6 ms·

It's interesting what people would say about the safety of industrial chemicals. My dad worked as an aircraft maintenance engineer for an airliner, working on t

by PakG1 3y ago

It's interesting what people would say about the safety of industrial chemicals. My dad worked as an aircraft maintenance engineer for an airliner, working on the big passenger aircraft. When he was being trained in the 70s/80s, they used 111-trichloroethane for a lot of stuff. They were told that the stuff was so safe that you could drink it. Later, he got kidney cancer. He sued and got only partial compensation because the court concluded that there was only a 50% chance that his cancer was from the 111-trichloroethane. Of course, today, we as a society still don't know if it causes cancer, but we think it might. https://wwwn.cdc.gov/tsp/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=431&toxid=76 https://wwwn.cdc.gov/tsp/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=4... Still, whether or not it does, it's wild that people would say things like that back then. Hey all, use this stuff, but you probably wouldn't want to drink it while you have lunch, right? Because we don't know what it really does to the body, so let's play it safe and use proper safety procedures, OK? Nope, it's, "this stuff is harmless, you could drink it and you'll be fine."

Dylan16807 3y ago
> Hey all, use this stuff, but you probably wouldn't want to drink it while you have lunch, right? I don't know about that standard. There's a lot of things that are safe to work with that I wouldn't want to make part of lunch.
avar 3y ago
> it's wild that people > would say things like that > back then. I think it's "wild" that you're so confidently clinging to the narrative that there was a causal link between this chemical and your dad's cancer. Sure, it's possible, but clearly decades of data since then failing to move it away from the "probably a carcinogenic" column supports the notion that it's more harmless than not. The list of IARC group 2A includes bitumen (widely used in roofing), red meat, drinks above 65°C (150°F), being a barber, and working night shifts.
- dappermanneke 3y ago
  I don't know why your reply is being hidden. it is completely fair to say most people drawing such links are likely mistaken.
  - MichaelRo 3y ago
    I'm not confidently clinging, just saying there's a probable causality link. My father has several brothers and sisters, none got Parkinson's but none worked with herbicides. An acquaintance that was also an agricultural engineer, colleague of my father, also got Parkinson's. There were lots of people in the town around those chemicals but noone kept track. They're almost all gone by now, but old age is also a factor. On the other hand it's almost certain not all got Parkinson's so funk knows. Again I didn't verify and I'm not in the mood to verify, although it would be possible since it's a small town. Go round every house and ask if their deceased relative had Parkinson's. But to what purpose?
  - PakG1 3y ago
    You too need to read my comment again. See my reply to gp comment.
- PakG1 3y ago
  You seem to have reading comprehension issues. I nowhere said that I thought there was a causal link. I cited well-known medical organizations that said it was probable. I in no way put my own feelings into that statement. You were reading things that weren't there and then making incorrect inferences. I'm certainly not clinging to anything. But I do still think it's wild to say that it's perfectly fine to drink 111-trichloroethane. If you think it's not wild to say this, perhaps we can meet up, I'll pour 111-trichloroethane into a cup, and you can drink it in front of me. Me, I'll continue to say it's wild to say it's OK to drink the stuff.
  - avar 3y ago
    > You seem to have reading comprehension issues. You seem to have a particular obsession with drawing equivalences between the safety ratings of industrial chemicals and their ingestion. Of course I wouldn't drink 111-trichloroethane, I wouldn't drink bitumen either. Neither is intended for human consumption, so these safety ratings need to be considered in the context of their intended uses. The CDC source you cited notes that it was phased out due to damage to the ozone layer, which is orthogonal to any human safety concerns.
julian_t 3y ago
When I was at school in the 70s, if we got something on our hands in the science labs we'd wash it off with acetone or benzene (but were never advised to drink them) And I still remember the chemistry teacher rolling beads of mercury round his palm to show us how mobile it was.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Acetone appears to be pretty high on the effective-divided-by-unsafe spectrum.
  - henearkr 3y ago
    Yeah acetone is innocuous (at reasonable doses) and even present (and produced) naturally in our body.
- PakG1 3y ago
  I remember my science teacher telling us they used to use mercury in the class and he'd wonder if any of his old students were walking around cuckoo because of it.
afterburner 3y ago
