A new round of pollutants.....

I don't think there has been any secret about dioxins in anti-bacterial products, littlek. I remember that dioxins were an issue with Lysol disinfectant spray as long ago as the 70s. I just think there are no regulations on these household products.

I think they just don't run through every possible combination of chemicals and chemical reactions when they do their testing.

Wasn't something similar the reason they pulled Physohex from the retail market back in the late 1960s?

the problem is , we learned how to make dioxins and PCBsothers back in the 1920s. we learned to exploit their properties in the next 50 years, then, in the 1970s we began to understand their biochemical and toxicological properties.
Industry has stopped using PCBs since the mid 70s and theyve been learning how PCDFs and Dioxins are created as unintended by-products of incinertators and chemical manufacturing.

benzene was first produced from coal and coking operations in the 1800s. its been a center chemical of dye manufacture, gasoline distillation, explosive manufacture and a whole bunch of other processes. we only began to understand that benzene was a powerful carcinogen since the 1960s.

onlyin the last 10 years weve begun to understand that sawdust, ordinary sawdust is as important a carcinogen as is benzene. the moral of this is, we, as a species, learn how to make stuff and only later do we learn the consequences. This has always been the case.

even radiation was first treated like a natural pheno,menon that we could use to , make luminous watch dials and photo processing or x ray machines for kids feet. We now dont even batt an eye when given the facts that radiation can kill you.

all these consequences had to be learned, just as we had to learn the toxic properties of the chemicals that we first exploited for industrial manufacture. The wisdom of use and consequence dont appear at the same time. Its unfortunate .

Here is another thing that worries me: Everybody uses pressure treated lumber for framing, kids'playgrounds, picnic tables, and so on. This lumber has arsenic in it. When someone asks me to build them a picnic table, I always use non-treated wood for the top - This makes most angry. But, I picture kids laying their sandwiches on that fresh wet lumber and I just can't build them that way. I envision a time when arsenic filled playgrounds will be treated as toxic dumps, just like sites with radiation, lead, etc.

everytime i read something like this i am caught between the realization that somebody did not do their homework in the lab, or perhaps a marketing manager got his way over the objections of the technical staff to bring a product to market, and the profound ignorance of the common man and woman when it comes to understanding about the natural world all around them.

while i do not expect each person to be a degreed chemist, i do expect those who complain about the environment to at least have cracked open more than one book on the subject matter.

my own background is as a chemist. each of my advanced degrees focused on structure-biological activity relationships of small aromatic compounds used in medicines, polymers, and dyes. i have done more ames tests than anyone i know. the ames test is a way of determining the mutagenic capabilities of chemicals using varying dose levels on different bacteria. the bacteria are selected such as each strain has a different mechanism by which it can be mutated. in composite, by using a multitude of bacteria strains one can attempt to see what effect the chemical has on basic genetic structure and the results extrapolated to humans.

however, so many naturally occuring chemicals that humans have lived with for thousands of years without affect have been shown by ames testing to be profound mutagens. in fact, the mutagens found in raw potatos, brocculi, and a myriad of other vegetables are considered far worse mutagens than a number of synthetically manufactured chemicals now banned from use.

when i entered the field i was a starry-eyed idealist, who was going to produce new, safer chemicals of commercial importance.

what i found after decades in the lab, in the library, and in the industry itself was a more complicated universe than first i had imagined.

first and foremost is the amazing ability of the average person to think that his/her modern conveniences come without inconveniences.

if one wishes to fly like the birds, then the clouds will smell of gasoline. if one wants to cure his syphilis, then one uses penicillin without even considering that its widespread use could produce mutant strains of bacteria unaffected by penicillin.

if one wishes to cook with pots and pans that dont stick, then one uses teflon coated utensiles even though its degradation components are now found even at the north pole.

such are the trade-offs for modern living, and if you dont like it, go live in a cave, kill wild animals with your bare hands, wear their skins, and expect a life span of less than 4 decades.

directly relating to theoriginal post:

dioxins are a class of chemicals, some are very harmful. some innocuous. much of what is tested is by following a standard method of determining a chemical's LD 50 concentration. this is the concentration of a chemical ingested by a lab rat which kills 50% of the test animals.

the LD50 for most chemicals is so high that under normal conditions, no one would have that level of exposure to the chemical in question unless they fell into a vat of it.

however, when the media reports on "hazardous" chemicals, this fact is rarely mentioned (personally i have never seen it in a media report on toxic chemicals).

the use of toxicological testing data can be interpreted to fit any political or philosophical position one desires, and i have found people who use the words "might be, can be, may be," without defining the dose levels when describing a chemical's biological effects, to be deceitful little pricks with a suspect agenda. and this cuts both ways, both for corporate shills and wacko environmental shrills.

