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Additives are substances added for beneficial reasons, while adulterants are added with negative effects. Adulterants have been used historically to poison individuals. Adulterants are also used to reduce the potency of illegal drugs. Companies may add adulterants to increase profit margins, resulting in fraud.
Additives are substances that are combined with another material for a beneficial reason. An adulterant is a substance that has a negative effect and is deliberately added to another substance despite the consequences. An example of an adulterant would be melamine, which the Chinese company Sanlu added to milk in 2006. Melamine is an industrial chemical that makes milk appear to have more protein content than it actually does. This adulterant caused the development of kidney stones, leading to the illness of thousands of children and several deaths.
One form of adulteration, or the addition of adulterants, that has been used throughout history is the deliberate addition of poisons to food or drink with the intent to kill another individual. Symptoms of poisoning can be misinterpreted as symptoms of other illnesses or diseases. Also, the science of detecting poisoning didn’t really begin to develop until the 19th century.
People who have been victims of poisoning include the famous Greek philosopher Socrates (c. 469 BC – 399 BC), who, after being sentenced to death by the Greek state for impious acts, drank a mixed drink with hemlock The alleged Italian witch Hieronyma Spara, who was eventually hanged on the orders of the Catholic Church, taught young Roman women to murder their husbands using arsenic during the 17th century. In 1984, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1934-1990), also known as “Osho,” added salmonella to salad bars in Oregon, causing more than 750 illnesses, perhaps the first act of bioterrorism in the United States. USA.
Adulterants are not just used in food or beverages. These substances are also used to reduce illicit or illegal drugs to make the drugs less potent. In this case, the word “adulterant” takes on a more neutral tone, although some adulterants can be dangerous. For example, methamphetamine is sometimes used to cut cocaine in areas where methamphetamine is very cheap. Common adulterants used as cutting agents include mannitol, inositol, and lactose.
In addition to people adding adulterants to products, companies may try to increase their profit margins by expanding their products. In addition to Sanlu, Apple Valley International, Inc, substituted less expensive beet sugar as an adulterant for orange juice concentrate in the company’s frozen orange juice, and maple sugar distributor W. Lyman Jenkins accounted for a sugar mainly from sugar cane such as pure maple sugar. Both companies faced criminal prosecution. While none of these incidents resulted in any illness, people were defrauded because these products were misrepresented.
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