Paraquat, which sounds like the name of a Chinese herbal medicine, is a deadly pesticide that has made great contributions to the development of agriculture in our country and has brought disaster to countless lives. It is a colorless and odorless liquid that, once in the human body, causes irreversible damage, leading to necrosis of the lungs and eventually suffocation.
It has no antidote, has a mortality rate of more than 90%, and is an extremely dangerous poison. Its inventor, Li Dejun, originally wanted to serve the country and the people, but he did not expect that his invention would be used for murder and suicide!
In December 2021, an 18-year-old girl in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, was given paraquat medication by her brother-in-law because of an argument with her sister.
After 33 days of hardship**, she was fortunate enough to receive an organ donation, successfully underwent a lung transplant, and survived as one of the rare survivors of paraquat poisoning. However, her body has been irreparably damaged, her lungs have been corroded by paraquat to a black body of dead flesh, her quality of life has been greatly reduced, and she has to take medication for the rest of her life. Her brother-in-law was sentenced to death for intentional homicide, and her sister was devastated by the loss of her husband and sister. This is a tragedy caused by paraquat, a heartbreaking story.
The story of paraquat begins with the development of agriculture after the founding of the People's Republic of China. After the founding of New China, in order to solve the problem of food and clothing for the people, China attached great importance to the development of agriculture, vigorously popularized agricultural technology and agricultural production, and made tremendous achievements.
With the development of agriculture, some new problems have also emerged, one of which is the harm of weeds. Weeds not only affect the growth of crops, but also deplete nutrients and water in the soil, reducing the yield and quality of farmland. In order to effectively control weeds, our country needs a lot of pesticides, especially herbicides.
However, at that time, China's pesticide production technology was still very backward and could not meet the needs of agriculture, so it could only be imported from foreign countries. This not only increases the cost of agriculture, but also poses a great risk.
Because foreign pesticides are often designed for foreign crops and weeds, they may not be suitable for China's agricultural environment, which may cause crop losses and even cause environmental pollution and ecological disasters. Therefore, China urgently needs to develop efficient, safe and inexpensive pesticides, especially herbicides, suitable for China's agriculture.
In this context, scientist Li Dejun accepted the national task and began the arduous exploration of developing domestic herbicides. Li Dejun is not from the field of agriculture, but a biochemist with a solid scientific background, who has been engaged in biochemical research in the United States and has an in-depth understanding of the principles and production of pesticides.
He led a team of young people, and after numerous trials and failures, in 1959 he succeeded in synthesizing a new herbicide, named paraquat. The main ingredient in paraquat is glucoammonium urea, which is a selective herbicide with a high degree of toxicity. When sprayed on the foliage, paraquat is rapidly absorbed and transported through the plant, causing tissue damage and eventually plant death.
Paraquat is less toxic to gramineous crops (e.g. rice, wheat, etc.) and more toxic to weeds, so it can be effective in controlling weeds without affecting crop growth. And its cost is very low, only a few yuan per kilogram, while imported herbicides cost tens or even hundreds of yuan. The research and development of paraquat has made a great contribution to China's agriculture and pesticide industry, and has also allowed Li Dejun and his team to receive national recognition and awards.
Paraquat kills plants because it inhibits an enzyme called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide reductase (NADH), which is key to photosynthesis and respiration.
This enzyme is not only found in plants but also in humans and animals, but it has different distribution and functions in different tissues. In the human body, this enzyme is mainly found in the cells of the lungs, and its role is to participate in the redox reaction of the lungs and maintain the normal function of the lungs. If paraquat is ingested, paraquat inhibits this enzyme in the lungs, as it does in plants, causing severe damage to the cells in the lungs, edema, haemorrhage, necrosis and eventually respiratory failure and death.
Paraquat is very toxic to humans, and in general, it takes only 01 mg of a kilogram of paraquat can cause poisoning, and ingestion of 05 milligrams of paraquat can be lethal. Paraquat is 10 times more toxic than cyanide, 100 times more toxic than arsenic and 1000 times more toxic than rat poison, making it one of the most toxic pesticides in the world.
The earliest fatal death from paraquat occurred in 1962 when a farmer sprayed paraquat with a solution in his mouth and died shortly after he developed vomiting, abdominal pain and coughing up blood.
The dangers of paraquat soon attracted attention and were coveted by some unscrupulous individuals. Some people use paraquat to kill people in order to achieve their own goals, or deliberately mix paraquat into food or drink to cause harm to others. Whatever the cause, whatever the motive or what the method, paraquat is equated with death.
One of the most sensational is a serial murder case in Beijing in 1995, in which the man Li Chunping, in order to take revenge on society, poured paraquat solution into water dispensers or beverage bottles in several public places in Beijing, causing 7 deaths and 21 poisoning, which was the largest paraquat homicide case in the history of our country and the largest poisoning case in public places in the history of our country.
In order to prevent the abuse of paraquat and protect people's lives, the state has issued a series of laws and regulations prohibiting the production and sale of paraquat, strictly supervising and controlling the use and management of paraquat, and severely cracking down on and punishing the criminal behavior of paraquat. However, these measures have not been able to completely stop the influx and abuse of paraquat, and some underground factories and black market traders are still secretly producing and selling paraquat, and the shadow of paraquat has always been hanging over people's lives.
The toxicity of paraquat is so powerful that no drug has been able to effectively relieve its harm.
Once paraquat is ingested, the poisoned person experiences unimaginable suffering. Paraquat can be converted into free radicals in the body, disrupting the function of cells and causing damage to multiple organs throughout the body, especially the lungs.
Poisoned patients will have symptoms such as mouth ulcers, difficulty breathing, chest pain, hemoptysis, and eventually suffocate due to pulmonary fibrosis. This process can last for several hours, or even days, and the poisoned person will feel the imminence of death in a conscious state and cannot do anything about it.
According to statistics, more than 1,000 people are poisoned by paraquat in China every year, and more than 8,000 people have been poisoned in the past seven years, of which more than 90% are suicides. Paraquat is cheap, efficient and readily available, making it a suicide tool of choice for some desperate people. These suicides often regret taking poison, but there is no way to get it back. Li Dejun, the inventor of paraquat, is also guilty of this, and has repeatedly tried to improve paraquat to reduce its toxicity or make it more difficult to use, but to no avail of the desired effect.
Mortality rates from paraquat poisoning are generally above 90%, and there is currently no specific antidote. However, there are a few lucky people who survive because they take a small amount or are taken to the hospital in time. Even so, these survivors who saved their lives paid a heavy price.
Their physical functions have been damaged to varying degrees, especially the lungs, and there will be sequelae such as chronic respiratory failure, emphysema, and cor pulmonale. The quality of life has been greatly reduced, and the need for long-term medication or reliance on ventilators has become a luxury.
Paraquat was originally invented to solve the problem of weeds in agricultural production in China and improve the yield and quality of crops.
But as people misuse it, paraquat has outweighed its contribution, making it a formidable poison that poses a huge threat to human life and health.
Paraquat is an extremely dangerous chemical and we should try to avoid exposure and use. In the unfortunate event that paraquat is ingested or exposed, there are some self-help measures to mitigate the risk of poisoning. First of all, we should take soapy water as soon as possible, which causes vomiting and expels poisons from the body. Secondly, we should wash ** in time and change clothes to prevent further absorption of poisons. Third, we should seek medical attention quickly and seek professional treatment. The best thing to do is to cherish life and stay away from paraquat!