Posted on 06/13/2008 6:24:37 PM PDT by Libloather
Broken Compact Fluorescent Causes Mercury Poisoning
June 13, 2008
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: To Royse City, Texas. Jonathan, glad you called. Nice to have you here.
CALLER: Yes, thank you. I admire you a lot, and I really love your program.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very, very, very, very much.
CALLER: I just wanted to tell you about a little incident I had at work with these lightbulbs that all the Democrats and liberals are promoting saying they're better for everybody and --
RUSH: You're talking about the compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
CALLER: That is correct.
RUSH: What happened, were you mandated at work to replace your incandescents with these compact fluorescents?
CALLER: No, sir, not exactly. What happened was, I was straightening stuff on the aisle, and I noticed that one of the boxes had fallen, and I picked it up to look at it, and one of the bulbs was broken on the inside. And there's a little cut-out in the cardboard box, and I realized I inhaled some of the fumes, and I immediately went and placed it in a plastic bag and went --
RUSH: How did you know to do that?
CALLER: Oh, I heard it on your program, of course.
RUSH: You knew that there was mercury in there --
CALLER: I heard it on --
RUSH: -- that is potentially dangerous and if you broke it in your house you call the hazmat people.
CALLER: I heard it on your program, of course.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And so, anyway, my eyes started burning immediately, the back of my throat started getting dry and burning.
RUSH: Really? That bulb had already fallen from the shelf, you just happened to walk by and see it?
CALLER: That's correct, and I picked up the box.
RUSH: That had the bulb in it?
CALLER: That's correct. And basically I went to my boss and I said, "Hey, I think something happened. I think we need to make an accident report. And so we had to call a registered nurse through a hotline that we have at our work, and describe my symptoms to the nurse, and she said put your boss back on the phone, and she told my boss to call the paramedics right away and have them come treat me right away at the scene. The ambulance showed up with their truck, and they put me in the ambulance, hooked me up, wires and everything --
RUSH: All this for a broken lightbulb?
CALLER: That's correct. And then they said, "We can't tell you what to do, but you should probably go to the emergency room. They said we can take you or we'll tell your boss to let you go or have somebody take you, however you want to do it, we'll get you there." And they told me that on the way to en route to where I worked they had to call poison control and find out exactly what they were supposed to do because even the paramedics didn't know what they were supposed to do. And what they described to me, they described the wrong kind of lightbulb, they described the really long, like the eight foot long lightbulbs that you would see in a warehouse or --
RUSH: Yeah, the standard fluorescents.
CALLER: Yeah, so anyway I told them I just wanted to go to the emergency room and I'll go by myself. Finally got to the emergency room, and the doctor walked in, he was like, "What makes you think you inhaled mercury vapor?" I was like, "Well, you know," told him about the lightbulb, he basically looked at me and said, "I've never ever seen anybody that's inhaled mercury vapor before. Honestly, I don't know what to tell you. I'm going to have to go look this up in a book. I'll be right back."
RUSH: Now, wait a second.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: The EMS guys didn't know what to do with mercury poisoning and the doctor didn't?
CALLER: That's correct, the doctor in the emergency room.
RUSH: Where is Royse City, Texas?
CALLER: It's near Rockwall.
RUSH: Oh, well, hell, yes. Okay. Rockwall, Texas. We all know where that is.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: Okay, by Dallas. So, anyway, he listened to my breathing and everything, make sure I wasn't going to die, and he just said, "There's really nothing I can do for you. There's nothing I can give you or prescribe for you," he said. "I don't even think we have the necessary equipment to run tests if you were dangerously exposed to this stuff here at the hospital. We would have to take blood and mail it somewhere and get the results back in the next day," if I wanted to do that, and I was like, "Okay, that's great."
RUSH: Now, now, Jonathan, I gotta tell you, some people here are listening to this and not believing it.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Now, we've heard stories that if you do have a compact fluorescent in your house and if it breaks that you are to call hazmat people, but mercury vapors?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Mercury vapors. How come it only affected you? Were you the only one in the room?
