Posted on 03/07/2023 4:42:21 PM PST by Twotone
The residents of East Palestine, Ohio, have more than enough to worry about. A train wreck with black fumes of burning chemicals pouring from a tank is frightening enough. The absolute last thing they need is the news media spreading even scarier—but inaccurate—information about the accident.
Yet for weeks, that is precisely what's been going on.
Vinyl chloride, a chemical long used to make PVC plastics, is being portrayed as something more suitable for capital punishment than for a routine manufacturing process in a factory. Ohioans, like the rest of the country, are being bombarded by horrifying claims about its health risks, most of which have been just plain wrong.
There is, in fact, strong evidence that vinyl chloride not only is not deadly but is, in fact, considerably less toxic than many common, everyday drugs and chemicals. Likewise, its cancer risks have also been wildly overstated. It is easy to call a chemical a carcinogen, but in the absence of context, dose, and length of exposure, this term means little.
Fortunately, there is a longstanding, highly regarded organization that provides information on the health risks of individual chemicals. The National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) describes itself as "a global self-funded nonprofit organization, established in 1896, devoted to eliminating death, injury, property and economic loss due to fire, electrical and related hazards." The group maintains a database of more than 3,000 chemicals—a critical tool for first responders or other workers who must deal with the aftermath of a chemical spill or fire. Here we can begin to understand the real risks of vinyl chloride.
NFPA uses color-coded "safety diamonds" to provide easily read information about chemicals that firefighters may encounter. They quickly cover a chemical's health hazards, flammability, and stability (that is, whether it can spontaneously explode)...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Who’s Vinyl Chloride was it?
How much was it worth?
IF you really want to seriously THINK a out how safe your local environment is:
Ads every day tell us to “FLUSH” unwanted or expired drugs.
Those drugs go into the local water supply—via the local WATER TREATMENT plant.
THERE is NO FILTER available that can remove these drugs from that waste water. NOTHING NADA
IF you are on a municipal water system——YOU are getting traces of various drugs-—EVEN ILLEGAL DRUGS.
We fought an expansion of local “municipal water” and kept our wells.
Don’t know how long before the aquifer is contaminated.
ALL OF THIS IS A DIRTY LITTLE SECRET-—world wide.
He media always lies and wildly exaggerates everything. Always. They love creating terror. They are rotten jerks.
Yet for some reason people who realize this will accept fake news reporting if it validates their ideas. Thus we see the Daily Mail being posted frequently on the FR.
How many times did the article mention ‘dioxin’?
Take a guess. /s
exactly.
Uh, what about the tanker cars full of phosgene?
That was used in WWI as chemical warfare agent!
There were NO tank cars full of phosgene. None
This article says exactly what I was trying to tell everyone after this accident happened. The risks from VCM were being grossly over-stated…. Intentionally, to make Biden look bad. Joe doesn’t need help. Especially not if it’s scaring the crap out of people who don’t understand the problem they’re facing.
I was understanding the risks to children were changed by the feds immediately.
This thread is appalling, isn’t it?
How so?
In what way? The biggest risk to everyone was explosion, and that was avoided.
Or mix with used coffee grounds. There should be a a pharmavy turn in for old or drugs you react to, to be properly disposed of, like trhey do outdated ones.
FWIW, sand really isn't necessary for motility, but I'm sure it helps. Does it?
Exactly. While the derailment was unfortunate, it was the fire that got this on the front page.
I looked up this stuff in my orange hazmat book. The dangers did not match the uproar. Unless you are bathing in this stuff, undiluted, for years…you will be fine. If the conversion to phosgene gas was significant, the landscape would have looked like The Somme.
There should be significant questions about trains coming off the rails in Ohio. THAT should be the thing raising eyebrows.
the language about children was removed from the relevant webpage, either slightly before or after the accident, wayback isn’t precise enough to nail down.
don’t worry, you have some helpful people here to tell you there is no risk in any event, so the timing of the change should be ignored.
Yea... well... not obvious enough for me, I guess. I prefer to stay in the realm of the real world.
I'm not here to say there are "no risks".... I've been consistently saying the risks have been greatly over-stated. There is work remaining to done. They're going to need to remove a LOT of dirt, to be incinerated in a controlled waste boiler. But, the real hazard area is very limited in scale.
There aren't any - at least publicly - if they don't test.
They didn't test.
Just like TMI, just like PG&E, just like DuPont, just like Fukushima.
Whole cloth no different than 'zoom climb'.
But the masses prefer a warm blanket; some here, too. You'd be singing a different tune if you understood chemistry and/or lived in East Palestine, dirt or no dirt.
Lol. That’s pretty funny. I’ll put my knowledge of the chemistry and hazards of Vinyl Chloride up against yours, if you like. How many Billion pounds have you produced ?
And yes, they HAVE tested….a lot ! And they’ll be doing plenty more.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
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