DJ, I'll bet you my jar of cyanide that photo chemicals are taken far too lightly and far too often the results are far too costly to our health. Ken
DJ, I'll bet you my jar of cyanide that photo chemicals are taken far too lightly and far too often the results are far too costly to our health. Ken
If we can all be as fit as Bill Smithe at the age of thirty I doubt if we have anything to worry about, but I have made the decision not to use Pyro and I now wear gloves since having orange fingernails for three weeks after using amidol.
Ken, like I said, I'm not for one moment suggesting one should be flippant about it. I'm merely saying that it is important that one should get the correct information on these issues. The fear about photochemicals (especially those used in B&W) is also, in some ways, somewhat irrational. After all, these are the same people who seem less concerned about the benzene derivatives or whatever in Raid, stuff in household cleaners like toilet cleaners, oven cleaners etc, paint thinners, descalers and the like. How many folks wear a dust mask when using an aerosol cleaner? At the risk of trivializing this, how about BigMacs? Now, I'm not for a moment saying that two wrongs make a right. I'm merely saying that chemicals (of any kind) should be treated with respect and the first step in that is getting accurate information about it.
To clarify, I'm all for using appropriate precautions. I'm just saying one should get informed about what the actual hazards rather than making unwarranted conclusions based on Weston's Parkinson and the fact that he used pyro and Amidol. And for one example of Weston who used pyro and contacted Parkinson's, one could offer counter- examples of Morley Baer, Ansel Adams, Michael A. Smith, Ron Wisner etc etc. Its just not a scientific or an accurate way to come to conclusions about toxicity hazards etc. The fact that Weston died of Parkinson's does not worry me. The fact that ORAL-RAT LD50 is 789 mg per kg does. Pyro is a known carcinogen and is toxic and dermal ingestion is a real danger. However, its mechanism is quite different - it crosses the blood brain barrier, it will do in your kidneys etc. Its links to Parkinson's etc, however, are without evidence. Was Weston careless to have had his hands in pyro? Probably, although its toxicity was probably less understood back then.
Taking the required precautions against the known hazards of pyro and amidol are ridiculously simple. Don't get your hands in the soup - use gloves or rock the tray or use a rotary processing technique. Buy a premixed liquid kit from the formulary or wear a dust mask when mixing the solutions. Don't drop powders into the solution from a height. Instead, submerge the package under the water and cut it open or lower the paper with the weighed chemicals into the water.
Like I said, I'm not suggesting flippancy in dealing with chemicals of any kinds, photo or otherwise. All I'm saying is that coming up with appropriate precautions requires accurate understanding first.
Good health, DJ.
The body absorbs materials through the skin. Regardless of what we do or don't know about photo chemicals, are they something you want to absorb into your system (of course we breathe in plenty anyway)? I where gloves. They're a pain, but on the other hand they help me to slow down and be more methodical.
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