Re: Sausage and dichromate

On Mar 15, 2006, at 1:36 PM, Judy Seigel wrote:

>
> (But still, I remember another message about preservative...

This looks to me a perfect demonstration of the creation and
perpetuation of an alt-photo myth.

The search engine brought up 24 messages in the archives containing
the word "sausage," including such sentiments as "Callie has more
guts than a sausage factory" and a number of posts over the years
referencing the same item that Mike Ware's 1995 post referenced,
about the sausage casings being bonded by use of irradiated
dichromated glue, during the 1870 campaign. But nothing about
dichromates being used as a preservative in sausages, except for an
occasional post asserting this as an accepted fact.

Then I got curious and searched the internet. I read articles about
the history of sausage-making; I read reams of commercial sausage
recipes; I read everything I could find about sausage-making and the
preservatives used in sausage-making. Salt was historically the most-
used preservative and later nitrites and nitrates became prevalent.
Sorbates, sorbic acid, are also mentiioned, and some herbs and
spices. (Cinnamon was considered a preservative in the making of
sausages in China). But no mention of dichromates ever having been
used as a preservative in sausage making, except (ta-da) on the alt-
photo list.

The other day, I said that probably small amounts of dichromates
could be ingested without hurting anyone, but that ingestion isn't
really the safety issue for alt-photo workers; instead the issue is
cancers of the breathing passages that occur when dichromate powder
or spray is breathed, and contact dermatitis.

But an article I came across this afternoon has made me change my
mind about all that. There is a case report of an 8-year old boy who
swallowed "a small amount" of ammonium dichromate powder, mistaking
it for a soft drink powder that is available in India (I assume
something like Koolaid). He died four days later, and the pictures
of his internal organs that accompany the report are not pretty. Read
this

http://www.geradts.com/anil/ij/vol_006_no_001/papers/paper003.html

and decide for yourself how cavalier you want to be in future about
how safe it is to eat dichromates. I never again will suggest that
perhaps a person could eat a small amount of dichromate without harm.
Katharine
Received on Wed Mar 15 18:24:33 2006