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CDC team studying East Palestine train derailment fell ill during investigation
- asynchronous 4y agoHmm. How about that. Might be a bigger deal then originally thought.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoOr the investigators need to go closer to the disaster than the public?
- munk-a 4y agoIf you clear folks to return to their homes they'll be passing by that site every days. Yes - most folks probably aren't going to shove their noses in the train wreck but the people with the weakest resistance to poisons (kids) absolutely will be all over the site. If adults are getting significant side effects then children will likely have very severe reactions.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoThe article says the people that got sick were only going door to door to interview people in the town...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- gfosco 4y agoMany people knew it was a bigger deal, with a casual glance at the chemicals involved. It has been a typical snowjob because the media likes the people in charge.
- Sheboopi 4y ago[flagged]
- mc32 4y agoThat whole disaster was terribly handled. From The sec of transportation dragging his feel by weeks, to the president being dismissive and the train company saying no big deal... go back home, it's safe! I hope Erin can help to bring the attention and justice this disaster deserves. At least GWB, though a contemptible fellow otherwise, took his frat attitude up in a chopper to survey Katrina.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoAlso transportation sec Buttigieg just casually saying not to worry we have over 1,000 train derailments a year: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11760173/There-roughly-1-000-cases-year-train-derailing-Pete-Buttigieg-says.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11760173/There-roug... Over 1,000 derailments! Maybe we should work on getting those down before patting ourselves on the back for job well done.
- hooverd 4y agoHey, I'm sure the majority of those are trains popping off the track at low speeds.
- mc32 4y agoExactly! If he's blasé about 1000 derailments it better not be 1000 derailments of the East Palestine type per year. In any event. it's really tone deaf to say, hey, no big deal we have approx three accidents like this every day of the year, deal with it! What a wanker.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoAnd? The system shouldn't be in a steady state of expected failures. These are enormous machines that sometimes carry hazardous materials. Failure cannot be tolerated. It's indicative of a rotten culture of safety and mismanagement that ignores the problems.
- lazide 4y ago
- reactspa 4y ago[flagged]
- kevingadd 4y agoThe secretary of transportation is from Indiana
- stevenjgarner 4y agoWow thanks for the link - such incredible pressure for large depositors in small banks to move their funds somewhere "safer" - and people have the audacity to say crypto has no intrinsic value.
- draw_down 4y agoProbably just a coincidence
- favsq 4y ago[flagged]
- ineptech 4y ago> https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cohencidence https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cohencidence: A play on 'coincidence' and the common Ashkenazi Jewish surname Cohen. Used to imply that Jews are behind certain events or movements that are purported to be random or organic. Similar to ((())).
- shadowgovt 4y agoPossibly a result of overwork, or exposure to something unrelated to the disaster. I'm feeling the same symptoms described right now. But there's a cold going around.
- hristov 4y ago"Because the investigators' symptoms improved soon after they left the area, the incident was not reported to the public" .... This is a rather Orwellian statement. Don't worry everyone, the CDC workers symptoms improved as soon as they got the hell out of East Palestine, therefore East Palestine must be completely healthy.
- dmix 4y agoPeople were evacuated for a reason?
- darth_avocado 4y agoAnd cleared to return? These people got sick doing door to door surveys, meaning people were back at home. This is ridiculous. Even with the above, they are “unsure” if it was related to anything else like “fatigue”. Like come on.
- shadowgovt 4y agoHuman health is a complicated thing. Talk to people all day about symptoms they're experiencing and you can develop psychosomatic effects. Especially if you're over-worked and that kind of censusing isn't your day-to-day. Not to say nothing happened to them. Just that medical causality is really complicated.
- junofan 4y agoThe CDC is full of shit. It’s not complicated.
- shadowgovt 4y agoWhat does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster?
- 4y ago
- blobbers 4y agoThis sounds like CDC workers will have a big lawsuit against the CDC. Their employment contract can't possibly be so bullet proof as to fully waive their right to this? They should have sufficient protective equipment when investigating these types of disasters.
