Human toxicity from Covid-19 rapid home test kits
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
since the reagent solution packaging may include ampules that allow for application of drops of solution to the test device, inadvertent ocular sodium azide exposures can occur if the ampule is mistaken for an eyedropper.
Ok, then...
Finally, on the third day, I actually looked at the bottle. Turns out, the bottle looks exactly like the bottle of saline nasal rinse. I was just applying slightly salty water to my scalp.
Funny and frustrating as it was, I am SO glad I didn't spray a highly potent typical steroid into my sinuses...
But the main point here is... obviously don't eat the chemicals that come with a covid test. And don't use the chemical reagent dropper as eye drops.
- She was hospitalised for 8 days, suffered burns to her pelvic /bones/, was disabled for 2 years.
- She offered to settle for the cost of her hospital bill, McD refused.
- McD were keeping the coffee at 190°F
Remember, lawyers always use appeals to emotion and other tricks to overstate things to get the best possible outcome (a settlement in this case).
I could be wrong about the depth to which her burns penetrated, I can't find where I initially read that.
I offer instead a lesser argument: it is not absurd that a burn penetrate deep enough to affect bone, especially at the pelvis where bone is close to the surface.
I will not link photos, they are indeed horrifying and if you go look for them they are more persuasive than anything I can say
It’s worth noting that as a result of this lawsuit, McDonald’s didn’t even lower the temperature of their coffee. This isn’t just because they’re stubborn assholes. Customers want hot coffee and hot coffee happens to be dangerous.
Except it's not supposed to be hot enough to cause third-degree burns. The entire event is horribly mischaracterized.
From https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts
> Mrs. Liebeck was not driving when her coffee spilled, nor was the car she was in moving. She was the passenger in a car that was stopped in the parking lot of the McDonald’s where she bought the coffee. She had the cup between her knees while removing the lid to add cream and sugar when the cup tipped over and spilled the entire contents on her lap.
> The coffee was not just “hot,” but dangerously hot. McDonald’s corporate policy was to serve it at a temperature that could cause serious burns in seconds. Mrs. Liebeck’s injuries were far from frivolous. She was wearing sweatpants that absorbed the coffee and kept it against her skin. She suffered third-degree burns (the most serious kind) and required skin grafts on her inner thighs and elsewhere.
Then the judge got this case and the rest is history (if mischaracterized by a remarkable PR campaign by McDonalds).
https://www.ehow.com/info_8682077_brewing-temperatures-mr-co... Brewing Regulations The standard brewing regulations of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (scaa.org) and the National Coffee Association (ncausa.org) require that coffeemakers brew coffee at a temperature between 197.6 degrees Fahrenheit and 204.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Most new coffeemakers will brew to these temperatures, but their performance wanes with extended and excessive use. Of the Mr. Coffee brand, the model JWX27, a 12-cup programmable coffeemaker, has routinely scored highest among tests done by coffee drinkers.
https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts McDonald’s operations manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
My point. Coffee is brewed hot. McDonald's coffee wasn't abnormally hot, it was in fact much cooler than fresh brewed coffee.
Now do you want fresh coffee or not? We really don't need to coddle people with common sense precautions.
Coffee served at the “right” temperature is dangerously hot. No one wants tepid coffee.
An equivalent lawsuit in the UK was dismissed, because it turned out that lowering the coffee temperature by the 5 or so degrees to make it match industry standards would have no meaningful effect on the burn risk. Similar lawsuits, including one against Bunn, have been dismissed in the US because this is standard coffee temperature. You can’t serve good coffee at 140 degrees as Liebeck's attorneys argued it should be. Just ban hot coffee at that point.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest...
tl;dr:
The victim was an older lady who was a passenger; she was not the driver. She received third-degree burns because the coffee was very close to boiling temperature. She required skin grafts and was permanently disfigured.
So then the question becomes: Why do most people think this lawsuit was frivolous? That's not by accident.
[0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/watch-hot-coffee-a-powerf_b_8...
Her lawyers argued that coffee should never be served above 140 degrees. No one wants coffee at that temperature (certainly not anyone who’s going to add cold milk that would make it tepid). 140 degrees isn’t even “safe to eat chicken” temperature.
Just be warned that you will be come out of it angry.