many molecules called carcinogenic can be so only at levels near or even higher than it's LD50 concentration, and from data based upon my own work, there are molecules considered, and now get this, carcinogenic but not mutagenic. and for anyone who understands genetics and the causes of cancer at the molecular level, this is an absurdity.

yet there it is, a semantic conundrum defining a property to a substance whose very mechanism of affect is unsupported by testing.

in all this, the overriding factors are the usefulness of a substance versus its harmful side effects. what these side effects are or can be is the job of the scientists working with them to find out, and our govenment's job is to ensure rational policies for safety.

each day we proceed through the modern world we gain insight as to what happens to chemicals in our environment and these leassons learned are incorporated for the better understanding and safe use of chemicals.

this is a dynamic issue, one which is ever changing as we gain insight about what happens in the world to the things in it.

the wood treatment to which you refer is called "CCA" for copper-chromium-arsenic. this treatment is being phased out and replaced with safer, and more expensive alternatives.

wood treated with the alternatives are already on the market. ask for "non-CCA" treated lumber. and dont faint when told the price.

There seemed to have been a hiccup with A2k today.

kuvasz-The importance of WhEN did we know something was a toxicant, has been the subject of many a lawsuit for insurance coverage by industries that make such chemicals. My history as a chemist involved ion exchange and sorption of rare earths from crystal lattices . my first legal involvement had been in cases involving HF.SInce that time I have developed a sizable "state of the practise' bibliography concerning the legal(court ) tests of "should we have known that certain chemicals are dangerous and in what dose/responses."
the govt has often set maximum concentrations at which many chemicals can occur in the environment(soil/air/water). I believe most of those concentrations were not set by tox testing, but by some other method known only to the agencies.

PS-how is Ames testing holding up nowadays? didnt Ames himself come out against the use of his test data to reach invalid (in his words) conclusions?
.

ames was evescerated by the eco shrills as an apostate. when bruce ames came out dissing how his tests were being used, it was like jesus appearing in rome circa 60 AD and telling peter and paul to stop lying about him, with the result, a second crucifiction.

yet the tests continue, modified, improved, albeit, with more judiciously drawn conclusions.

i have been both an academic and industrial researcher in this field. the differences at conferences is dramatic. the academics all but sneer at the industrial researchers in the field as apoligists for corporate profits. the private sector people consider the academicians to have forgone their objectivity for ideology.

in all my years in the private sector never did i personally hear a corporate manager promote attempts to bend regulatory rules, or consider actions which would hurt the environment. in fact, they usually sided with more restricted actions than i and other scientists had proposed because they feared problems down the road.

kuvasz-yep, we agree on more than musical tastes. Although, in the past, Id sometimes had some regrets about toll manufacturers

On a more personal note. Do you know what is the main ingrediant in Febreze ?

Hows the big doggies?

Protease enzymes, are these not, sort of a synthetic 'spit"?
Thanks for the information kuvasz. We have a new Border Collie Puppie in the family . He understands his little pen and all, but he has an accident about once every 2 days. Hes curious and I dont want him to start developing a taste for the Febreze . Zinc chloride and alky eh? thats amouthwash formula.
You sound like you derive some fun out of "back formulating" chemical products.

the proteases are made just like beer, except that alcohol is not derived, but the valuable enzymes are gleaned as by-products of the life cycles of the bugs (bacterias). if you have ever been in a plant making these, its very clean, fda type quality and purities. and it smells like a brewery. you can even tell which enzyme they are making by the smell.

and now to the oddity: this tuesday i received notice that an Indian company would like me to market their.... proteases and cellulases in the US because of my experience with them in textile and cleaning markets. strange world.

as to the de-odorizer, you might want to try the product mentioned first in my last post, it might be the same stuff, but i bet it is a lot cheaper than a P & G retail product.

"back" formulating, or "knocking-off" another product is great fun if you are inquisitive and a bit competitive in your art..... (remember george c scott in the movie Patton?.. "Rommel! I read your god damn book!")

you are given a bottle of something and asked to match it, in performance and cost

salesguys ask such all the time and rarely do they know much, especially the cost of the competitve product, or exactly its use and use levels. which is why when i started selling the chemists loved me.. i did 90% of their job for them.

knowing the cost you have to meet narrows the selection of chemicals down to a few dozen at the most.

so, you look at it.
always, always...read their msds, since the formulator in a large company hands the completed forms to the environmental officer to complete the final version of the MSDS on a new product, that person is not sensitive to what can be revealed on an MSDS that gives away the formula. usually they tell you everything, even though you can list things as code numbers and not their CAS numbers according to a new jersey law respected nationally (which i used to do).
then:
smell it (if it is from a type of chemical market you know well and the materials generally used are not hazardous, you can find out on the MSDS)
take a ph
dry it to solids and get the % solids.
run an IR

from this, if you know the craft, you can generally figure out the major components and most of the minor ones. since there is not much new under the sun, you figure what you would do if asked to make a product and be aware of the competitors own types of technologies and perhaps strong positions in purchasing their own raw materials, there you are 95% done in a few minutes.

