EPIDEMIC KEPONE POISONING IN CHEMICAL WORKERS

From March 1974 through July 1975, 76 (57%) of 133 persons who had worked at a pesticide plant that produced Kepone, a chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide, contracted a previously unrecognized clinical Illness characterized by nervousness, tremor, weight loss, opsoclonus, pleuritic and Joint pain, and oligospermia. Illness Incidence rates for production-workers (64%) were significantly higher than for nonproduction personnel (16%). The mean blood Kepone level for workers with Illness was 2.53 ppm and for those without disease 0.60 ppm (p