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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

Benzene is everywhere, particularly in trace amounts in otherwise harmless products.

Benzene is a building block for the production of many chemicals, including plastics, synthetic fibers, rubber, resins, dyes and pharmaceuticals, and residual amounts may remain in the final products.

Benzene is used as a solvent and cleaning agent in printing, paint manufacturing, electronics, etc. Benzene contributes to the overall VOC load of paint for example.

And benzene is in the formulation of adhesives and sealants. Regulations often restrict the amount of benzene to a certain amount

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perhaps as a society we need to stop dismissing things containing plastics, synthetic fibres, rubber, resins, dyes and pharmaceuticals as otherwise harmless. I personally strongly avoid sleeping on or wearing anything containing synthetic fibres unless absolutely necessary. dyes I'm less cautious about, as short of dressing like a hippy they're almost impossible to avoid.

it would be worse if I was a woman I'm sure, god knows what nonsense cosmetics contain

> it would be worse if I was a woman I'm sure, god knows what nonsense cosmetics contain

They can always not apply them.

Societal pressure and beauty standards for women are far different than for men. I agree that they could always just "not apply them", but look at tabloids showing things like "star unrecognizable without makeup" and memes where men are encouraged to take women swimming on a date so they can see what they look like without makeup. It's just not that easy

That's startlingly naive. There are breathtaking double standards as applies to women.

One of my friends is a graphic designer / coder working at a web-dev shop. Guys could come in wearing ripped jeans, hoodies, whatever. If she came in with low makeup and casual clothes she was upbraided for not "looking good" in case a client came in.

It's by no means an uncommon incident. It's 2023, there's still a lot of discrimination and inequality. Women choosing to not wear makeup probably don't get jobs and contracts.

Yes, if they want to opt out of society. In most places outside the farm, for a woman not to apply makeup is career and social suicide.

Codswallop

Backwards thinking like your comment is a source of injustice, not a defense against it. What's your point... bad people impose values on others except when I do it too then I'm insightful?

Why are you confident cotton isn't carcinogenic?

as I understand it, cancer is essentially DNA damage. a piece of DNA gets randomly rewritten so that instead of doing its normal job it replicates and grows, using up resources and killing off neighbouring cells until it gets to the point where it prevents the organ/system/host from functioning

it's a little like a computer memory leak caused by a bit flip

cotton, silk, linen and wool are all harvested from organisms that contain DNA. if they promoted DNA damage, the organisms that produce them likely would have died off and been selected out long ago

of course humans could be vulnerable in ways plants, worms and sheep are not, or the damage could be slow enough to only affect something with a human-length lifespan, but there's a level of reassurance in knowing that those fibres come from something containing DNA

hydrocarbon-based fibres do not give me this reassurance

thank you for this comment, by the way. it forced me to question my thoughts and really helped me to a better understanding: a natural product is produced from something that has dna. obviously this isn't the original intention of the word natural, but it's an extremely useful explanation for an instinct, and your comment forced me to it

During the pandemic, I took a dive down the skincare ingredients rabbit hole. Some of the shit we‘re sold is crazy. Fragrances are another thing to get worked up about too. The most shocking to me was the lack of regulations.

> I personally strongly avoid sleeping on or wearing anything containing synthetic fibres unless absolutely necessary.

What's your pillow stuffed with? You mattress? What's your carpet made of? Have anything plastic in the house that might off-gas? You know what aluminum cans are coated with? What's your furniture made of? Is there epoxy in that? What it finished with polyurethane?

Things like lead, benzene, and DDT proved themselves to be dangerous pretty quickly. Your polyester suit should be the least of your worries.

I try not to worry myself too much about these things, in the same way I don't constantly immerse myself in politics. within a busy life, clothes, bedsheets and pillows are easy and effective targets to eliminate

The dose makes the poison.

Currently chemical analysis techniques can detect compounds down to picograms/L. That's billionth's of grams per liter. So saying "this material has benzene in it", doesn't really tell you anything about the level of exposure or risk.

Very few compounds are toxic at that kind of exposure.

A lot of chemicals seem to have effects on the endocrine system. I wonder if there is potentially an issue with them in aggregate. Such that the dose of any single chemical isn't problematic but all of them together with similar effects causes a problem.

you are right -- keyword search "body burden" or "forever chemicals"

>I wonder if there is potentially an issue with them in aggregate. Such that the dose of any single chemical isn't problematic but all of them together with similar effects causes a problem.

I've been wondering about this a lot in recent years. Particularly in regards to medications/pharmaceuticals but also environmental containments/traces (which can include pharmaceuticals of course), pair with this what we are just starting to understand about plastics exposure and pervasiveness and I really wonder why more health research and workplace safety resources aren't being directed to look at compound and long term exposures.

> I really wonder why more health research and workplace safety resources aren't being directed to look at compound and long term exposures.

Probably because no one wants to find the various smoking guns alongside the fears of what each of the ensuing lawsuits would cost. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

What would even happen if we found out plastics are unsafe in small amounts? You'd about have to remake half the world at this point.

That would require some interaction between the chemicals, that potentiates their effect. Or they act through common pathways.

But if the threshold effect is 1 microgram, and you're exposed to 1 picogram of 10 different chemicals all working through the same pathway, you're still below the threshold effect.

