From: Alan Hall <oldeddoc**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (18 articles)
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2018 16:09:10 -0500
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: CALDugaajB4z59YUgsZgYr-6daqzHrEGagcfqoDCzvodC55fnRA**At_Symbol_Here**mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To <164aed68bba-c91-eebe**At_Symbol_Here**webjas-vab096.srv.aolmail.net>


Monona et al,

My disabled daughter who has to get around on crutches and in a powered wheelchair and is also a teacher holding 2 masters degrees and is a quite reasonablly good cellist and singer, was a girl scout. They had some sort of thing you could make from basically baking dough and add color to your heart's delight with GRAS (yes, and we all know what that means) food coloring and add water to taste (and certainly some of them ate it -- better than mucilage) but I would not reccomend either. She also lead a food revolt at a Girl Scout camp in New Mexico. How many bad things can someone do with a nitrate-filled hot dog? While she liked the Raggedy Ann and other stuffies that her mother and I made and I practiced my surgical knot-ties putting them together, there wasn't a creepy-crawly that she didn't like as well. I did draw the limit on a boa constrictor in the house, although once I knew a nice little one who kept the mice down in a national park where I was the doctor for a season.

Boric acid is quite different from the element boron. It's one whale of a way to get rid of cockroaches, at least when it was easily available.

A very good pediatrician I once knew said that your young children would find ways to injure of kill themselves many times a day if parents or caretakers were not vigilant. I used to teach some of this in American Red Cross babysitting classes.

My ancient publication on boric acid is:

Linden CH, Hall AH, Kulig KW, Rumack BH. Acute ingestions of boric acid. Clin Toxicol 1986;24:269-272.

Alan
AlanH.Hall,M.D.
Medical Toxicologist


On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 2:20 PM, Monona Rossol <0000030664c37427-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**lists.princeton.edu> wrote:
Good story. You get it. I think GooGone was invented a bit after Silly Putty and maybe in response to it, who knows.

Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062



-----Original Message-----
From: Meg Osterby <megosterby**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Sent: Wed, Jul 18, 2018 2:25 pm
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (18 articles)

Monona,
One of my kids fell asleep years ago with a large chunk of Silly Putty in hand, and you're right, it's hard to remove from any textile it gets embedded in. It is removable with a long soak in a product called GooGone, though, which I found after much experimentation, since at the time I couldn=E2=80™t afford new bedding for the child's bed, and it was all ruined if I couldn't get the Silly Putty out. Of course, then one has to get out the residue of the GooGone, but that comes out easily with detergent and an enzyme cleaning product like Shout.
Since that time, I=E2=80™ve found that GooGone also removes grease stains on clothing, including in some cases, spots you missed the first time and that went through the dryer and got "set". You still need the Shout and detergent to get rid of the GooGone. (They won't come out after several times through the dryer, but often do if only one cooking.)
I once, as a teacher education student, made Slime for a bunch of high school students, and had them hide it on their persons to remove it from the room. They deposited it around the school on water fountain handles, door handles, you get the idea, and I learned well the lesson that kids will do really dumb things that entertain them, regardless of whether a thinking person would think it safe. It took me hours to find all the slime and collect it and clean the surfaces where it was deposited.
I learn so much from reading what you have to contribute on any subject. Wish I lived close enough to hear you at the training in August.
Meg
Meg Osterby
W831 County Road K
Stoddard, WI 54658
414-539-1543 (cell)
608-788-7951 (home)
megosterby**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com
"It's better to be careful 100 times than to be killed once.." Mark Twain
From: Monona Rossol
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 12:59 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (18 articles)
Well... Alan,...maybe not. I NEVER played with dolls and grabbed every amphibian, reptile and rodent that got close enough. Pond scum was fascinating to me, especially the kind made up of tiny round flat thingies with wee roots hanging down under them. Hell, that's where all the neat critters hung out like the mosquito and dragon fly larvae and the hydrae..
No amount of skin rashes, bites and scratches could deter me. And since I often traveled with troupes that had bigger animals, I had some rather substantial injuries over the years.
I never got to be a Girl Scout because I organized a strike against the food service at a Brownie camp when I was between gigs. I was drummed out of the corps -- a wise move on their part.
I ruined a carpet with a plastic product that would bounce if thrown, but flowed when left still. Silly Putty, I think was the name. Once this stuff embeds in fabric, it's like over for the fabric. So I probably would have adored slime and figured out a truly nefarious use for it.
No one knows better than I do how very much we need to make sure children are given things to do and products to use are safe and hard to abuse. Children absolutely cannot be trusted to use good judgement. Deep inside each child hides a crazy person. And any parent dumb enough to trust their child is likely to find out how bad an idea this is.
Now parents, don't start with me. If you think your kid never did a really dumb, dangerous, bad thing, he/she is still not leveling with you.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Hall <oldeddoc**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Sent: Wed, Jul 18, 2018 11:25 am
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (18 articles)
Perhaps the rightt question is:
Whylet your children play with slime in the first place? Just because "everyone" thinks your child should have certain toy, doesn't mean you have to give them one. I'll bet even Raggedy Anns are still available and wound be well received.
Much sfaer alernatives any older girl scout or den mother cantell you about. You could take them to park and push them in a swing instesd.
Maybe just leave pond scum in the pond? Don't touch certain amphibians. Some has a very nasty bufotoxin on their skin to convince folks to leave them alone.
There's lot's of literature on boron toxicity. Much is available from the National Library of Medicine PubMed and Toxnet databases without charge. And the final answer is left for the studentto ascertain.
Alan
Alan H. Hall, MD
Medical Toxicologist
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 8:06 AM, TILAK CHANDRA <0000058f112ac338-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**lists.princeton.edu> wrote:
Hi Monona:
Thank you for your comments on boron toxicity. Are there any alternatives of boron to produce the slime? Such alternatives may be more toxic than boron similar to bisphenol A (BPA), until the products are fully tested.
Regards,
Tilak
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU> On Behalf Of Monona Rossol
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 7:04 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (18 articles)
Well, shame on C&EN. Their July 9 issue contained a correction of their previous article's assumption about how boron interacts with the polymer emulsions to make slime products, but NEITHER article mentioned the toxicity of boron. Both Health Canada and the European Commission have limits on the amounts of boron that can be in consumer and children's products. Slime is not a product C&EN should be encouraging people to make on their own or buy without limits on the boron content.
If you get the whole BBC article listed below, it contains the following information:
Excessive levels of boron can cause irritation, diarrhoea, vomiting and cramps.
High levels may also impair fertility or cause harm to an unborn child in pregnancy, according to the European Commission. [And Health Canada = MR comment]
Eight out of the 11 slime products tested contained boron levels which exceeded the European Union safety limit of 300mg/kg.

SLIME TOYS COULD HAVE 'POTENTIALLY UNSAFE LEVELS' OF BORON, SAYS WHICH?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44852913
Tags: United_Kingdom, public, discovery, response, other_chemical

Some children's slime toys contain potentially unsafe levels of a chemical which can cause vomiting and impair fertility, according to Which?.
An investigation by the consumer group into 11 popular slime products found eight contained higher than recommended levels of a chemical called boron.
One product had more than four times the EU safety limit, the tests found.
Which? is advising parents to "approach slime with caution" and said retailers and the government must do more.
It also urged parents to be careful when choosing to make "homemade slime", adding that some ingredients used to make slime - such as some contact lens solutions - contain borax, which is made up of boron.
Slime became one of 2017's biggest crazes, with millions of people sharing pictures on Instagram and watching DIY slime-making videos on YouTube.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062

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