Seveso

The plant was designated a 'Seveso' site, meaning there was a risk from the chemicals it developed.

After spending two years on sabbatical at the Henry Phipps Institute at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1960s, Mr. Klingberg turned his attention to noninfectious epidemiology, specifically congenital malformations caused by thalidomide, and disasters like the mass exposure to dioxin at Seveso, Italy, in 1976.

For example, a chemical plant explosion in Seveso, Italy in the summer of 1976 released a cloud of dioxin.

The Air Products site was on the EU Seveso list, meaning it contained potentially risky industrial material, but that the hazard was limited.

One of the report's authors was Dr Maria del Carmen Seveso, who was in charge of intensive care in a hospital in the nearby town of Presidencia Roque Saenz Pena, before she retired.