Re: Bichromate Sausages
On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Katharine Thayer wrote: ....the misconception about the sausages ... was used repeatedly here in support of the idea that it's perfectly harmless to eat dichromates).Hello? I've stopped trying to follow this thread because it's gotten to be more and more about less and less... That "misconceptions" exist as truth is a given... not a week goes by that even such a general publication as the NY Times doesn't print some "correction" from one of the specialty journals it monitors, and I guarantee that the future holds modifications and corrections of those "corrections" ad infinitum. The idea that there is one permanent unalterable truth to be found by any seeker with the tools & knowledge of today is.... at best naive, at worst hubris. But this is so over the top, it needs a marker. WHO ON THIS LIST HAS SAID "IT'S PERFECTLY HARMLESS TO EAT DICHROMATES." ? And can we trust the accuracy of anything from a commentator given to such wild hyperbole ? Now this from memory, but thanks to Liam for the reference. A slightly different one (to the same general point I daresay) came in from Mike Ware, maybe 10 years ago. But whether the dichromate was used IN the sausage as a preservative, or AROUND the sausage in a casing, it would in any event have been a tiny amount, and no more poisonous than half the additives in the list of ingredients in, say, Wonder Bread or Cheerios. The point if any (I don't recall the remark) was surely not to say it was harmless to EAT, but that it wasn't such a deadly poison. I'll add that it was-- and remains -- viciously allergenic, chrome being one of the two most allergenic substances to humans -- and workers in old carbon printing plants often had ghastly lesions that they didn't understand. I myself being very allergenic have taken enormous, extravagant care & worked with it safely to this date... while warning students sternly, extremely, furiously, against it (to the point of smacking their hands when I see them ungloved in the wash water). But that's beside the point here (and I've said it many times before). The point is an exasperated protest to such nonsense from one who positions herself as righteous, fact-seeking, scientific beacon of exactitude in a sloppy, credulous, ignorant world. Judy ========================================================================= Read My T-Shirt for President: A True History of the Political Front _ and Back >www.frontandbackpress.com< ........................................................................ A reader writes: "I'd recommend it for a Pulitzer Prize, except I lack the credentials."
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