the inability of toxins in the body to metabolize properly.
Even with hemoperfusion and dialysis every six hours, Gangzi's liver and kidney function is still declining rapidly.
A week passedThe immune cells in the body drive straight into the lungs and stubbornly resist the cells and toxins in the lungs, but inadvertently add fuel to the fire.
Because their so-called life-saving inflammatory factors contain reactive oxygen species, they lead to further destruction of alveolar cells, resulting in diffuse inflammatory response and further fibrosis of the lungs.
Gangzi breathed more and more hard, as if he was about to drown and suffocate. My heart was beating faster, and my whole body began to tremble from time to time...
At the end of his life, Gangzi longed to donate his cornea, hoping to leave some existence in this world.
However, the body that had been ravaged by the barless grass, even the cornea, was no longer eligible to donate.
On the tenth dayGangzi's lungs are like broken balloons, and the ventilator can't save his gradually failing breathing. The level of oxygen in the blood is also decreasing.
In the end, Gangzi passed away due to respiratory failure, leaving only his parents with endless grief and a large amount of debt accumulated due to rescue.
The inventors of paraquat could not have imagined that the pesticide they had developed to control weeds would become such a terrible tool for suicide years later.
Statistics show that between 2008 and 2010, around 8000 people tried to end their lives each year by taking paraquat, and very few were rescued.
In the case of many people who have died of paraquat poisoning, some people have tried to contact paraquat researcher Li Dejun for an antidote and treatment.
When he heard this situation and data, Li Dejun was shocked.
When he first started researching this herbicide, all he could think about was how to solve the problem of weeds in the field and reduce the cost burden on farmers.
After all, paraquat is a highly effective specialist herbicide that quickly destroys established weeds in the land.
However, he never imagined that the herbicide he developed would become the way so many people chose to end their lives.
In fact, paraquat originated in France in response to the problem of overgrown weeds in farmland. Those weeds that grow with the wind not only eat up the nutrients of the crops, but also greatly reduce the yield.
So, the French invented the drug, known as paraquat. Sure enough, it works so fast that with a slight sprinkling, the weeds will die, and it won't have any negative impact on the farmland.
With the rapid economic development of our country since the 90s, especially in agriculture, farmers have had to buy expensive imported paraquat in the absence of suitable alternatives.
In order to solve this problem, Li Dejun, then vice president of the Shandong Insecticide Research Institute, began to take on this important mission, leading his own research team to start independent research and manufacturing of paraquat.
It didn't take long for Li Dejun and his team to bring good news:They have succeeded in developing a drug with properties comparable to those of a foreign brand of paraquat.
Because of this, Li Dejun is known as the father of paraquat in China.
The production of this new agent has not only helped farmers solve the problem of weeds, but also greatly reduced costs.
This is obviously a good thing, but Li Dejun is shrouded in serious worry and guilt.
How did it become the way it is?As more and more people use paraquat, the negative voices are getting louder. The most heart-wrenching thing is that it is even jokingly called"Dead water".
This product, which is obviously just an ordinary herbicide, has won such a terrifying reputation, what has happened in the middle?
In the past, it was not uncommon for China to die or become permanently disabled due to the use of pesticides, and there were various reasons, such as the breakdown of the relationship between husband and wife, and the depression of the family environment.
Surveys show that when many people choose to drink pesticides, they are actually trying to threaten others in this way, or rather, it is a way for the weak to want to gain the right to speak.
The problem is also here, the toxicity of pesticides in the past is not high, even if swallowed by mistake, it is still possible to do so through timely gastric lavage. Even if there is a delay on the road, it is not life-threatening.
Paraquat, on the other hand, is completely different, and most people are unaware of the lethal power of this herbicide without adequate education.
Many people mistakenly believe that drinking paraquat is like taking a regular pesticide – once they reach their goal, go to the hospital for gastric lavage, and receive **, they can save their lives. However, this is far from the case. The moment they swallow paraquat, the countdown to life begins.
Li Dejun once said: "Paraquat, I made it to solve the problem of weeds in crops. But he never imagined that the product would be used as a suicide tool.
Seventy-eight per cent of people poisoned by paraquat were suicidal, 71 per cent of whom were improvised, and even a third made the decision to commit suicide five minutes before taking the poison.
These people often regret it after an hour or two.
Therefore, the toxicity of paraquat should not be underestimated.
Even if you only take 10ml, only 10% of the blood is absorbed, but only 01 ml of paraquat is enough to deal a fatal blow to the body.
As noted by Wen Xuemei, attending physician in the Department of Nephrology at Chengdu Sixth People's Hospital, paraquat is extremely toxic to humans, and there is currently no specific antidote, and only 5-10ml is required to be fatalThat's about the amount of just one cap for a mineral water bottle.
Unlike other pesticides, paraquat does not immediately affect consciousness or cause death when consumed. Instead, it slowly erodes the human body like a "blunt knife cutting flesh". In the first few days, the condition may seem to improve, giving the illusion that it is okay to **.
Although it does not attack the human nervous system, its damage to human organs is almost irreversible. One of the main characteristics of paraquat is its devastating characteristic: it is "irreversible".
To put it simply, it looks like meat that has been cooked, and no matter how hard you try, you can't turn it back into raw meat. There is no effective solution to paraquat-induced organ fibrosis, so if you take it by mistake, you are basically in a desperate situation.
Because paraquat is colorless and odorless, it does not give the impression of being very toxic. **In response to this problem, a series of solutions are proposed. Initially, they used a distinct colour on paraquat packaging to draw attention. Then, they added an additive that made people smell nauseous, so that people knew there was something wrong with it, so as to prevent accidental ingestion.
Even so, paraquat deaths have increased, and the use of paraquat has been scrutinized and restricted more severely.
In 2012, a ban on the production and sale of paraquat was initially issued in only some places. Two years later, the sale of paraquat aqueous agents was banned nationwide.
By 2016, paraquat was banned altogether.
People who choose to commit suicide can have a variety of reasons, but most stem from life's frustration and pain. However, remember that life's ups and downs are like ocean waves. Happiness and pain alternate in life, just as happiness and despair alternate in our lives.
We must not give up the potential happiness of the future because of a moment of despair. No matter how hopeless life may seem, death is never the path to liberation.
Please believe that no matter how many troubles life brings you, as long as you persevere, a bright future will always appear.