From: Peter Marshall (petermarshall@cix.co.uk)
Date: 02/24/03-05:25:07 PM Z
Peter
I didn't mean to be getting at you at all, just giving a little of my own
painful experience with acetic acid.
Unfortunately my own days of eating fish and chips are largely in the past
- need to stick to a healthy diet now. No more lunches in those greasy
spoons :-(
All the best
Peter Marshall
Photography Guide at About http://photography.about.com/
email: photography.guide@about.com
_________________________________________________________________
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and elsewhere......
> Peter & Katherine,
>
> You are putting words in my mouth I never said this, in fact why do you
> think I put (out of context) in the subject heading, it was just a
> little
> joke ! I was under the impression that I was communicating with a
> Photoalternative group consisting of adults knowledgable in safety
> issues.
>
> In all my teaching and writing I stress safety. I am sorry if I did not
> give
> that impression. However I do agree with Clay when he says --:
>
>
> my point is there seems to be precious little 'middle ground' between
> hysterical fear of anything 'chemical' and blithe disregard of
> everything
> [e.g. "I used to play with mercury when I was a kid, and it didn't hurt
> me a
> bit."]. Dick Arentz uses the phrase 'reasonable and prudent use' to
> describe the frame of mind that we all probably should maintain in our
> photographic practice.
>
> And so do I.
>
> Pete
>
> http://www.books.i12.com/parlour/tempera.html
>
>
> >
> > Not to pick on Pete, Pete's jest, or acetic acid in particular, but to
> > make a general comment in response to some posts that have seemed to
> > imply that if you can eat something how dangerous could it be? which I
> > think require a response even though I swore I was out of this debate:
> >
> > There are very few substances that as substances in and of themselves
> > are toxic in small amounts, but as my brother in law the toxicologist
> > likes to say, "It's the dose that makes the poison." What's more, the
> > danger of most of our chemicals isn't from eating them (though I
> > wouldn't recommend it) but from contacting them in other ways such as
> > through the skin or lungs, and the danger isn't always from poisoning
> > but can be from burns or damage to the breathing passages. Acetic acid
> > may be one of the less reactive of the acids, but just because in
> > diluted form we can eat it on fish and chips, doesn't mean that
> > glacial
> > acetic acid is as safe to handle or drink as household vinegar.
> >
> > In the same vein, I think I heard someone on this list say a while
> > back
> > that because dichromates are present in the body and in the diet, any
> > concern about the safety of dichromates is unreasonable. And then
> > there
> > was a post this morning that suggested, perhaps in jest, that
> > photochemicals are no more dangerous than red wine and some other food
> > item. These comments, even in jest aren't helpful to the debate and if
> > not in jest, are a measure of the ignorance that exists on the list
> > about chemical safety and point out how important it is to have some
> > kind of central information available. For most of our chemicals, as I
> > mentioned above, the danger isn't so much from potentially ingesting
> > them but from breathing the fumes, from absorbing the solution through
> > the skin, from burns, from improper handling or mixing, and other
> > non-ingestion issues, and it's important I think to know what the
> > danger
> > is for each chemical, so that precautions can be taken.
> >
> > Knowledge is power, and the more knowledge you have, the better you
> > can
> > protect yourself, without being either irresponsibly cavalier, or so
> > overcautious you are afraid to do anything. There is a middle road of
> > sensible guidelines for handling chemicals safely, and I think we can
> > find it if we work together in good faith to do that.
> >
> > This is a bit off the subject, but relates to "the dose makes the
> > poison": I heard a fascinating talk this week by the state medical
> > examiner for a nearby state. She said that all over the US, medical
> > examiners are seeing a sudden rise in accidental deaths from methadone
> > overdoses. It turns out that doctors, concerned about the illicit use
> > and abuse of Oxycontin, have started prescribing methadone instead of
> > Oxycontin for intractable pain. The problem is that doctors don't
> > always
> > understand that the dosage of methadone has to be adjusted over time,
> > because if it's not, it builds up to toxic levels in the system and
> > eventually kills the patient, so people are being inadvertently killed
> > by a drug prescribed by their doctors, taken at the dosage prescribed.
> >
> >
> > Katharine Thayer
>
>
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