when i ran a big lab, i had a bunch of formulators report to me, the analytical group and the applications group. i could get a sample on my desk at 9 am, describe to my analytical chemists what to look for, get that done by 10 am, hand me the results, i would confer with the formulators before noon on what i wanted them to try (always 3 variations) and by 2:30 the 3 samples were being tested in my applications lab.

one time we formulated a knock off in the time it took the sales guy to give me the sample, go to lunch and return.

this is a lot of what i do consulting: people call me up ask for help for new products to beat competitors and most times i can do it over the phone and charge $800-1,200 a day for it. ..and generally i negotiate a commision of 1% of sales if the product sells. its cheaper than for these companies hire someone full time.

hee hee. i have some similar, but inorganic experiences. I did a lot of drilling mud formulations for special properties. I developed a silane based quick set gel for plugging formations and it had masking properties so that accurate logging could be done. Stuff was worth probably 2 dollars a 50 lb bag.
depending what were looking for we can formulate muds with sps gr at or near the minerals were looking for , thus we dont need to have all kinds of massive pumps to gather samples/ we use the big 3 , silane, surfactant , and soybean meal.


Back to the ladies thread

i used to have problems on exploration sites I was developing in canada. many times these sites had a previous histury of some environmental contamination due to old smelters(I usually buy old mine dumps and worked out mine and smelters and re-look at thir mineral components with todays technology) . We usually always found TCDDs as part of the components and had to do congener analyses to determine the possible health significance to my workers and the environment. I always got a huge kick out of the GLP and EPA requirements that made us contract with some licensed environmental lab to come out , sample , and get the samples of soil back to their labs within tightly controlled "holding times"

The soil had been sitting there, contaminated maybe 80 years ago, and now thw Ministry of the Emvironment and the EPA demanded that the soils be extracted within , I believe 14 or so days after sampling.
I dont know whether the imposed "holding times" were well thought out but I never had it explained to me in a fashion wherein I didnt have to smile quietly to myself. Especially since I was paying , probably 2500 a sample (including plane fares for all the lab crews coming in from Montana or NY)

Im more familiar with taking deep seated mineral cores and holding them in my truck bed in core boxes and driving them back to a lab months later and doing rather sophisticated wet chem and crystal lattice scanning for defect mineral inclusions from which I made my living.
I had to report to investors, not an environmental agency or ministry.my biggest problems were always reporting to the border guards and INS who always thought that mega core crates were ideal places to stash illegal aliens./

well, since I have your attention and weve totally hijacked this poor womans thread.
Ive gotta know. How do you keep your kuvazs stimulated without having some thing like sheep or cows to protect? We have some friends who have 2 Maremmas and theyve got 2 very " overly protective" dogs who only recognize "family " and "intruder". Im a big animal freek and these 2 maremmas a just MEAN. I dont know whether they are the recipient of some breeding problems or whether Maremmas just get overly protective and Kuvazs are more mellow? These people dont have any herds to protect so maybe the Maremmas are just frustrated being unemployed.
We raise sheep and are familiar with most of the guard dogs . Most people we know that have guard dogs, have komondoor(yuck) Briards , Bouviers,or Pyreneese. I guess my follow up is, did you choose the kuvasz or did they choose you? and , if you chose them, what was the deal closer/

No doubt there is money in mud. And I never quite understand how the government sets regs.

As to my kuvasz: back in late '91 my cocker spaniel, Shiney died, she and I had been inseparable for years since I got her in an amicable split with an old live-in flame. She got my cat, so I think I made out in the bargain.

Shiney was a tiger in the body of a 20-pound dog and got torn up frequently when she challenged bigger dogs. After she died I waited 6 months to get another dog. I checked out the dog pound and selected a cute 5-6 year old mixed husky-lab. Which they told me could pick up the next day. The next day I came back to pick up the dog, they had euthanasia it because it had heartworms. Was I pissed.

So I had been reading the paper that morning and had seen an advert that said "kuvasz; the ultimate guardian" I checked out the breed in my AKC book and was intrigued. Then called the breeder who had placed the advert. She was a blind lady from SC and we talked for about 2 hours about the breed, her philosophy of raising kuvasz and she was especially interested in what kind of dog owner I had been in the past. She told me that for every 5 calls she got concerning the purchase of one of her dogs, only one was invited to her breed farm, and that then only 1 in 2 she allowed to "adopt" one of her puppies. I was impressed by her and visited the next week, 300 miles away.

