...and even more on Thimerosal

Derek has posted an awesome piece on the Thimerosal/Hg/autism story, here.

I don't think this requires any
description at all.


Thanks to "Million Moments"
for sharing.

JACS is not quite so fun

No similar news items from JACS, the Journal of the ACS. Oh, well. Then again, there is always Chemical and Engineering News, which has good online articles and links to other resources. ACS just is not enthusiastic about opening access to their journals to the public, except in small ways.

Somewhere in my online ramblings I tripped into this, which may be of interest to those who are interested in all the fuss about Thimerosal and autism.

ES&T: what's NOT available on line?

The ACS journal Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T) appears to have lots of great content available free on the web. Oh, joy! Now if I could only find more time and more energy, I could get around to reading this stuff.

Here is an example article: this one is on the presence of pharmaceuticals in drinking water.

And here is another, on nitrate contamination in drinking water.

Could it be that other ACS publications have similar resources available on the web? I'm a little embarrassed to admit I don't know: I'm going looking right now.

chemistry in the news: good news!

OPB reports on a chemical that appears to repel pine bark beetles, a real scourge in the pine forests on the east side of the Cascades. It is called verbenone, and is a terpene produced by lots of plants, including those of the genus Verbena.

our local National Teach-In is tomorrow!

The National Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions is going on now. Tomorrow several institutions in Central Oregon will be involved. OSU-Cascades, Central OR CC and at least one area High School are gathering from 11 am till 2 pm to talk, teach, eat, and discuss.

Everyone is of course welcome. From 1:30 until 2 the actual dialog will occur, featuring a number of students and City Counselors from Bend.

Hope to see you there!

chloraseptic=death?

This morning's news included a story suggesting that Nazi hunters at the Simon Wiesenthal Center have determined a certain war criminal, Aribert Heim, probably died and was buried in Egypt in the early '90s. He was apparently involved in "medical" experiments that sound awful--including deliberately injecting people with poison.

When I heard the story I immediately was taken back to a class yesterday, where the conversation led to the meaning of "phenol" and I casually mentioned that phenol, while rated as toxic by chemical supply houses, happens to be the ingredient in Chloraseptic throat spray. Ha ha ha, I chuckled, "How is it both medicine and poison?" and then I looked a bit deeper into this compound. It has a fascinating rap sheet.

Phenol is not only used as a topical antiseptic in Chloraseptic, it also:

• is considered toxic and mutagenic, and carries a health warning of "3" (highest is 4) on the NFPA label
• is the source of the odor best known as hospital smell
• is a raw material in phenolic resins, which included the historically important polymer, Bakelite

In addition to all this, it was also used by the Nazis to kill people by injection.

So wasn't it a coincidence to learn all this yesterday, and then wake this morning to the story of the Nazi doctor who may have committed these horrific acts with, perhaps, this very compound.