What's the deal with California telling me PFDs cause cancer?

[fastyacht]

IS this junk?


Styrene is widely used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber, resins, polyesters and plastics. Styrene and the primary metabolite styrene-7,8-oxide are genotoxic and carcinogenic. Long-term chemical carcinogenesis bioassays showed that styrene caused lung cancers in several strains of mice and mammary cancers in rats and styrene-7,8-oxide caused tumours of the forestomach in rats and mice and of the liver in mice. Subsequent epidemiologic studies found styrene workers had increased mortality or incidences of lymphohematopoietic cancers (leukaemia or lymphoma or all), with suggestive evidence for pancreatic and esophageal tumours. No adequate human studies are available for styrene-7,8-oxide although this is the primary and active epoxide metabolite of styrene. Both are genotoxic and form DNA adducts in humans.



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The most important thing with styrene is it has been put up to "probable" from "possible." The study that tipped the scales is discused here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180530113105.htm

However it is worth noting that the exposure levels in the 1960s and 70s in industrial settings were simply astounding. The problem I have with CA 65 is that it confounds rather than clarifies risk assessment. Indeed it even implicitly calls into question actual OSHA standards. (100 ppm for styrene).
 

Styrene carcinogenicy in humans has only been found measurable epidemiologically in industrial settings. Plast ic cups, styrene from drinking out of polystyren  cups, using a surfboard, printing yourt resume, none of that is at all extrapolatable as a cancer risk. That is junk science. In this case the science is being junked up by CA rather than junk sceince being quoted (the latter is the glyphosate case).

 

[fastyacht]

Sawmill workers actually do get occupational lung diseases from sawdust. I'm pretty sure if your goal is just to be handy if you can't be handsome, it's not such as hazard. 

It is called brown lung. Joel White had it.

I wear a mask when I am grinding or sanding wood. Most non-morons do. But it isn't because it is a carcinogen. It is because if fucks up your lungs long before that.
See, "carcinogen" is a nasty word. There are chemicals that are high up on that list. Carbon Tetrachloride, Benzene (not benzine) and somewhat lower methyl chloride. Styrene is way down the list (ironically the only difference between styrene and benzene is side chain(s) which is also true of toluene). Wood dust by itself is not a carcinogen. That's the thing. It is long term exposure to wood dust, day in and day out, possibly species critical, that leads to brown lung. A homeowner overdoing a drill job on his new ikea installation is not going to cause cancer. Yet there it is--a cancer warning!

Ham fisted.

 

[CruiserJim]

Problem is, virtually everything in California has a prop 65 warning. All commercial buildings, parking garages, consumer products, etc.  So they all tend to be ignored, even for those things for which a warning is appropriate.  

 

[bodega87]

So don't eat it or burn it? California sucks.

 

[fastyacht]

Problem is, virtually everything in California has a prop 65 warning. All commercial buildings, parking garages, consumer products, etc.  So they all tend to be ignored, even for those things for which a warning is appropriate.  

Even things which do not contain the bad actor, but might be sold in combination. And the warnings show up in EVERY state. So fishing rods. Even monofilament. Sometimes I find the warnings on them! Because they *might* be sold in a "combo" so to prevent catastrophic lawsuits, the distributor or manufacturer applies the warning to *everything.*

What I find astounding is that even though they have this in California, you still have lead poisoning of children, routinely, due to dumbassery with old paint.  It seems you simply cannot educate the public effectively enough. Some of us already know about the issue, we know how to protect our families, we know how to paint over it, keep clean with TSP etc. But millions don't know. And 10,000 children are poisoned routinely.

Meanwhile, undangerous things have warnings on them. Millions are spent by California on superfluous bullshit rather than on measurable demonstrable programs to improve public health. Staggering really.

Kids:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lead-poisoning-afflicts-neighborhoods-across-california/

And adults. Yep. CA has shitty useless regulations for industrial workers with lead! What?
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-rubin-lead-cal-osha-20181014-story.html

 

[Fiji Bitter]

This thread is a cancer in SA, the proper cancer forum is PA.