In 1924 the inventor of the lead additive for gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr., poured the additive over his hands and inhaled its vapors for a minute, as a demonstration at a press conference. He knew it was poisonous though. Seems like such demonstrations, even just describing it, were de riguer in the wild west era of industrial chemical innovation. Fun fact, Thomas Midgley Jr. also invented CFCs.
- rex_lupi 3y ago
  Went to check if he ever had any erm, "effects", but this is even wilder: > "In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio and was left severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. On November 2, 1944, at the age of 55, he was found dead at his home in Worthington, Ohio. He had been killed by his own device after he became entangled in it and died of strangulation"
  - afterburner 3y ago
    Yes his death was extremely fitting. He did get lead poisoning at least twice according to wikipedia, before and after the demonstration, requiring vacations to recuperate.
    - tigerlily 3y ago
      Don't tell me he took copper supplements on his holidays?
- thret 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA?si=hgG67vKmBBLgKgeg https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA?si=hgG67vKmBBLgKgeg This youtube channel does a good job of explaining his inventions and just how bad for society they were.
  - pas 3y ago
    it's not how that works. you need to look at the counterfactuals too. TEL decreased knocking, which decreased incomplete combustion, which decreased pollution a lot. lead pollution from gasoline was about 30% of all lead pollution. it's great that people recognized how harmful lead pollution is and coordinated action was taken. for CFCs it allowed the development of fridges that use non-hazardous working fluid. previous ones used propane for example, folks kept their fridges on the porch because there were some that exploded. from this article/essay (I'm not endorsing the main message, but the need for nuance and cost-benefit analysis is correct IMHO) https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/11/technological-stagnation-is-a-choice/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/11/technological-sta...
lnsru 3y ago
I see clear pattern. Some guys now tell you: self driving is around a corner, the cars are safe. We know how it ended with chemicals from 30 years ago. DDT is a good example of it both for Western world as well for soviet union. 30 years from now we will shake the heads thinking about 2 ton vehicles with camera trying navigate by themselves. Looks like that it’s in the human nature to believe things that are too good to be true.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Delayed effects are a bit different.
- pas 3y ago
  DDT as used is safe for humans though. it's estimated that DDT saved 500 million lives. so you know, it's not black and white. and FSD works, just not efficient if the safety parameter is set to high, because "suddenly" human drivers will start to bully it
  - kuhewa 3y ago
    It's not so much about "as used", but how it was produced by Montrose Corp and dumped straight down the municipal sewer by the ton, decades later leaving a signature in every marine animal off southern California and sometimes much farther away.
- Shorel 3y ago
  Self-driving is very easy to evaluate. We humans are potentially very good drivers, and in practice we all can say if someone is driving safely or not. Chemical and biological interactions are very difficult to evaluate and predict, so I don't see the parallels here. One is a very hard research field, while the other requires complex hardware, but it is readily applicable if/when it works.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Part of self driving is dealing with those human drivers who are terrible drivers though. This is what makes the whole thing so hard. If we could have dedicated roads for self driving cars it would be easy peasy. No need to interpret road markings, signs, other vehicles and their intentions. Because it would all be communicated digitally over radio. Steering a car is total peanuts for a computer. It's the unexpected stuff that makes it hard. Like that Uber car that killed that lady that crossed the road with her bike in the dark at a totally unexpected spot. A human is better at those things because they're caused by other humans who aren't logical. But such matters are really hard to test and evaluate for precisely because they are unexpected.
clort 3y ago
if I recall TCE (is tricholoroethylene the same as 111-trichloroethane?) has significant links to Parkinsons and is classed as a known carcinogen over here in the UK https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/cleaning-chemical-tce-may-cause-parkinsons-disease https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/cleaning-chemical-...
- henearkr 3y ago
  No it's not the same as trichloroethylene. Trichloroethylene is [Cl-C-Cl]=[Cl-C-H] whereas 1,1,1-trichloroethane is [Cl-C-Cl -Cl]-[H-C-H -H] Trichloroethylene is really evil. Whereas 1,1,1-trichloroethane much less.

