Historical QOD 3/6/2009: True or False: All of the fatalities from the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system resulted from exposure to liquid sarin rather than sarin vapor and occurred within 48 hours of the exposure.
False. One 51-year-old man who inhaled sarin went into cardiac arrest and was successfully resuscitated but did not regain consciousness. He died 15 months later, and autopsy findings including findings consistent with dying-back peripheral neuropathy. This is the only such case of this kind of neuropathy reported after exposure to a nerve agent.
Himuro K, Murayama S, Nishiyama K, Shinoe T, Iwase H, Nagao M, Takatori T, Kanazawa I. Distal sensory axonopathy after sarin intoxication. Neurology. 1998 Oct;51(4):1195-7. doi: 10.1212/wnl.51.4.1195. PMID: 9781559.