- rcme 4y agoWhat are the damages?
- StrangeATractor 4y agoOSHA would have something to say about it, but the Executive Branch would like to keep a muzzle on them to avoid more fallout next election.
- dehrmann 4y ago> Their employment contract can't possibly be so bullet proof as to fully waive their right to this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
- jollyllama 4y agoWow, why do bad things happen to all the investigators sent to look into mishaps in Ohio? https://katv.com/news/local/authorities-responding-to-plane-crash-in-little-rock-fire-department-lrfd-firefighters-officials-bill-hillary-clinton-national-airport-arkansas-ark-3m-manufacturing-corporate-office-plant-walters-road-critcal-condition-passengers-crew-developing-breaking https://katv.com/news/local/authorities-responding-to-plane-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- KennyBlanken 4y ago> A Little Rock-based environmental consulting firm confirmed that all five people onboard the plane, including the pilot, were members of their company. Not "investigators"...
- skywal_l 4y agoDon't know why you are downvoted, maybe because you are unclear. Most of the people sent on site to perform tests and surveys are private contractors payed by the train company (Norfolk Southern) [0]. This is 1980 USSR level of corruption. [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/east-palestine-ohio-norfolk-southern-cteh https://www.propublica.org/article/east-palestine-ohio-norfo...
- egberts1 4y agoWe will take a redundancy of investigator teams to ensure that government is on the up and up, no?
- aaron695 4y ago[dead]
- bitL 4y agoIs there any antidote for phosgene that can be manufactured quickly at home?
- Pulcinella 4y agoI believe the toxicity of Phosgene is more of a corrosive effect than being poisoned by something like snake venom. It chemically reacts with the tissue in your lungs rather than interfering with specific biochemical reactions, so you can’t really manufacture an antidote. Just like how there isn’t an antidote for chlorine gas.
- shadowgovt 4y agoYes, water. Phosgene reacts aggressively with water and hydrolizes in less than a tenth of a second. It doesn't necessarily dissolve readily, but any surface that gets hosed down (or chunk of atmosphere that gets sprayed) will generally be phosgene-free.
- jaunkst 4y agoThere is no ownership when the repercussions are soft and deferred.
- ngc248 4y agoTrue ... we live in a post-consequences world. All repercussions/consequences are gated thru multiple considerations.
- poink 4y agoEPA officials also recently admitted that the scanners they are using for some tests aren't sensitive enough to detect dangerous levels of some chemicals they are testing for https://statuscoup.substack.com/p/east-palestine-bombshell-epa-official https://statuscoup.substack.com/p/east-palestine-bombshell-e...
- abrodersen 4y ago3.6 roentgen? Not great, not terrible.
- GalenErso 4y agoYes, but it's not exactly the same situation. "The EPA’s equipment isn’t able to detect lower levels of Butyl Acrylate that can still pose a threat to human health." In Chernobyl, the Soviets had the opposite problem: the maximum concentration their standard equipment could read was far below the real level.
- Nathanba 4y agothat's a far better problem to have because you'll at least have the indication that you are maxing out your equipment
- bregma 4y agoInteger overflow is real and prevalent. To many times have I seen unchecked overflow return a number much much smaller than expected.
- CapstanRoller 4y agoUnfortunately this is not the case with many Geiger counters, especially older ones. Geiger-Muller (GM) tubes detect radiation by measuring ionization events. When a high energy particle passes through the tube, it leaves a little trail through which electricity can flow, but only for a moment — this temporary flow of electricity is amplified and fed into the detection circuit, and it also what is used to generate the typical clicking noise. The Geiger counter is basically an edge detector + summing circuit with decay. When a GM tube is overloaded, the particles create too many overlapping trails, and the tube cannot stop conducting electricity. This continuous flow of electricity does not trigger the edge detector, so it thinks the level of radiation is zero. Some modern equipment has an alarm for this condition.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ummonk 4y agoIt’s possible there is a benign explanation (spring is allergy season after all), but it’s insane that the government hasn’t been erring in the side of caution throughout this incident.
