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A police officer outside the Prezzo restaurant in Salisbury, where a couple had become unwell after exposure to an unknown substance. PA Wire/PA Images

Novichok ruled out after couple fall ill in UK town hit by poisoning

Police said the couple, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s, were assessed in hospital where they remained under observation.

THERE IS “NOTHING to suggest” that Novichok caused two people to fall ill in the British town where a Russian ex-spy and his daughter were poisoned by the deadly nerve agent, police said this morning.

Parts of Salisbury in southwest England were sealed off and a hazardous area response team was called to the scene after the pair became unwell at an Italian restaurant on Sunday evening.

“Due to recent events in the city and concerns that the pair had been exposed to an unknown substance, a highly precautionary approach was taken by all emergency services,” Wiltshire Police said in a statement.

“We can now confirm that there is nothing to suggest that Novichok is the substance.”

Police said the couple, a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s, were assessed in hospital where they remained under observation.

It was unclear if any crime had been committed, police said, adding that the events were no longer being treated as a major incident but enquiries were ongoing.

It was in Salisbury in March that Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with Novichok, a powerful nerve agent created in the Soviet Union.

Britain has accused Russia of orchestrating that attack, a charge Moscow has denied.

Skripal and his daughter survived, but a British couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, came into contact with the same nerve agent in a town near Salisbury months later and Sturgess, 44, died in hospital.

© – AFP, 2018

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    Apr 12th 2019, 7:20 AM

    40% of people who live in the USA are suffering from a chronic illness of one sort or another. Think on that. That’s nearly half of the population of the USA. Pesticides, unlabled GMO foods, food riven with additives, growth hormones, ammonia, have a huge bearing on that figure of 40%. When Monsanto can place its people in the Supreme Court, and on the board of the FDA there will never be any chance of that number of 40% decreasing. The number will only rise.

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    Mute Denonu
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    Apr 12th 2019, 9:54 AM

    @Dave Doyle: Sedentary lifestyles and too much calorie-laden, salty processed food is the cause of those problems.

    Glyphosate is used just as widely in Europe as it is in the US, so there’s very little basis for your above post wrt. pesticides.

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    Mute Chemical Brothers
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    Apr 12th 2019, 11:32 AM

    @Dave Doyle: Likely nothing to do with Monsanto or Glyphosate but to do with the adulteration of the food chain with sulphite preservatives & sulphite colorants.

    Sulphur dioxide & sulphites are the only one of 14 allergens that can be legally HIDDEN in food if the levels are below 10mg/kg or 10ml/l. Imagine if same rules applied to peanuts.

    The sulphites are driving chronic inflammation which we suspect is exacerbating a newly defined disease called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome that may already be an epidemic in developed nations even Ireland. The disease is an immune disease likely triggered by environmental factors such as smog, diesel exhaust, of gassing polyurethane plastics and other household chemicals we assume are safe WD40, 3 in 1 oil, deodorant propellants….very long list.

    Once the genie is out of the bottle, Mast Cells within the immune system start to misidentify threats and one threat it mis-identifies are sulphites in food which are now ubiquitous. Sulphites are used to cheat on shelf life and cheat on colour.

    Acute exposure by thousands of personnel to vast amounts of known sensitizer chemicals at the Air Corps at Baldonnel has left a medical trail that will be very valuable to any scientist looking to get to the bottom of this problem. Young men suffered MCAS symptoms in late teens/early 20s when the measured profile of the illness in the USA is confined 80% to middle aged women.

    Monsanto is a convenient bogie man but the answer is likely simpler and happening every time we eat breakfast, dinner and tea as well as nibbles and a glass of wine.

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Apr 12th 2019, 1:41 PM

    @Chemical Brothers: A well researched, reasonable and balanced response but you’re dealing with Journal prejudice where everybody goes off pushing their own little barrow.

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    Mute James Brady
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    Apr 11th 2019, 11:25 PM

    The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the primary agency of the European Union for risk assessments regarding food safety.
    In October 2015, EFSA concluded that ‘glyphosate is unlikely to pose a hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential’.

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    Mute GO GREEN
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    Apr 12th 2019, 12:01 AM

    @James Brady: Study after study has shown that is does cancer -Common weed killer glyphosate increases cancer risk by 41%, study says https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/14/health/us-glyphosate-cancer-study-scli-intl/index.html
    Weedkiller glyphosate a ‘substantial’ cancer factor
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47633086

    2 recent cases in US have been win by people who sued and win.

    Have you ever wondered why cancer is skyrocketing why bees are dying etc

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    Mute GO GREEN
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    Apr 12th 2019, 12:03 AM

    @GO GREEN: Jury Rules Against Bayer in California Glyphosate and Cancer Trial https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/jury-rules-against-bayer-in-california-glyphosate-and-cancer-trial

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    Mute Cormac Ó Braonáin
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    Apr 12th 2019, 12:17 AM

    @James Brady: that conlusion only came after the heavyweight German corporations got involved. The WHO has been compromised for a good few years now.

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    Apr 12th 2019, 1:24 AM

    @Cormac Ó Braonáin: actually, the WHO considers that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic”, inline with findings from the IARC. It’s the EFSA, completely unrelated to the WHO, that is compromised.

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    Mute Hans Vos
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    Apr 12th 2019, 9:25 AM

    @GO GREEN: But the resurges agreed that the findings are limited. Also it is unlikely to cause cancer when handling in a proper way. Everything can be harmful if not proper used.

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    Mute Chemical Brothers
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    Apr 12th 2019, 10:55 AM

    “The plaintiff’s assumed technical knowledge does not excuse the lack of information on the product and its harmful effects – a farmer is not a chemist.”

    French judges appear to show sense. The State Claims Agency has managed to successfully argue in an Irish Court that military aircraft mechanics in the Irish Air Corps with ZERO medical training were able to diagnose themselves with chemical injure thus starting the statute clock.

    SCA have argued that an Air Corps technician going to an doctor asking did chemicals harm me and doctor saying maybe or maybe not means the technician had “knowledge” that the chemicals had harmed him.

    Like I said the French judge appears to have displayed common sense against a formidable corporate foe.

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