 

[silent bob]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-lawsuit-coffee/cancer-warnings-to-be-served-up-with-coffee-in-california-idUSKBN1I930H

 

[longy]

In the marine world this has led to some interesting products: regular paint thinner is now banned, you can by a 'green' thinner that is paint thinner cut with acetone!! And when I just yesterday went to buy some muriatic acid to clean the lime & barnacles out of a raw water there next to the normal acid was "green" muriatic acid, same size but $2 more! No one at the store knows how the acid was greened up.

 

[Rum Runner]

I guess it is ok to drown in California but watch out if you have a PFD with some sort of plastic in it.

 

[bplipschitz]

Ah Prop 65, bane of my existence lately.  It is funny that one of the old Prop 65 warnings used to state "this product contains chemicals known to cause cancer in the state of California."

The other 49 states were ok, I guess?

Combine this with the CPRK and the NY consumer product labelling law, and you get many headaches in the detergent industry right now.

 

[Ned]

California doesn't dissociate finished goods carcinogenicity from the feedstock/production process carcinogenicity. So, if you happen to be on fire while wearing a PFD, the melting styrene might give you cancer if you breathed the fumes for 8hrs a day for several years while being on fire. 

Clearly Cal EPA would then have concerns about pyrogenic Dioxins and Furans forming.  

 

[bodega87]

Combine this with the CPRK and the NY consumer product labelling law, and you get many headaches in the detergent industry right now.

You shouldn't have made those tide pods so damn delicious!

 

[Bugsy]

Over 500 years ago Paracelsus wrote (I paraphrase):  "The dose makes the poison."

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

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

Pretty much everything causes cancer.  It's the quantity of the substance that matters.  And that is not news.  

 

[Wavedancer II]

IS this junk?


Styrene is widely used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber, resins, polyesters and plastics. Styrene and the primary metabolite styrene-7,8-oxide are genotoxic and carcinogenic. Long-term chemical carcinogenesis bioassays showed that styrene caused lung cancers in several strains of mice and mammary cancers in rats and styrene-7,8-oxide caused tumours of the forestomach in rats and mice and of the liver in mice. Subsequent epidemiologic studies found styrene workers had increased mortality or incidences of lymphohematopoietic cancers (leukaemia or lymphoma or all), with suggestive evidence for pancreatic and esophageal tumours. No adequate human studies are available for styrene-7,8-oxide although this is the primary and active epoxide metabolite of styrene. Both are genotoxic and form DNA adducts in humans.



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Didn't they teach in law school that polystyrene (the foam) is a polymer and relatively inert compared to the monomer styrene? Not that I like polystyrene because it ends up everywhere and degrades very poorly, if at all.

 

[IStream]

Same thing with acrylamide, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying fried potatoes.

 

[mustang__1]

Clearly Cal EPA would then have concerns about pyrogenic Dioxins and Furans forming.  

let's not split hairs here. 

 

[Trovão]

Breathing can give you cancer - stop doing it!

 

[Oz Scout Sailor]

At one stage coffee was on the IARC list as probably causing cancer. I notice that is has been down graded to only possible now. I blame Big Coffee for that. Corruption and lobby groups must be involved. I mean how would California survive without coffee.

The science behind the IARC (WHO) lists, which most other list are being based off, is they give no indication on the levels of exposure which cause the cancer: do you need 1 milligram of exposure or do you need to take a bath in it once a week for several years for cancer to occur. They are heavily criticized within the scientific community for this by several major national science bodies and by other research groups within WHO, their own parent organisation. DDT is listed as probable carcinogenic but i think most DDT related deaths were actually related to the toxicity of the poison and net effects on the body and not proven to be directly linked to DDT related cancer.

 

[spankoka]

I'm a bit more worried about consuming glyphosate and such than the hazards of life jacket snorting. 

 

[fastyacht]

I'm a bit more worried about consuming glyphosate and such than the hazards of life jacket snorting. 

I just don't like the idea that my food is genetically engineered to enjoy being slathered liberally with the stuff from birth to harvest.