The blame was on McDonalds for negligently selling a dangerous product to a customer. You can look up the case for the details.
I’ve read about the case.
Also, no. Coffee is brewed higher than 185. The Specialty Coffee Association on their own page advocates for 195-205 for brewing temp.
https://sca.coffee/research/protocols-best-practices
Wikipedia claims that SCA advises up to 185 for serving and that Starbucks does exactly that. I don’t see citations for this specifically, though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest...
“Similarly, as of 2004, Starbucks sells coffee at 175–185 °F (79–85 °C), and the executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America reported that the standard serving temperature is 160–185 °F (71–85 °C).”
If this was brewing into a foam cup, it would have been served very close to 185. Regardless I’m currently drinking a cup of coffee quite close to the 175 number you seem to think is unrealistic. Yeah, it’s hot. It’s definitely not the hottest coffee I’ve ever had, though.
poison control in the US reports 153 ingestions with no sequalae.
It's not that easy to mix the things, find the missing shoes, time it all right, pack the bags and also keep everything perfectly out of reach.
TBH I had not thought very hard about the toxicity of the reagents. Some places ask that you place the completed test for that day in the child's bag.
I've done only six of these (on myself) but I know parents who've administered more than a dozen to each child.
I would rather receive vaccines via a harpoon than do the test on myself -- it's uncomfortable.
Most kids are braver than I am though.
As a huge nerd, it was also really cool to watch the reagent wick up the test strip and react.
I’d wait out the 10 day quarantine rather than jam a 4” swab into the back of my kid’s nose. But I’ve given my kids tests a half dozen times each now and it’s a nonevent. Just swirl the swirl around the nostril about half an inch inside.
The test in the UK says you have to insert the thing and push it up the nose until it meets resistance. And then twirl it around like ten times or something.
By the third or fourth twirl, I personally want to tear my nose off my face, and my sensitivity issues have reduced over time. As a kid I would not have been able to tolerate that, and I do not have special needs, or a known hypersensitivity disorder. It's just shockingly unpleasant for me.
For kids they have at various times recommended doing this in both nostrils so as not to need to swab the throat. Ain't no way you'd have got it up my second nostril as a kid.
Yeah, that sounds really shitty.
The leaflet -- includes the instructions for swabbing children:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
This one is slightly different to mine. It's obviously been revised somewhat since I got my kit; mine dates to the 15th of January last year, whereas the PDF dates from December.
Mine says, for example, "firm contact" instead of "good contact" for the throat swab. And "roll the swab firmly around the inside of the nostril", and definitely not "no force is needed". No "gently" in it. The "firm" wording is there for the "testing a child" section, too.
So it's not quite brain-ticklingly bad (the PCR tests used to be apparently) but for me at least, the discomfort is intense once the swab is twirled... it just gets worse and worse. By the time of the tenth (!) rotation I am ready to murder.
If it said half an inch, it'd be totally another matter.
And this is after you've swabbed your tonsils (or where your tonsils were if they were removed!) several times, so, you know... your senses are already on full alert.
I am definitely over-sensitive on these things, to be sure (and that fits with the sort of person I am on other levels -- sensitive skin, anxiety, etc.; like generalised sensitivity). And maybe you do get used to them.
And I have never tested positive despite symptoms. But the tests themselves seem to be very accurate judging by what I have read. Still, I'd rather be hit with a spear gun than do this more than absolutely necessary.
I'm not convinced they were any use against Omicron mind you, and I think the jury is still out on that.
Any slight symptom (spend a lot of time judging how runny noses are) also = take a RAT.
The rules change a lot and are slightly different in every state.
The worst part was the rules started while RATs were very hard to get, people were paying $10 - $30 a test because the alternative was take a day of carer's leave. The costs added up very quickly with x kids by y days.
Forcing parents and children to endure a situation such as the one you depict should have also been thought about a lot harder than it was.
Who cares about the reagent toxicity when this very process is riddled with psychological warfare, the denial of what humans need to feel safe and comforted in a group, and explicit scapegoating of swathes of people?
Even when doing it "right," these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds. The testing itself is toxic.
Kids, it turns out, are hugely resilient. I reckon the covid generation kids are going to be much better at dealing with the anxieties of medicine.
