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UK Against Fluoridation

Sunday, November 19, 2017

75 Years ago - How one incident caused 47 patients to die at the Oregon State Hospital



A ghastly scene unfolded during dinner 75 years ago at Oregon State Hospital.

Patients began dropping like flies after eating a batch of poisoned scrambled eggs, vomiting blood and writhing on the floor in agony.

Some died within minutes, others succumbed hours later, 47 people in all. Officially, there were 263 cases. Newspapers, however, reported more 400 others were sickened.

Gov. Charles A. Sprague called it “mass murder.”

Sabotage was initially suspected, what today we would call a terrorist attack.

This happened in 1942, with the country engaged in World War II. Fears of sabotage were real, especially on the West Coast. The food supply was considered a vulnerable target.

The eggs used at the state hospital came from federal surplus commodities distributed by the U.S. government, part of a shipment received six months earlier and divided between state institutions, schools and other programs in Oregon.

Gov. Sprague immediately ordered all institutions to stop using the eggs, which came packed frozen in 30-pound tin cans. The federal government issued a similar order.

Investigators from the Army, the American Medical Association and the Food & Drug Administration rushed to the state hospital campus in Salem..............................

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