Aerotoxic syndrome, an ongoing environmental forensics investigation

Organophosphates (OPs) have successful properties that means they have been widely used as flame retardants and pesticides. However, their neurotoxic properties have also been long acknowledged and used in more sinister applications such as nerve gases (1). Hundreds of thousands victims have been affected by organophosphates over the last 150 years. This has occurred since its early uses in the 1890s as a treatment to tuberculosis, in the famous ginger Jake poisoning caused by counterfeit alcohol during US prohibition times, and the 1959 Moroccan poisoning, and not to ignore the estimated 200 000 annual fatalities in the 3rd world (2). Interest in this group of compounds is growing once again as we try to establish the cause of Aerotoxic syndrome.