"We're off to visit grandma, I'm gonna q-tip your nostril for ten seconds" has not induced much horror in my children. In fact, they're significantly more upset when I tell them they have to go back and wash the soap out of their hair after showering when I can still see suds in it. That produces a full-on tantrum.
The only way kids are likely to see the occasional nose swab as toxic and horrifying is if the parents are priming them for that with their own histrionics.
Clipping my kids’ fingernails is far more dramatic than swizzling a swab in their nostrils for 10 seconds.
If your kids are experiencing horror and mental problems from an antigen test, you’re the one causing it.
The level of drama from people arguing against COVID prevention measures is absurd. “Kids are being tortured with these tests!” “Oh my god, I cannot breath with a mask on!” I’m sick of this stuff, too, but the teenage-level angst is not helpful. No one takes criticism seriously when it’s wrapped in so much dishonest hyperbole.
This, though, is a crude overgeneralisation. Swizzling a swab in their nostrils (or around the back of their throat) could well cause instant, significant distress if they have a hypersensitivity disorder or other trauma.
It's necessary, it's appropriate, it's the right thing to do, and parents should try to do it.
But you're making a crude assumption about the difficulty of something that some very good parents of children with a variety of challenges will tell you may not be possible, especially with a very young child.
I am pro-vaccination, pro-testing, pro- whatever sane measures the appropriate health authority deem necessary. But just because they are necessary and appropriate in the aggregate does not make them easy and breezy at the individual level.
I am amazed at what some parents have stoically put up with and what kids will adapt to -- they are as I say, astonishingly resilient in general -- but not all kids can adapt and not all parents necessarily find it easy to medicalise the relationship with their children.
This is like saying that it’s absolute torture to make kids walk up two flights of stairs, and then when rebutted by someone else saying the kids will be fine, trotting out that some kids are in wheelchairs.
Yeah, some kids are special needs. It is intellectually dishonest to trot that out as an opposition to a general thing. Some kids legitimately cannot wear masks for various reasons. Some kids probably can’t handle being swabbed nasally. And some kids can’t walk up stairs. This is why we have accommodations while general guidelines apply to kids who do not have these uncommon issues. We still expect kids to learn math and to run around in PE even though some kids unfortunately can’t do either of those things.
> or around the back of their throat
I don’t know anyone who has ever swabbed their kid’s throat for COVID. Maybe that’s a thing some places. Sounds unpleasant although most kids would survive that just fine, too.
No, it's not, because you're talking about an unusual and gross medical test. A literal, very personal intrusion, poking something far up where kids are told not to poke things. Not walking upstairs.
> I don’t know anyone who has ever swabbed their kid’s throat for COVID. Maybe that’s a thing some places. Sounds unpleasant although most kids would survive that just fine, too.
Most test kits don't require it; it's still the best way to get an accurate result, though (and it's very definitely part of the adult routine that they may have witnessed). Kids may have experienced the throat swab in a medical situation and be very resistant to the swab full stop.
> Yeah, some kids are special needs. It is intellectually dishonest to trot that out as an opposition to a general thing.
But it's intellectually honest to generalise saying "if your kids experience trauma, you caused it"?
You're proud of this argument so I'll leave it at that.
The same is true when I clean my kids' ears.
> Most test kits don't require it; it's still the best way to get an accurate result, though...
It is explicitly recommended against by the FDA. https://twitter.com/US_FDA/status/1479548116684709890
You could argue that the UK test that gives one level of accuracy with a throat swab and a nose swab is not statistically better than the US test that only uses a nose swab (though most health advisers here will say kids can just have their nostrils swabbed if the throat swab causes distress).
But the USA does not proportionately have the mass home testing data set to make that comparison with. It's silly to make the argument.
Because you're asserting a risk of "instant, significant distress" from them?
Seems like an easy fix to that concern.
Look, I think the tests are essential. I also think that people judging their neighbours parenting or their kids or completely ignoring the difference in people's circumstances when the outcome is distressing or difficult are wrong to do so, especially when it is the result of actually trying to comply with advice.
Being superior about parenting in this context strikes me as bad manners.
Sure, and I pointed out that's not a big deal, and then you said the UK tests require a throat swab and asserted that's a bigger deal, to which I pointed out switching to the nasal swabs might be appropriate. Pick one to discuss, please, so I can respond to the option you're currently thinking about.
