Situations of poisoning and analytical toxicology in Japan

Unprecedented poisoning terrorism by use of sarin took place in Japan in 19 94 and 1995. On July 25, 1998, a curry poisoning incident in Wakayama occur red resulting in the death of four people and injury of 63 people. Since th en, more than 30 imitative poisoning cases have been reported by mass commu nication within 1 year. In this brief review, we present some details of a series of poisoning cases and measures taken by the Japanese Government and non-government groups. In addition some research projects on analytical to xicology being conducted in our laboratories are also introduced; gas chrom atography (OC) with cryogenic oven trapping for volatile organic compounds, and GC/surface ionization organic mass spectrometry For tertiary amino com pounds are described especially as new techniques for biological samples. ( C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.