- cwkoss 4y agoNot sure whether I'd feel better if the people running our government were greedy psychopaths or just horribly incompetent.
- w3454 4y agoHow about both?
- dehrmann 4y agoCould also be psychosomatic.
- shadowgovt 4y agoI wouldn't call it "insane." The temporary evacuation was erring on the side of caution. Vinyl chloride and the other materials on the train are extremely well-understood chemicals and denature pretty rapidly in the wild (especially if you expose them to a controlled burn).
- Sheboopi 4y ago[flagged]
- cwkoss 4y agoI'm really worried about the effects on the food supply chain. The plume of chemical vapors covered a significant proportion this country's breadbasket. Corn, wheat and soybean fields got sprinkled with carcinogens, they will be harvested, turned into flours and processed derivatives, and could end up in practically any processed food on grocery store shelves. Does anyone have a reassuring reason why I shouldn't be worried about this? Does the food industrial complex have controls to prevent chemically contaminated grain from getting into processed food supply chains? Is there a reason to believe the government is regulating this competently? I think I'm going to try to avoid processed food and buy produce as locally as possible for a few years (which also has some other benefits anyways). But, am I being overly paranoid?
- StrangeATractor 4y agoRelax, unless the grains were grown next door and you got that batch of corn or flour you'll be fine. Otherwise it's going to be very diluted. There are tons of carcinogens around, East Palestine is the least of your worries unless you live near there. (I have zero scientific background)
- cwkoss 4y agoI would expect that most food is processed in batches, so there could be a few batches that are very dangerous, but most would be completely unaffected (assuming the chemicals don't persist through whatever cleaning/batch changeover processes)
- shadowgovt 4y agoYou may have zero scientific background, but your rule of thumb numbers are quite correct. By simple volume, people have more to be concerned about from the plastic vapors left over from the packaging and shipping processes for the food they're buying from the grocery store then the risk of vinyl chloride contamination from the East Palestine spill.
- chaxor 4y agoThis is absolutely a phenomenal point. I would be interested to know how one could test their own food and water at their house for a reasonable price. I can't imagine that any regulation would actually catch this. Water is a maybe (mostly they're concerned with other types of contaminates), but food is a concern for sure.
- albert-thomas 4y agoi haven't even opened this article yet, but the headline scares the crap out of me
- laserlight 4y agoCan we update the title to be “East Palestine, Ohio”? Otherwise it reads like CDC is involved with chemical warfare allegations in Palestine.
- dubcanada 4y agoIf you're going to go that far, you should add "USA" to it as well. This is a very USA centric forum though, so it's perfectly fine leaving it as it is. A better question is why is a CDC news article on train derailment on hacker news. What part of this article is related to technology or computers? It's just regular news.
- ipaddr 4y agoMany readers are involved in biosciences and discussing chemical reactions is a hn thing to do.
- dubcanada 4y agoAnd that's fine, but it isn't about biosciences or chemical reactions. It's just a fluff journalistic piece with a bunch of he said, she said. No links to any reports containing any factual studies, any reports, any discussion on the chemical components (beyond listing what they are). So I just don't think it deserves to be on HN, but that's fine. It's got 441 votes so obviously at least that many think it does.
- 4gotunameagain 4y agoMuch much much more people are aware that Ohio is in the USA, while Palestine is in Palestine.
- slim 4y agoEast Palestine is not Palestine, like New York is not York. We'll get used to it. I hope East Palestine gets in the news for less tragical events in the future
- 4y ago
- nickdothutton 4y agoIn a year or 2 when all the reports are in, I can’t wait to read them. Of course I am not an environmental scientist, but my mind boggles at the thought of turning a bad (but controlled/constrained) situation into an uncontrolled/unconstrained one by simply torching the spill, seems bananas.