You went from claiming you’re “pro-testing” to claiming that the test is “unusual”, “gross”, and “intrusive”. Also suddenly your concern for kids with sensitivity disorders is nowhere to be found and you’re speaking in general terms again.
This is exactly why I said the argument about special needs kids is dishonest. Because the argument isn’t about them. It’s about kids in general but you want to feign outrage on behalf of a population because it’s conveniently emotional.
Anti maskers do the same and is interesting to see people with legitimate respiratory diseases and parents of actual disabled children plea for people to put their masks on to protect that exact population. It’s utterly gross to invoke a disadvantaged population dishonestly.
> Most test kits don't require it; it's still the best way to get an accurate result, though
You’re really trying to blame others for the fact that some parents might choose to do a throat swab when they are not obligated to? That’s literally on the parents for making that choice.
> But it's intellectually honest to generalise saying "if your kids experience trauma, you caused it"?
Yeah. If your kid doesn’t have some special need or sensitivity and getting a nasal swab is that traumatic for them, that sounds like you’re doing it wrong. Maybe you’re being too rough with the swab. Maybe you’re screaming at them because they won’t sit still. I don’t know. But I’ve seen dozens of kids line up for swabs and be just fine. When there’s a problem with a kid, it’s generally appropriate to look to the parents first. Child psychologists say this consistently. The problem is virtually always the parents.
Also “intellectually dishonest” doesn’t mean “incorrect” or “asshole”. Maybe I’m both of those things. But I’m not intellectually dishonest for calling out bullshit.
I am pro testing. Are you suggesting that they are mutually exclusive ideas?
(Plus, that was meant to be from the kid's perspective, hence the bit about sticking things where they are told not to be sticking things; that might not have come across well, admittedly.)
I am not feigning outrage. I'm suggesting to you that you're being overbroad with your assertions in this context.
> virtually always
Sums it up.
Kids are quite adept at accepting things if the parents are consistent and reasonable. I see lots of little kids wearing masks whenever they’re in public because their parents and caregivers expect it. I see other kids who don’t and some of their parents explain to me all about how their kids “can’t” (with no hint of why they can’t). No surprise. If you don’t expect something, you’ll find your kids don’t do it. (My kids are ridiculously picky eaters. I’m willing to accept that this is my fault.)
And yeah, some kids are special needs in some way. But most are not. I’ve also had parents tell me that the only way they can get their kids to ever calm down is to put them in front of the TV. Sure. That’s definitely your kid and not your fault.
> I am not feigning outrage. I'm suggesting to you that you're being overbroad with your assertions in this context.
I‘ve been pretty clear that I agree some kids have special needs and should get special accommodations.
My point was that in general kids are totally fine with being swabbed for tests. (At least in the US. Sounds like your UK kits maybe suck.) Claiming that in general kids are being traumatized by being swabbed is an outright lie. Kids adapt to all sorts of things they don’t actually like.
To be clear, I also did not actually attack any particular parents here. I responded to this originally:
“Even when doing it "right," these rapid at-home tests instill horror, social and mental problems, and all sorts of insane power hierarchies that confuse young, growing minds.”
This is incorrect, but regardless it doesn’t even say that he has kids. My statement (“You’re the one causing the problems”) was a rhetorical device to answer the general claim that kids are being traumatized, not a literal accusation of blame.
Just to say, out of an urge to find some common ground: I was a "picky eater" -- initially whimsically and then ultimately rather more seriously, until early adulthood (though never to feeding tube territory, I was definitely underweight).
My parents would want me to tell you that it almost certainly isn't your fault.
And I can tell you from thinking it through that it was never really about foods I did or did not like. It was always about disgust, and deep-seated, too.
As I've said before in comments, it's actually a diagnosable eating disorder (ARFID) even at the fussy/faddy stage, and can become problematic even when it initially manifests as quite a mild or simply defiant thing.
To keep it on topic, here's where you might find yourself at odds with your own position further up the thread: if they do have any psychological basis for why they are picky, then you trying to make them do better through assertive parenting is more or less guaranteed to make it worse. Most of your parental instincts will be at odds with the outcome you desire.
I could tell you what worked for me if it would help.