by PakG1 3y ago

Dylan16807 3y ago

> Hey all, use this stuff, but you probably wouldn't want to drink it while you have lunch, right? I don't know about that standard. There's a lot of things that are safe to work with that I wouldn't want to make part of lunch.

avar 3y ago

> it's wild that people > would say things like that > back then. I think it's "wild" that you're so confidently clinging to the narrative that there was a causal link between this chemical and your dad's cancer. Sure, it's possible, but clearly decades of data since then failing to move it away from the "probably a carcinogenic" column supports the notion that it's more harmless than not. The list of IARC group 2A includes bitumen (widely used in roofing), red meat, drinks above 65°C (150°F), being a barber, and working night shifts.

dappermanneke 3y ago
I don't know why your reply is being hidden. it is completely fair to say most people drawing such links are likely mistaken.
- MichaelRo 3y ago
  I'm not confidently clinging, just saying there's a probable causality link. My father has several brothers and sisters, none got Parkinson's but none worked with herbicides. An acquaintance that was also an agricultural engineer, colleague of my father, also got Parkinson's. There were lots of people in the town around those chemicals but noone kept track. They're almost all gone by now, but old age is also a factor. On the other hand it's almost certain not all got Parkinson's so funk knows. Again I didn't verify and I'm not in the mood to verify, although it would be possible since it's a small town. Go round every house and ask if their deceased relative had Parkinson's. But to what purpose?
- PakG1 3y ago
  You too need to read my comment again. See my reply to gp comment.
PakG1 3y ago
You seem to have reading comprehension issues. I nowhere said that I thought there was a causal link. I cited well-known medical organizations that said it was probable. I in no way put my own feelings into that statement. You were reading things that weren't there and then making incorrect inferences. I'm certainly not clinging to anything. But I do still think it's wild to say that it's perfectly fine to drink 111-trichloroethane. If you think it's not wild to say this, perhaps we can meet up, I'll pour 111-trichloroethane into a cup, and you can drink it in front of me. Me, I'll continue to say it's wild to say it's OK to drink the stuff.
- avar 3y ago
  > You seem to have reading comprehension issues. You seem to have a particular obsession with drawing equivalences between the safety ratings of industrial chemicals and their ingestion. Of course I wouldn't drink 111-trichloroethane, I wouldn't drink bitumen either. Neither is intended for human consumption, so these safety ratings need to be considered in the context of their intended uses. The CDC source you cited notes that it was phased out due to damage to the ozone layer, which is orthogonal to any human safety concerns.

julian_t 3y ago

When I was at school in the 70s, if we got something on our hands in the science labs we'd wash it off with acetone or benzene (but were never advised to drink them) And I still remember the chemistry teacher rolling beads of mercury round his palm to show us how mobile it was.

sokoloff 3y ago
Acetone appears to be pretty high on the effective-divided-by-unsafe spectrum.
- henearkr 3y ago
  Yeah acetone is innocuous (at reasonable doses) and even present (and produced) naturally in our body.
PakG1 3y ago
I remember my science teacher telling us they used to use mercury in the class and he'd wonder if any of his old students were walking around cuckoo because of it.

afterburner 3y ago

In 1924 the inventor of the lead additive for gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr., poured the additive over his hands and inhaled its vapors for a minute, as a demonstration at a press conference. He knew it was poisonous though. Seems like such demonstrations, even just describing it, were de riguer in the wild west era of industrial chemical innovation. Fun fact, Thomas Midgley Jr. also invented CFCs.

