In article , "Bill" wrote:

I appreciate the elloquence of your argument. I think you would make a good
lawyer. However, as thorough as your argument was, you did not prove that
Urea-formaldehyde is not benign, just as I did not prove, or claim to prove,
that it was. It might surprise you how many similar matters I've had to
come to terms with in the last 5 or 6 years. I have adapted. This one is a
relative "piece of cake" at this point. What is tough is when you don't
know the source of the allergans or even know that the difficulties you are
having are being caused by allergans. I suppose it would be even worse to
develop a terminal disease due to something that you could have avoided,
say, by ignoring warnings on packages.

No, I did not prove that urea-formaldehyde is benign. It probably
isn't with continuous exposure to high doses. But with more normal
exposure, it's likely fairly benign. If it was highly toxic,
carcinogenic or whatever, some clues would likely have emerged
by now.

Yes, these things can be frustrating. My wife suffers from year
round allergies and we still have absolutely no idea what
allergen is triggering them and hence no opportunity to avoid
exposure to same.

In your case, at least you know the allergen is present in big
box stores and have the opportunity to avoid them even if that
is inconvenient.

Over the past few years we have learned about the risks associated
with exposure to substances like lead in paint, asbestos and more.
This is a Good Thing. Having said that, let's keep those risks
in perspective. The ladder or power tool you bought in Home Depot
is far more likely to kill you than the urea-formaldehyde in the
particle board. I don't even want to think about the relative risk
of getting into a motor vehicle and driving to the big box store... ;-)

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