And sure, there are kids who are perhaps picky to the point of disorder. I don’t think that’s my kids.
It's also why parents get called bad parents who when their ARFID kids will only eat two kinds of potato chips and one kind of cheese.
Strategy one: baseline foods and well-liked gravies/sauces. Do they eat rice? If so, Asian food is an amazing way to extend taste and texture tolerance, because special fried rices (like Nasi Goreng etc.) allow you to experiment with the amount of a thing you can bear at any one time, and also to add small amounts of other dishes to the safe rice as they want to.
Strategy two: comparable foods. Choose a restaurant not always because it has the thing they like, but sometimes because it has a different kind of meal that is extremely similar. Again, Asian food is amazing for this -- chicken katsu curry, if I'd known that was a thing when I was nine...
Strategy three: outsourcing. Your kids friends' parents are likely to get them to eat things you cannot. Because eating the thing at home, disappointing you by not being able to eat it, etc., is different.
Strategy four: participation. Cook the thing they'll eat but ask them to them stir it/help prepare it/be responsible for it.
Strategy five: cookery. Get them to choose a thing from a recipe book and be involved with it to the point that they are doing all the non-dangerous bits themselves quite young.
Strategy six: send them off to uni/college. I came back from uni in my second term largely cured, though I was never able to (and I am still unable to) eat breakfast with anyone else.
I don't remember, but apparently I pretty much just catastrophically stopped eating most things; within a matter of weeks. I am one of three siblings and the other two are fine.
My issues with food had/have not very much to do with food itself. It's an eating disorder, and eating disorders are weirdly not much to do with food.
Again. I am not a parent, but isn't this a completely unwarranted, assumptive over-reading of what xyzzy123 said?
Even now the nose test triggers enough sensitivity for me that I cannot go anywhere for an hour after I administer it because of the sneezing.
At seven or eight years old? No way. I would have been unmanageable. So I guess my parents would have been breezily looked down upon too. Which is ironic considering that were they still working now, one of them would have been designing or scrutinising such tests and another checking large numbers of them on a daily basis.
Yes, people have lost jobs and partners and other terrible tragedies. The people I see complaining the most have had none of that happen to them. They're complaining about having to cancel a trip to Disney World. They're complaining about the state mandating masks, or not mandating masks, or suggesting that maybe wearing masks might be a good idea, or not mentioning masks at all. They're complaining about something about football--I don't know what exactly, there can't possibly be anything of consequence once the subject turns to professional sports, so I start tuning out.
As a parent, you have a whole person's life in your hands. You have a moral (and if it goes far enough, legal) responsibility to not screw it up. "But I'm tired" is just "excuses, excuses, excuses".
IMO you should a) be aware that you have directed this rant at people who are responsibly testing their kids at home and b) consider whether all of this is therefore just rude, patronising assumptions about what has and hasn't happened to them.
It was infuriating to watch the absurdity and sheer insanity of where the Taiwan CDC has gone. 7 Tests in 3 weeks for a less than 1 year old and then privately telling businesses that they only have to quarantine for 3 days if they have urgent business to attend to.
EDIT: I wrote something stupid. Obviously they don't ingest the reagent fluid. I conflated this issue with the fact that the fibers in the swabs damage the nasopharyngeal mucosa.
Unless someone is doing it _very_ wrong, they are not going to ingest the buffer solution.
The Swab does not contain sodium azide (well it shouldn't). So unless the infant is double dipping, or left alone within grasp of the test kit, its not a high risk.
The bigger risk is the misplaced swab.
Especially newborns won't even have the idea or the physical possibility to take them and put them in their mouth.
If you’re that worried about the swabs, how do you feel about the fact that they squirt their eyes full of medicine immediately after birth to prevent blindness? That’s got to be more disturbing to the baby.
Dermal contact is more likely. They do have ample warnings on the box though and there are plenty of other toxic things in our environment that we consciously don’t apply to the skin, so I don’t really see the problem here aside from “may contain harmful ingredients use caution”.
The free NHS rapid LFT in the UK has a little single-dose ampule you break open by twisting off part of the plastic, a lot like disposable eye drop ampules. Basically identical.
Personal experience and knowledge does not map perfectly to others experiences.
That's pretty much it.