rex_lupi 3y ago
Went to check if he ever had any erm, "effects", but this is even wilder: > "In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio and was left severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. On November 2, 1944, at the age of 55, he was found dead at his home in Worthington, Ohio. He had been killed by his own device after he became entangled in it and died of strangulation"
- afterburner 3y ago
  Yes his death was extremely fitting. He did get lead poisoning at least twice according to wikipedia, before and after the demonstration, requiring vacations to recuperate.
  - tigerlily 3y ago
    Don't tell me he took copper supplements on his holidays?
thret 3y ago
https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA?si=hgG67vKmBBLgKgeg https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA?si=hgG67vKmBBLgKgeg This youtube channel does a good job of explaining his inventions and just how bad for society they were.
- pas 3y ago
  it's not how that works. you need to look at the counterfactuals too. TEL decreased knocking, which decreased incomplete combustion, which decreased pollution a lot. lead pollution from gasoline was about 30% of all lead pollution. it's great that people recognized how harmful lead pollution is and coordinated action was taken. for CFCs it allowed the development of fridges that use non-hazardous working fluid. previous ones used propane for example, folks kept their fridges on the porch because there were some that exploded. from this article/essay (I'm not endorsing the main message, but the need for nuance and cost-benefit analysis is correct IMHO) https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/11/technological-stagnation-is-a-choice/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/11/technological-sta...

lnsru 3y ago

I see clear pattern. Some guys now tell you: self driving is around a corner, the cars are safe. We know how it ended with chemicals from 30 years ago. DDT is a good example of it both for Western world as well for soviet union. 30 years from now we will shake the heads thinking about 2 ton vehicles with camera trying navigate by themselves. Looks like that it’s in the human nature to believe things that are too good to be true.

HPsquared 3y ago
Delayed effects are a bit different.
pas 3y ago
DDT as used is safe for humans though. it's estimated that DDT saved 500 million lives. so you know, it's not black and white. and FSD works, just not efficient if the safety parameter is set to high, because "suddenly" human drivers will start to bully it
- kuhewa 3y ago
  It's not so much about "as used", but how it was produced by Montrose Corp and dumped straight down the municipal sewer by the ton, decades later leaving a signature in every marine animal off southern California and sometimes much farther away.
Shorel 3y ago
Self-driving is very easy to evaluate. We humans are potentially very good drivers, and in practice we all can say if someone is driving safely or not. Chemical and biological interactions are very difficult to evaluate and predict, so I don't see the parallels here. One is a very hard research field, while the other requires complex hardware, but it is readily applicable if/when it works.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Part of self driving is dealing with those human drivers who are terrible drivers though. This is what makes the whole thing so hard. If we could have dedicated roads for self driving cars it would be easy peasy. No need to interpret road markings, signs, other vehicles and their intentions. Because it would all be communicated digitally over radio. Steering a car is total peanuts for a computer. It's the unexpected stuff that makes it hard. Like that Uber car that killed that lady that crossed the road with her bike in the dark at a totally unexpected spot. A human is better at those things because they're caused by other humans who aren't logical. But such matters are really hard to test and evaluate for precisely because they are unexpected.

clort 3y ago

if I recall TCE (is tricholoroethylene the same as 111-trichloroethane?) has significant links to Parkinsons and is classed as a known carcinogen over here in the UK https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/cleaning-chemical-tce-may-cause-parkinsons-disease https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/cleaning-chemical-...

henearkr 3y ago
No it's not the same as trichloroethylene. Trichloroethylene is [Cl-C-Cl]=[Cl-C-H] whereas 1,1,1-trichloroethane is [Cl-C-Cl -Cl]-[H-C-H -H] Trichloroethylene is really evil. Whereas 1,1,1-trichloroethane much less.