I think the idea was more if the threshold effect is 1 microgram and you're exposed to 100 picograms of 10 different chemicals.

The study in question literally says a small dose is about as effective as a massive dose.

That's because it's a terribly designed study. Their lowest dose shows maximum effect, they should have also tested 0.1 mg/kg.

And 1mg/kg of body weight is way more than any person would be exposed to unless you like drinking gasoline.

If you read carefully through the study, the lowest dose does not show anything close to maximum effect in several of the most interesting metrics they were testing (shrinking of white adipose tissue cells, serum levels of leptin indicating endocrine dysfunction). Basically they tested a ton of stuff, and actually selected a pretty good range to get a decent picture. If they wanted to zoom on on one of these, then maybe you are right they should have started at 0.1mg/kg... unless they were zooming on on say decrease in serum levels of leptins in response to benzene exposure, because no significant decrease would be found.

Also, they are obviously interested in lifetime exposure, but the expense of exposing rats to tiny amounts over the course of years is not financially/logistically feasible, unless someone is dumping obscene amounts of money into this specific avenue of research. Instead, they go with much higher doses in 24 exposures over a 4 week period.

Yes but "the dose makes the poison". Unless you're showing direct cumulative, irreparable damage, then it is not possible to extrapolate by poisoning something with a large amount of chemical that the small amount is just as bad.

Pure water - i.e. Milli-Q ultrapure water - is in fact a toxin in moderate quantities due to osmotic effects.

Just for clarification (because I had to look it up) a picogram is 10^-12 grams.

Benzene is in sunscreen... at least some of the spray stuff. Apparently it doesn't get on your skin but it's important to apply it in a well ventilated area to make sure you don't breathe any of it.

Not just the spray stuff https://www.valisure.com/valisure-newsroom/valisure-detects-...

Benzene is in most personal care products in at least trace amounts

https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/image/CENODS/10001-feature2-benze...

May please provide another source rather than an image with the cutout of a house and showing the parts per million of benzene versus the actual personal care products you were talking about that contain benzene?

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, it is a big enough concern to recommend safety equipment in exposure at or above 0.1 ppm. So most of the activities / sources on that diagram don't warrant too much concern, other than cigarette smoking and fresh pain fumes.

Although benzene exposure from cosmetics probably depends highly on what you are using. As per another reply here, those spray on sunscreens are are pretty terrible (likely due to using butane, propane, etc as propellants). Exposure can get as high as 6 ppm in some cases.

> Apparently it doesn't get on your skin

That’s wishful thinking.

Also, benzene is a common contaminant and breakdown product of chemical sunscreen (as opposed to mineral sunblock) ingredients. I.e. the older the tube of sunscreen is, the more benzene and other undesirable by products it’s likely to have.

Things i wish i knew before buying a fixer upper car is all the chemicals involved. Just one sniff of the brake cleaner and the rest of the day is gone. Probably some IQ ponis down the drain too. Should've just bought a tesla and be done with it...

Brake cleaner is the worst, the others are pretty much okay as long as you avoid exposure. ATF, Oil, etc - just wear proper PPE :)

You'll need brake cleaners for Tesla brakes too. Less of it since you change the brake pads and rotors less often but it'll still be used.

> IQ ponis

This made me laugh. Well played, sir.

https://youtu.be/iyC2ccF_-Pc

A few guys I watch on YouTube repair cars with a mask on when they spray brake cleaner.

Note, the type of mask is pretty important. An n95 for particulates isn’t going to stop vapors nearly as well.

You can’t use n95 masks for toxic gases. These are what I would call paint respirators mask. It’s like a gas mask but doesn’t go over the face fully.

Just use the non chorinated stuff, way less harsh.

I thought benzene as a solvent was replaced by toluene, which is not good for you either but is less bad.

"Benzene is everywhere, ..."

The more I read these posts the more alarmed I become. As I posted above only minutes ago I was taught the dangers of benzene over 50 years ago to the extent that there were strict controls on how we used it—we weren't allowed to even take the stopper of the bottle unless it was in a fume cupboard.

Toluene is often used in place of benzene these days.

That one methyl group makes a significant difference, but I still would avoid unnecessary exposure.

ChatGPT?

>"Benzene is everywhere, particularly in trace amounts in otherwise harmless products."

Note ->

Everywhere 'Today' because of your listed modern products.

Not, Everywhere because it is some natural thing.

Saying it is "Everywhere" seems to imply it is ok. The point is, we are all exposed now.

I didn't pick up on it being ok as the implication, rather that it's not ok because it's everywhere in otherwise harmless products.

Sorry. Think you are correct. I read word 'harmless' and associated it with entire comment indicating 'harmless'. But on closer reading, it could be as you say, and it is not trying to excuse it.

the same thing is true of brominated fire retardants. Somewhere along the way it was decided flameproofing was necessary for consumer products. As a result, we all get a free does of bromine in our homes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brominated_flame_retardant

That article says that BFRs only account for 20% of the flame retardant market, and the vast majority of that goes into printed circuit boards and electrical components.

There's no reference for that section, and I wonder if that calculation is by value, rather than by volume or weight, which would rather massively skew the calculation. Poisons don't usually care how much you paid for them.

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