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This legislation was a response to the world’s worst industrial disaster, a 1984 crisis in which over 500,000 people in Bhopal, India were exposed to highly toxic methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant, killing at least 2,000 people directly and injuring thousands more.

The Union Carbide chemical plant, which manufactured the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate, was leaking.

"The methyl isocyanate gas affected respiratory, neurological, musculoskeletal, ophthalmic, endocrine and reproductive systems, and it damaged human chromosomes."

"We cannot confirm the reasons in this paper, but there is evidence the methyl isocyanate gas affected respiratory, neurological, musculoskeletal, ophthalmic, endocrine and reproductive systems, and it damaged human chromosomes," McCord explained.

In the early morning of Dec. 3, 1984, 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas spewed out of a Union Carbide pesticide factory perilously near densely populated neighborhoods in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh State in central India.