She had beautiful dogs, bred kuvasz, collies, and goldens. I got to met the father and mother of the puppies, both themselves beautiful animals, not actually aggressive towards me, but very watchful in an unobtrusive sort of way…. I selected my first AJA, a cute female, a touch small for her breed, and we lived together for years until she had a stroke and I had to put her down. As I was leaving the bred farm the woman called out, "you'll be back for another, they always do" which I thought strange. But 8 months later, there I was again, and adopted AJA's full sister, but from a later brood. She is still alive, and is called Kodi. Kodi is a monster sized female kuvasz, weighing in at 150 pounds. She is now 10 and is slowing down considerably.

As to the breed's characteristics: it is true the kuvasz is a tough, and protective dog, but with proper (and some admit, constant) training, you can work that aggressive nature about out of them. In fact, once I had to board Aja and Kodi and I called a kennel to lodge them for a week, the man was a Viet Nam vet who had trained dogs for the army in Nam. When I told him "kuvasz" he said NO WAY! since he had been bitten by one. I asked him from where that kuvasz had come and it had been bred from a kennel well known to bred vicious dogs, in fact my own breeder had been to the other kennel and was herself bitten by one of that kennel's kuvasz. I convinced the guy to least let me come by with the dogs to show him how well behaved Aja and Kodi were. When I arrived, both dogs jumped out the back window of my Explorer and ran up to him he was scared for about 5 seconds, when they jumped him and stated licking him all over. He just laughed and said" damn, you turned kuvasz into golden retrievers! It was the best compliment I ever got.

The bred needs early, constant discipline otherwise the nature of the dogs will take over and they can be extraordinarily difficult to handle as they become full-grown.

A year after AJA died, I received a call from the kuvasz rescue group asking if I could take in a 9 month old female who had been breed at my own dogs' breeder, I called the breeder and found out that the dog had been bred from a female who was Aja's and Kodi's sister. So I knew the bloodline was good for obedience, beauty, and intelligence. I called to dog owner, in Arizona, and they told me about how the dog was gentle but rambunctious and their hyperactive 8-year-old boy could not handle it. I said I would take the dog and would split the transportation cost with them.

The kicker is that when I asked the dog's name I was told they had named her AJA. Karmic confluence in that moment.

AJA the Second is now 3, and is happy here on the 1.5-acre kuvasz farm with the other 5 dogs. They are never bored, since I have a wooded area, and horses on two sides of my fence that the kuvasz lick on the nose when I feed the horses apples. It is funny as hell to see it. As I sit here typing I am looking out my window watching 4 of the dogs play doggie tag thru the yard. It is hilarious. I feel like a canine anthropologist as I watch them.

I think kuvasz are the finest bred I have been around. They are smart as hell, inquisitive, strong willed, absolutely beautiful, silly, and protective, but mine have been trained not to be vicious, even though they act like they could eat your leg in a second if you approached my fenced yard. That is part of the trait of the breed, to challenge strangers on their territory, but to not attack unless their challenge goes ignored. The dogs are very gentle around children, and other animals they have accepted as part of the family.

I hug and pet my dogs constantly which I think has made them less aggressive.

BTW the abuzzard we know as vietnamnurse has contacted my kuvasz breeder about getting one, but i think she decided on another dog.

Thanks for the great dog story kuvasz. Youve probably given some great insight to others that there beats the heart of a great animal lover(chicks dig that0

We have similar challenges with our catahoula,hes only about 70 lb and very aggressiveand acts as the ringleader for he and the border collies. now that we have 3 dogs that think doggy delinquent is an admired trait, its hard. But we also have a golden Chessie who takes no crap from the others , but is more laid back.

BORDER Collies are , as everyone knows , quite intelligent. However, they are very sensitive and they need firm but not harsh. My catahoula enjoys trying to test me as the pack leader. So he needs firm and more firm. He can be a real test of patience.

well, if we didnt enjoy them, we wouldnt be animal minders.
believe it or not, ive got an Easter gig with the band , so Ive gotta set up the pedal steel at the hall today. (Im just goofing off all this week with work being run by others)

By the way jL, this morning, when someone imagined that it was me who awoke, also imagined a bowl of shredded wheat that this individuals imagined partner had apparently imagined buying at a cosmic mercantile center in which foodstuffs are probably exchanged for some form of accepted exchange.
Well, it apparently had been some time or place since this person has had shredded wheat, and he imagined that it was very good.
Is he catching on?
FOR SOME DUMB REASON, THIS BELONGS ON A POST RE; WHAT IS REALITY? I HAVE NO IDEAS HOW IT WOUND UP HERE !!! SORRY LITTLE K

Holy cow, there's a ton of info here. Thanks Kuvasz (I just saw a image of a kuvasz on a key chain.....)

So, the Q is, why do they allow dioxins (or chems that can morph into dioxins) in new products? If the stuff doesn't break down it'll keep building up.