CALLER: I was the only one on the aisle but as soon as I placed it in the plastic bag, I gave it to the individual who is supposed to defect the item out and seal it up and, you know, keep it protected and it was a short time after that where that individual started hyperventilating and couldn't breathe, and they almost had to call the paramedics back again for her.
RUSH: Well, how long did it take you to recover since nobody could do anything for you?
CALLER: Just a few hours and a pounding headache and some Tylenol.
RUSH: America is at risk here, folks. I didn't have any idea that it was this severe. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not prepared for the coming crisis. Do you feel like you made a sacrifice that nevertheless, Jonathan, was important to help save the planet?
CALLER: No, I do not. I felt endangered.
RUSH: Well, this is an incredible story. I had no idea that it could cause this kind of problem and that the medical community had no idea what to do. Jon, let me make you a suggestion since the medical community was not able to help you by their own admission. EMS guys didn't know what to do; your ER doctor didn't know what to do.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Do not stop being monitored.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Continue to be monitored long-term.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: We don't know yet the full effects of this.
CALLER: I hear you.
RUSH: You've been an unwitting guinea pig, but you could perform a service with ongoing, regular monitoring of whatever levels, bodily fluids and this kind of thing. Do you know a good trial lawyer?
CALLER: I don't. I could find one, though.
RUSH: Well, you might call John Edwards.
CALLER: There you go.
RUSH: Outta work.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: I'm just kidding about the trial lawyer business, but it's like we have a program here, Keep Our Own Kids Safe.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And the Keep Our Own Kids Safe program is an awareness program to alert parents to the dangers of soccer, the dangers to damaging the head of these young kids who go out and play, it's far more dangerous than football out there. And I remember I had one guy call me. He didn't think that our program was like worth it, the Keep Our Own Kids Safe program, he thought that it was much ado about nothing, and that I just had a bias against soccer, and he told me that he had been hit repeatedly, playing soccer a lot, he'd had a lot of head shots, he's done a lot of this, and he was no worse the wear. And I said, well, the thing is that the victims are the last to know. I told him to continue to consult family members to tell him if there had been any changes in his behavior, because he admitted to me that he'd been beating himself upside the head with a soccer ball for a long time and he thought he was normal. But the victim is the last to know. You might think you're normal when you're not.
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: I mean if something like this could happen, a compact fluorescent bulb and the medical community in Rockwall, Texas, does not know how to deal with it, this is frightening be stuff.
CALLER: It is.
RUSH: Well, I'm glad you had the courage to pick up that lightbulb. It was a great act of courage. You saved somebody else from perhaps getting real sick, you saw it, you knew, you knew because you had listened to this program, you took a risk that was sacrificial on your part, and you paid the price.
CALLER: I did.
RUSH: But you have lived to tell the story and to help others survive this kind of tragedy down the road.
CALLER: I did. I hope so.
RUSH: Well, you did. You are to be applauded.
CALLER: Thank you very much.
RUSH: All right, Jonathan. Thank you.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just went to the Consumer Product Safety Commission website. Jonathan, I don't know how long ago this happened that you got your mercury vapor poisoning out there in Rockwall, Texas, but according to what I have just read on the Consumer Product Safety Commission website, mercury vapors are hazardous. You need to close your store and lock it down. Listen to this: "The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is alerting consumers that mercury vapors (which have no odor) are hazardous. CPSC recommends that consumers avoid breathing mercury vapors." Too late for you, Jonathan. "Most uses of mercury that expose consumers to fumes are banned," except the compact fluorescent lightbulb, which we are being forced, over time, to put in our homes. "However, some ethnic traditions encourage the sprinkling of mercury around the house for religious reasons. This is hazardous because people -- especially young children -- could breathe the mercury vapors. Mercury can cause serious and permanent nerve and kidney damage. Mercury poisoning (acrodynia) has these symptoms: rapid heartbeat, sweating, irritability or hostility, withdrawal or shyness, memory loss, peeling of hands and feet, leg pain, slight hand tremors, difficulty with fine motor control (such as handwriting), sleeplessness, and headaches. Young children and children born to women exposed during pregnancy may be especially sensitive. If you believe you have mercury poisoning, see a doctor. If mercury has been sprinkled in your home, open all windows so the mercury vapors can escape. It may take several days of ventilation to eliminate the mercury. If you have questions about how to clean up and dispose of mercury, call your local health department." They will send the hazmat team. "To avoid mercury poisoning, do not sprinkle mercury around the house or expose people in the home to mercury vapors."
