On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:16:39 GMT, The Medway Handyman wrote:

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From: The Medway Handyman
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Subject: Envoonmental health guidelines (was unpleasant surprise behind wallpaper)
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Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:16:39 GMT
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The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Fredxx wrote:
"Clot" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Clint Sharp wrote:
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Clint Sharp wrote:
Perhaps an orbital sander might blend the paint edges in
enough. Otherwise lining paper would be the normal solution.

Need to be wary of doing this if the house is old, possibly lead
based paint.
On a wall? I doubt it. Woodwork, yes. Walls and ceilings used
distemper.
Wouldn't want to put money on that, I'd definitely do a lead test
before sanding it down if it appears to be . Just because it
*should* be distemper and lead based pain *should* only be used on
woodwork...
Oh FFS. Lead isn't that poisonous.

Agreed, it is repeated exposure that could be an issue. There is an
issue with young children who could ingest lead containing dust.

This issue is just as overblown as the nonsense about asbestos and
mercury from CFLs these days.


It can't be all that bad if the government is willing to put amalgam
fillings in your teeth!




As part of some purely private research into as it happened, nuclear
energy, I had occasion to attempt to understand issues surrounding
toxicity limits and teh handling of 'dangersous stuff'

Now, from rusty memory, it seems to go like this

Substance X is identified as being a health hazard because people or
mice have been shown to die more readily when heavily dosed with it.
Substitute lead?mercury/plutonium or whatever for X.

A graph of mortality over levels of substance X is drawn up.

A level such that any death over random would be totally buried in the
noise, and assuming linear extrapolations of high doses to zero doses
is valid, is set up. Usually so that the level is less than 1% of the
level that produces ANY noticeable change in mortality or indeed in
health.
So at that point the "recommended dose" is in fact about a hundred
times less than that which does anything detectable.

At that point, the legislation kicks in, and every use of that
material that could conceivably result in exceeding that 1% limit is
surrounded in dire warnings, safety equipment and the like. Viz most
of us lived happily with asbestos for years, and haven;'t died yet:
deaths were largely occurring in people who had high and CONTINUOUS
exposure to it. There is a large body of evidence that suggests that
the body is in fact quite capable of ridding itself of poisons
provided the systems are not overloaded by continuous high exposure.

And finally, if there is no commercial reason to keep on using
substance X, because better (and presumably safer) substances exist,
then its banned from general use. This is very much the case with
mercury thermometers and barometers, asbestos in insulation and brake
pads, and lead in petrol (which WAS actually a Bad Thing in urban
environments and did cause detectable problems. Not half so much as
diesel particulates do now, mind you).

Lead in fishing weights has also been banned, because eating a bloody
great ball of lead DID kill wildlife.

IO am not sure anyone has ever died, or become ill as a part of
ingesting lead paint.

Or small quantities of mercury, either. The people who suffered were
hatters, who used it on a daily basis, or miners..


The point here being that most of these so called 'dangerous'
compounds are not. Not in the very small and very occasional exposure
to which we might be subject: The Law is there because of pretty
suspect and very extended extrapolations from very sketchy data, for
which there is very little evidence that the extrapolation is in fact
justified. So the Law errs way on the cautionary side, as do all the
dire warnings.

That sounds exactly like the passive smoking argument...

(hides behind sofa)

I was very glad that the smoking ban came in. Although I have asthma and
sarcoidosis affecting my lungs, I've never had a problem in that respect
and was not overly concerned about the health effects of passive smoking. I
did however hate coming home with stinging eyes, a sore throat and stinking
clothes.

No smoking areas were of little help, as smoke does tend to drift around
and more of a problem is that many smokers can be very selfish - if we went
out as a group, even though only a small proportion smoked, they would
insist on us being in the smoking areas or they'd sulk and ruin the
evening.

SteveW