Other Theories
In the United States a group of volunteers were given bread contaminated with ergot but strangely enough this group did not suffer like the villagers in France had, and apart from the American experiment there are other explanations for what may have happened. Bread poisoning via mercury contamination was suggested, as Panogen was used to clean the wheat containers. But Steven Kaplan, an expert on French bread, calls this nothing more than a government diversionary tactic.
