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by Jekyll
4327 days ago
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Regardless of these 'toxins' - I'm sure if you evaluated the toxicity and exposure to chemicals in an average household it would be probably exceed that of industrial labs in the past. Think deodorants, washing-up liquid, detergents, hand-washes, shampoos riddled with obscure-and-difficult-to-pronounce ingredients, cleaning liquids such as bleach. Forget the risk of being exposed to manganese within a steel can - we are already actively polluting our households and probably breathing in higher amounts of nasty chemicals hidden in household products than the examples mentioned in the article. |
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Here's a classic pre-OSHA example of producing tetraethyl lead with no containment whatsoever (1924): http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2011/08/24/at-the-doo...
Madam Curie's papers are still radioactive due to lack of containment (early 1900s): http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1107/Marie...
Herea re the "Radium Girls" who would lick radium-laced paintbrushes to make watches (1917): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
And don't forget that nearly all heat-related surfaces in old labs were insulated with asbestos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Industrial_era
Don't forget the countless people who played with mercury as pranks (!) in old labs, nevermind the fact that old lab thermometers used to be made of the stuff and that it was used in countless experiments of yore (today, a broken mercury thermometer will evacuate a school or lab): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)#Historic_uses
Etc. Unless you've got a small lead factory, asbestos, some radioactive liquids, and a bottle of mercury laying around your house, I'm quite certain that it is quite a bit safer than "industrial labs in the past."