They just put weapons in our hands. You let the word spread on how toxic these lightbulbs are, in the average house, how many arguments take place between husband and wife and the 2.8 kids, somebody gets mad, unscrews the lightbulb and throws it at somebody else. Again, the environmentalist wackos forcing out the incandescent bulb by 2012, you're not going to be allowed to have it, folks, whether you've got turtles on your beach or not.
END TRANSCRIPT
Suppose the government decides that this mercury problem from compact fluorescents was a major problem. Suppose a home owner had to get government clearance of mercury levels in ones household before one could sell a house. Imagine that such home inspections would cost the home owner big hefty fees for someone to come out and wave their high tech detectors around. If mercury were found, imagine the cost to decontaminate the house. Imagine if this inspection was required for renters before they could leave a rental and the inspection fee and possible decontamination fee was included in the rental deposit. This is a case of how the government is setting up the public for huge costs much like people in years past painted their homes with lead based paints, only to find out later they had a toxic material to clean up.
It says - The study recommended that if a compact fluorescent breaks, get children and pets out of the room. Ventilate the room.
Is that the end of mercury VAPORS? And since when should anyone trust the Boston Globe? RATS will kill.
Should I call the hazmat team? Granted, it's been about 40 years... Hey, maybe "elemental mercury" is more dangerous now than it was then! Sort of like how a guy at work keeps telling me that the ethanol made from sugar cane is better for your car than the ethanol made from corn or other sources. I tried to convince him that "ethanol is ethanol," but no go.
Mark
Me too. In high school chemistry and college geology. We rolled those little balls of Mercury all over the place!
Me too. In high school chemistry and college geology. We rolled those little balls of Mercury all over the place!
A point to be made; POSSIBLY, if a compact or even old tube flourescent is broken while burning, MAYBE you have a problem with vapors, in operation, the mercury is vaporized.
Otra vez, I’m one of those brats grown old who used to collect mercury because it was fun to play with. We used to make “silver” pennies, bit of a trick, because at room temp, mercury has a hellacious surface tension. One had to press the bead of mercury onto the penny without having it squirt out one side, best I recall, we made a dent in the thumb with a pencil eraser, something like that.
Of course, the mercury poisoning I suffered then probably accounts for why I can’t remember something I knew at age six. Seriously, all the boys in my class played with the stuff. One guy had found his Dad’s stash, stole some out of the jar. Fairly valuable commodity, 76 lb. flask was trading today at about $550.00.
Like all heavy metals, mercury is toxic, especially hard on the nervous system, if ingested. Ye ol’ “mad hatter” was a common term for an age when mercury was used, with heat, in hat making.
BTW, I went to CF bulbs for about 3/4 of the house years ago, saves money and I seldom replace bulbs. Not worth a hoot for reading light, and they don’t respond to rheostat dimmers, but I haven’t changed the front porch light in ten years.
In the meantime I'm buying a huge supply of incandescent bulbs. I'm NOT bringing those things into MY house!
Remember the “Mad Hatter” in Alice and Wonderland? Hatters often suffered from mdaness because they used mercury in the top hat making process.
It's called hysteria. Really dangerous.... spreads like wildfire in ignorant boobs... like this guy and the one who sealed the baggie.
Another source of discomfort: at present there are none of the recommended disposal facilities available anywhere in the country. We are to use these things, but what do we do with them when they burn out? The last recommendation that I heard was that we are to store them until an accepted disposal site is available. What?
