Toxins
‘Tis the season … to beware of lead in Christmas lights, according to Cornell researcher | Cornell Chronicle
Researchers tested the lead levels of 10 sets of indoor/outdoor Christmas lights, some recently purchased in Nebraska and New York, others from the 1970s. The researchers found detectable levels of lead in all of them; and all were above EPA/HUD regulatory limits for equivalent areas of windowsills and floors. They also found no significant differences in lead levels among manufacturers, year of purchase, or how many years the lights had been used.
Lead is used in the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) jacketing of the Christmas light cords, said Laquatra, to prevent them from cracking or crumbling and to make them resistant to heat, light and moisture damage. Lead makes up 2-5 percent of PVC jacketing in different types of wires, he said.
"While some products are starting to have warning labels, there is no coordinated drive to encourage manufacturers to pursue alternatives," Laquatra said.
"Consumers should be aware that lead is in all appliance cords," he said, noting that although American manufacturers have been moving away from using lead as a PVC stabilizer in the last five years, at present there is no way to know how much lead exists in jacketing or in various products without independent testing.
While I knew lead was used in solder, I had no idea how prevalent lead was in PVC wiring. For sure, anything PVC is pretty god awful to burn -- it smells so nasty, it producing toxic byproducts, it's just nasty. But at lower temperatures it does actually put out fire, and is quite restive to corrosion, cracking, and conducting electricity.
Sunscreen Chemicals Soak All the Way Into Your Bloodstream | WIRED
If they sink into tissues and get absorbed into the bloodstream, that could be a problem. Then, like other over-the-counter drugs the Food and Drug Administration oversees, sunscreens should be studied to make sure they don’t mess up people’s hormones, affect their reproductive systems, or cause cancer. Such safety testing has never been done on the active ingredients in sunscreen, because those chemicals were approved decades ago, before anyone suspected they could be absorbed into the body. Now we know it’s more than just a suspicion.
Shots – Health News : NPR
Scientists are ramping up research on the possible health effects of a large group of common but little-understood chemicals used in water-resistant clothing, stain-resistant furniture, nonstick cookware and many other consumer products.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are generally referred to by their plural acronym, PFAS. PFAS are resistant to water, oil and heat, and their use has expanded rapidly since they were developed by companies in the mid-20th century. Today, PFAS' nonstick qualities make them useful in products as diverse as food wrappers, umbrellas, tents, carpets and firefighting foam. The chemicals are also used in the manufacture of plastic and rubber and in insulation for wiring.
In short, they are all around us. And as a result, they've found their way into the soil and, especially in some regions, into our drinking water.
Rachel Carson, DDT and the Fight Against Malaria
“No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored,” she wrote in “Silent Spring.” The trouble, in her view, was that DDT and other chemicals were employed so liberally that “the insect enemy” developed resistance to them in fairly short order and was thus “made actually stronger by our efforts.
Lead Poisoning Testing of Criminal Suspect
Ward Stone at the last Save the Pine Bush Dinner had a got me thinking about an interesting proposal:
Require lead poisoning testing of anybody arrested and accused of a crime.💉
This seems like a really good idea. Withdrawing a little bit of blood might be painful for a criminal suspect, but if somebody has been arrested for a crime and is suffering from lead poisoning, it makes a lot of sense from a public safety perspective to know if they are being poisoned from lead — both so we can offer them treatment so they don’t commit further crime and to reduce future generations from engaging in crime from lead poisoning.
Samsung Apologizes To Ill Workers, Promises To Compensate Them
""Beloved colleagues and families have suffered for a long time, but Samsung Electronics failed to take care of the matter earlier," Kim said, according to Yonhap News Agency. "Samsung Electronics also did not fully and completely manage potential health risks at our chip and liquid-crystal display production lines."
'his apology and promise of compensation is more than a decade in the making. As NPR's Anthony Kuhn reported from Seoul, "Dozens of workers have reportedly developed cancer, leukemia and other afflictions at the world's largest chip-maker."