photo chemistry and health

[Jack_5762]

Maybe I'm alittle paranoid but I feel that I am under attack. People around me are using photo chemistry as the reason for a lot of different illnesses. The photo lab is on the third floor an the western side of the bldg. People on the first floor on the eastern side of the building are claiming that the presence of photo chemistry has caused contact dermatitis. Isn't contact dermatitis caused by contact? Their answer is that perhaps students left residues of the chemistry on desks in classrooms. Now some of the students are a bit unkempt but I'm yet to see anyone going into a classroom leaving a trail of dripping chemistry behind. I have had thousands (literally) of students and I cant remember a single case of contact dermatitis. I've eliminated all powered chemicals and I believe that there is no Metol in the lab. Selenium poisoning is another one. There is no powdered selenium anywhere in the building. I have never used it. Yet people are saying that the photography program is responsible their "heavy metal poisoning"

I encourage all students to treat the chemistry with respect and tell them that if they fear it they should probably study accounting, but that is a mistake. The accounting building has just been repainted a nd recarpeted. The air in there is fetid with who knows what particulates.

I'm guessing that people who are victims of diseases such as Parkinsons, cancer etc. for the most part, perhaps 99.99% have never been exposed to photo chemicals. Yet 100% of these people have been exposed to our natural environment. I have become somewhat insensitive to the smell of the chemistry, except for sulfide, so it never bothers me. There are times when I have to leave places like Home Depot because my eyes are watering and I can fell my throat being coated by something in the air.

Nobody wants anyone else to be ill and I don't mean for my tone to be cynical. It's just that me and my chemicals are not responsible for your ilnesses. Don't blame me. Blame the real polluters.

Help me out here. Give us your thoughts and experiences about this increasingly persistant problem.

[Diane Maher]

It makes me wonder whether any of them are complaining about the chemistry department. As for the sulfide, at least you can smell it. I can't always smell it.

[John_4185]

The complainers are wrong if they think your darkroom two floors away is the cause of their ills. However, the best way to convince them is not to to answer their specific complaints because that thread never ends and just feeds the angst; instead, demand an official, certified, outside source to inspect the whole building. Chances are you will be left alone and the complainers will get their answers.

Common sources of antagonized asthma include laser printers, perfume, paint, new carpet, with the first listed being the sleeper that people rationalize away.

As far as Parkinsons Disease, there are correlations with certain farm products, in particular one pesticide favored by some organic (greeen) farmers, and certain highly illegal mood-altering drugs. No connection with photochemicals has ever been made.

Until our university built a new building for labs-only, the smell of the chemistry labs permeated three floors of a science building for decades. No illnesses resulted. Studies were done. The only reason we got a new building was to support more modern equipment and more students!

[John_4185]

Yet people are saying that the photography program is responsible their "heavy metal poisoning"

Tell 'em to lay off the adult comic books.

[Jack_5762]

ii

Thanks. Our old Chemistry building has also been replaced with a new one. The old building is being converted to classrooms. Might I ask where you teach?

[Mark Sawyer]

Just as an aside to those who teach photography, I start every year in my classes by having students look up MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) on-line and doing a written report on each chemical we use. It gives them a little more respect for the chemicals, and makes OSHA happy when I show them files full of student safety reports.

If any students get upset because the chemicals sound dangerous on the MSDS, I have them look up an MSDS for aspirin, which sounds far worse.

[Brian Ellis]

It's part of the "I'm not responsible for anything, it's someone else's fault" syndrome that has overtaken the U.S. I'd just tell them that photography has been taught in counless numbers of instituttions for more than a century without any systematic problems being noted. In sufficient quantitites most MacDonald's foods are more toxic than photo chemicals, ask them how may Big Macs they consume every week.

[dan nguyen]

JAck...

sitting in a car in traffic jam and breathing polluted air is far more dangerous than what you said... not counting eating contaminated meat, fish and other processed foods...

[Michael Rosenberg]

The dilution of chemistry would be the square of the distance. A lot of our chemistry is not volatile. Selenium poisoning would be only through bioavailable forms, that is organic form - not the inorganic forms we work with. You would have to ingest it over time to accumulate and convert it to a bio-fixed form. Some plants in fact do accumulate and fix it as an an organic form. Most notably loco weed. Yes the same weed that when ingested by horses and cows causes permanent mental illness. So if any of the people are sitting around with a blank vacant stare.......

Your institution should bring in an environmental health expert, and you should defer all questions to the school officials.

Good luck,

Mike

[Jonathan_5775]

it's really just soda water for god's sake..! People mystify me sometimes. Poor, poor victims.