In October 2025, a claim surfaced online about an unbelievable stunt performed on Swedish television in 1975.
Social media users on Threads (archived), X (archived) and Reddit claimed that a chemical company CEO named Lars Foss once drank a glass of the notorious chemical herbicide Agent Orange on live TV to try to prove its safety. The posts added that he lived for 32 more years.
For example, the X user wrote: “Lars Foss, CEO of BT Kemi, pesticide producing plant drinks Agent Orange in live TV to prove it is safe, 1975. He died in 2007 at 82.”
Agent Orange was a defoliant the United States used during the Vietnam War to destroy crops and reduce vegetation to combat against guerilla warfare. It was later found to cause a variety of cancers and other health issues.
Lars Foss, CEO of BT Kemi, pesticide producing plant drinks Agent Orange in live TV to prove it is safe, 1975. He died in 2007 at 82. pic.twitter.com/f2ghS1xbdm
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) October 7, 2025
Swedish news media outlets covered Foss’ stunt; however, they said he actually drank Hormoslyr, a chemical herbicide that the company BT Kemi — where Foss served as CEO at the time — manufactured. According to reports, the Danish businessman carried out the act to try to prove the chemical had no harmful effects on people.
It was not possible to independently confirm whether Foss drank either herbicide due to the time that has passed since he performed the stunt and given that he is no longer alive. Below, we outline what we do know about the story:
Hormoslyr and Agent Orange
Despite their different names, Hormoslyr was made of the same active ingredients as Agent Orange: dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, compounds with similar names but different chemical structures and molecular formulas.
The National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine also said Agent Orange production created traces of a dioxin byproduct known as TCDD.
According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, “Dioxins are pollutants that are released into the environment by burning waste, diesel exhaust, chemical manufacturing, and other processes. TCDD is the most toxic of the dioxins and is classified as a human carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Foss’ stunt
A YouTube video posted in May 2011 purportedly showed the Danish CEO performing the stunt. The title, written in Swedish, translated to: “Lars Foss drinks hormoslyr.”
The footage also was featured on a 2004 episode of the Swedish TV show “100 Höjdare,” which roughly translated to “100 Highlights” in English. The act was featured in a list counting down Sweden’s 100 funniest moments, with Foss allegedly drinking the chemical ranking at No. 71.
The image that featured in the social media posts making the claim came from this TV segment.
At the start of the May 2011 clip, a narrator said: “To illustrate the demands placed on the company, the CEO Foss drank as much Hormoslyr as his company is allowed to release over the course of 50 years.”
He then poured the liquid into a drinking glass, saying in Danish (translated by Snopes): “Now I will take this glass and put about half of it into this glass, the equivalent of 25 years of emissions, and drink it.”
Though the footage did show Foss drinking a clear liquid, it was not possible to confirm the content of the glass. Therefore, we were unable to assign a rating to this claim.
False claims about Foss dying
Some people falsely claimed Foss died from cancer after the stunt. However, the businessman lived until Aug. 24, 2007, according to genealogy website Geni.com, and was interviewed by a local Swedish media outlet in 2006.
The rumor about his death was mentioned in the “100 Höjdare” segment, in which the hosts, Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson, said (emphasis ours):
You might be laughing a little, what a goofy idea this Danish CEO had, that doesn’t really prove anything. … But there’s a tragic aftermath to this whole story that we’d like to report quickly. The year after this, they figured out that Hormoslyr was actually incredibly dangerous. So they shut down the factory and blew it up. And that was a good thing! Another tragedy was that Lars Foss actually got cancer and died a few years later. We want to make a point out of how that’s not what we’re laughing about. Absolutely not, but there’s something funny about a very powerful man looking at a banana peel on the ground, and he thinks to himself, “I’m absolutely not going to slip and fall on that banana peel,” and then he continues and slips on it and falls over. Let’s watch the clip one more time.
Swedish politician Maggi Mikaelsson also alluded to the false claim about Foss’ death during a 1997 debate in the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament.
According to an archived transcript available on the Riksdag’s website, Mikaelsson said:
In the 1960s, Hormoslyr was widely used in shoes. … There was a huge debate about it. It was definitely something that was negative, but there were those who believed strongly in the Hormoslyr. They spoke on radio, on TV, and at meetings that it was not dangerous, and people drank Hormoslyr to prove that it was harmless. Those people are not alive today.
Similarly, Swedish tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet wrote in 2003: “Hormoslyr was manufactured by BT Kemi in Teckomatorp and the company’s Danish CEO, Lars Foss, appeared on television drinking Hormoslyr. He died of cancer a short time later.”
In 2006, a newspaper in Landskrona, Sweden, interviewed Foss and acknowledged the false claims about him dying after the stunt (translation by Snopes):
Both newspapers and books have reported that Lars Foss died shortly after drinking Hormoslyr on television in 1975.
“It was something fun I did after our technicians assured me that it was harmless,” says Foss. But it was not a concentrate of the substance that he drank, it is said that the sample was tampered with.
“It was 50 grams, and the concentration would be equivalent to the same amount that had leaked into the Braan river,” he says.
Sweden ultimately banned the use of trichlorophenoxyacetic acid in 1977 (see page 9), thereby ending the use of Hormoslyr.
From 2006 to 2009, Sveriges Radio produced multiple audio documentaries about BT Kemi’s environmental scandals and the widespread use of Hormoslyr in the 1970s.
