Curryman
Well-known member
When I was involved in the teaching of Health and Safety, one of the courses I ran included a large chunk of the four days on Industrial Injuries and diseases, their history, prevention, and control measures. Obviously, I had to read up quite considerably on what, how, when, and where these occurred, and have been interested somewhat since retiring, in the subject.
I taught about such things as Silicosis, which I found out the Ancient Greeks knew about, Asbestosis, which was first mentioned in the diaries of Pliny the Elder, a Roman who died in Herculaneum, AD 79, and was suspected to be hazardous from the late 19th/early 20th century but was suppressed by Insurers and manufacturers alike. Lead Poisoning, which my father had suffered from in the 1920s due to his apprenticeship to a painter and his daily chore of cleaning out the paint pots, paint in those days contained lead. There are many others, including the famous Phossy jaw, which affected the matchmaking girls in the 19th Century, and Byssinosis which I’m now convinced my Grandmother had, having worked in the Mills in Bolton for many years, She thought it was Asthma, as we all did at the time.
I’m currently reading a book about the cases of a number of young women in the USA, clock dial painters, who were, at first unwittingly, given the job of manually adding Radon paint to clock faces in order to make them glow in the dark. I say, at first unwittingly, because as the company became aware of the hazards, they purposely hid the information from their staff, a lot of whom died horrifically, and in most cases slow, excruciating deaths due to Radon Sickness.
I also watched a film, ‘Dark Waters’, some years ago about DuPont, who for decades brazenly concealed the lethal dangers of exposure to a chemical used in the making of Teflon, its ‘miracle’ anti-stick coating, even as it poured vast amounts of the substance into America’s waterways. They were certainly aware, as were quietly sending staff out into surrounding areas carrying plastic jugs to collect water samples and didn’t alert local people when they found traces of PFOA in levels that well exceeded its own safety guidelines as well as denying any problems that were alleged to come from the chemical PFOA.
The one thing that sticks out in most of my research is the knowledge that the people in power of the corporations had about the dangers to workers and others, of their products and their willingness as well as compliance in covering up the evidence in favour of profit.
I had read a study paper on Teflon some years before which warned about Teflon and the seepage of PFOA into the environment, and I used to warn my classes to watch for developments in this area. You may be interested to know that it is estimated that around 90% of the population of the world has traces of PFOA in their bodies. In the early 2000s, several studies were published suggesting that PFOA exposure leads to long-term health risks including possible links to testicular, kidney, thyroid, prostate, bladder, and ovarian cancer.
This brings me to the point I want to make. We will no doubt all have Teflon Coated cookware in our houses. Please check it. If it is at all damaged, it is more likely to be leaching into your food, throw it out, I have removed all of ours from our kitchen. Modern Teflon does not contain the PFOA but has Gen X & PFBS, alleged to be safer to use and acceptable for human health (we’ll see), and some coating is now ceramic.
I taught about such things as Silicosis, which I found out the Ancient Greeks knew about, Asbestosis, which was first mentioned in the diaries of Pliny the Elder, a Roman who died in Herculaneum, AD 79, and was suspected to be hazardous from the late 19th/early 20th century but was suppressed by Insurers and manufacturers alike. Lead Poisoning, which my father had suffered from in the 1920s due to his apprenticeship to a painter and his daily chore of cleaning out the paint pots, paint in those days contained lead. There are many others, including the famous Phossy jaw, which affected the matchmaking girls in the 19th Century, and Byssinosis which I’m now convinced my Grandmother had, having worked in the Mills in Bolton for many years, She thought it was Asthma, as we all did at the time.
I’m currently reading a book about the cases of a number of young women in the USA, clock dial painters, who were, at first unwittingly, given the job of manually adding Radon paint to clock faces in order to make them glow in the dark. I say, at first unwittingly, because as the company became aware of the hazards, they purposely hid the information from their staff, a lot of whom died horrifically, and in most cases slow, excruciating deaths due to Radon Sickness.
I also watched a film, ‘Dark Waters’, some years ago about DuPont, who for decades brazenly concealed the lethal dangers of exposure to a chemical used in the making of Teflon, its ‘miracle’ anti-stick coating, even as it poured vast amounts of the substance into America’s waterways. They were certainly aware, as were quietly sending staff out into surrounding areas carrying plastic jugs to collect water samples and didn’t alert local people when they found traces of PFOA in levels that well exceeded its own safety guidelines as well as denying any problems that were alleged to come from the chemical PFOA.
The one thing that sticks out in most of my research is the knowledge that the people in power of the corporations had about the dangers to workers and others, of their products and their willingness as well as compliance in covering up the evidence in favour of profit.
I had read a study paper on Teflon some years before which warned about Teflon and the seepage of PFOA into the environment, and I used to warn my classes to watch for developments in this area. You may be interested to know that it is estimated that around 90% of the population of the world has traces of PFOA in their bodies. In the early 2000s, several studies were published suggesting that PFOA exposure leads to long-term health risks including possible links to testicular, kidney, thyroid, prostate, bladder, and ovarian cancer.
This brings me to the point I want to make. We will no doubt all have Teflon Coated cookware in our houses. Please check it. If it is at all damaged, it is more likely to be leaching into your food, throw it out, I have removed all of ours from our kitchen. Modern Teflon does not contain the PFOA but has Gen X & PFBS, alleged to be safer to use and acceptable for human health (we’ll see), and some coating is now ceramic.
