Czech Republic: Who’s to blame for methanol poisoning?
The wave of deaths from methanol poisoning could have been avoided if successive Czech governments had not willfully ignored the warning signs, an investigative journalist has stated. Jana Lorencová, who has been reporting on bootleg alcohol since the early 1990s, says she made repeated attempts to shed light on the issue, but nobody in authority was prepared to listen to her concerns.
So far, 30 people have died and dozens more have suffered serious illness after drinking vodka or rum tainted with the deadly methanol, in what health bodies consider the worst case of alcohol poisoning here for more than three decades. Many of the victims lived in the poorer northeast of the country, where the trafficking of products on the black market is thought to be commonplace.
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(Photo: Zsuzsanna Kilian/sxc.hu)