I completely understand what you are saying. As I said, I personally played with mercury from a broken thermometer, and thankfully did not get sick, and we’re talking about direct exposure - playing with the mercury shifting it from hand to hand and such...
Honestly, my biggest problem with all of this is that our wonderful leaders are making all the decisions for us in these cases. We are not allowed to choose for ourselves in these matters - even if there is a health problem someone is dealing with.
As a fellow FReeper pointed out there are those with extreme allergies to mercury. For the government to demand that people like this FReeper use an item that poses a threat to them strikes me as irresponsible, and possibly even opening them up for a lawsuit should someone have an adverse reaction.
There would be no problem if this person had an alternative, but according to the government, and with our current technology come 2014 they will NOT. And, that is the crux of the problem as I see it - unintended consequences. Something our legislators don’t tend to think about when proposing these laws - heck most of the time they don’t even read the bills they vote on, much less take the time to understand anything of a more technical or scientific nature... Take the Gorebull Warming laws they are now trying to pass - the same problem, but on a wider scale.
I’m all for developing alternative energy sources, and for protecting our environment. However, it would seem that lobbyists and re-elections play a more important role in deciding what our country pursues - just look at the corn-based ethanol push... No thought to the fact that it will raise food prices - not just in our own nation, but around the world.
It just ticks me off when legislators follow the “sounds good” and “feels good” approach to making laws.
The amount of mercury in CFL lamps is nowhere near enough to be a problem. Are you aware that the amalgam fillings in your teeth contain mercury? How about the mercurochrome that our Mom's used to dab on our skinned knees? Tincture of Mercury? Although not sold in the US because of the 1988 Mercury panic, it is widely used in the rest of the world.
When I was in junior high school, our science class had a 2 foot wide bowl of mercury. The students, including me, used to stick their hands in it... felt weird and cool.
Unless this bulb was illuminated at the time it broke, the mercury in it was in the form of a tiny droplet. It is not a gas or vapor until you start the bulb when it aid the formation of the plasma.
I am not at all afraid of having CFLs in my house. Everyone who is worried about it is falling for the fear, uncertainty and doubt being spread by the nanny state.
Rush was pulling his leg by demonstrating absurdity by carrying it to its illogical conclusion.
It’s still puzzle top me with all these dire warning on the net and in the media that this is all that appears on the packaging for the bulb:
LAMP CONTAINS MERCURY
Manage in Accord with Disposal Laws
See: www.lamprecycle.org or 1-800-4356-4448
Most people will pay no attention to that and just throw their used bulbs, broken or not, in the regular trash.
Unreal that so little in the way of warning is on the packaging of these supposedly hazardous bulbs.
In this case however, I would assume that there are medical records to back up his story. If he truly had a reaction of this sort - as well as the worker who was processing it for return - then it’s definitely something to think about. If it is a problem, I don’t think this would be a completely isolated case, either... However, unless something becomes an epidemic we don’t usually hear about it, do we?
Hysteria never helps, but neither does denying possibilities of unintended consequences. All everyone is doing here is trying to get to the truth of the matter. Knowledge is a good thing...
I may not be as "perfectly fine" as you are but I'm still here!
“I am not at all afraid of having CFLs in my house. Everyone who is worried about it is falling for the fear, uncertainty and doubt being spread by the nanny state.”
It strikes me as a little odd that you would complain about the “nanny state” and yet, support this law that requires everyone to use a certain product. A little ironic don’t you think?
The fear isn’t being spread by our government, it is average citizens that have been talking about this for quite a while now... It is the nanny state forcing us to do something against our will that could pose a threat to our bodies and our environment that has most people’s hackles up, IMHO.
That's one of the symptoms of severe mercury poisoning... It's really deadly, too...long term, say 90 to 100 years after exposure, everyone exposed to mercury is dead.
I’m pretty certain that the mercury vapors are significant contributors to global warming. Where is Al Gore when you need him!
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