Recent Developments

April 30, 2010

Plant Employee Dies after Exposure to Selenium Compound

In January Mauricio Lacayo, an employee at the Sabinsa Corp. plant in Payson, Utah, died only hours after being exposed to L-seleno-methionine, a selenium compound approved for use as a nutritional supplement. 

If exposure to the selenium compound is confirmed as the cause of death, it would be the first report of acute lethality from human inhalation and dermal exposures to selenium compounds. (See: Occupational Exposures to Selenium Compounds - PDF).

Details

According to information provided by Lacayo’s family and reported by the local ABC News affiliate, Mr. Lacayo was directed by his supervisor to open a bag of the chemical and remove a 10.5 gram sample.  When he opened the bag, the powder inside “flew out, getting on his face and clothes.”  Shortly after, he started feeling sick.  His wife picked him up. They went home where he started vomiting.  He went to the local emergency care center and was then transferred to the local hospital where he died that afternoon of cardiac arrest. 

The cause of death was being investigated by the Utah Medical Examiner’s Office according to The Salt Lake Tribune but the results have so far not been made public.