3/11/2019 Anyone who has attended a HAZWOPER course should be familiar with the three major health hazard categories: carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens. And while all three agents manifest unique health effects, they can all be derived by the same contaminant; be it a radionuclide or chemical. Carcinogens are defined as Read more…
10/29/2018 Hexavalent chrome? How’s that different from regular chrome? First of all, Chrome – or chromium – is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number of 24. It is the first element in group 6 in the periodic table, making it a refractory metal, of which molybdenum Read more…
10/15/2018 Earlier this year, a legal decision was announced, declaring that Roundup, the most popular weed killer in the world, gave a former school groundskeeper terminal cancer. The groundskeeper, 46 years old, applied Roundup weed killer 20 to 30 times per year as part of his job. He testified that Read more…
8/13/2018 A few weeks ago, the nation was celebrating the memory of Senator John McCain. Many stories were told about his life of service; however, one grabbed my attention. It was the tragic event that occurred when John McCain was on the USS Forrestal: an aircraft carrier that suffered a Read more…
8/6/2018 According to the American Burn Association, there are approximately 486,000 burn related injuries requiring medical treatment each year. Of these burn related injuries, 8% occur in the workplace. This equates to roughly 38,880 workers. And based on investigations these work cases were attributed to inadequate training/awareness, a lack of Read more…
7/30/2018 When I was a student (many years ago) and working on an assignment in a chemistry laboratory with another student, an incident occurred that could have resulted in a very serious injury. In one of the fume hoods a large glass bottle was used to collect spent acids. The Read more…
3/5/2018 A major environmental regulation, known as the Toxic Substances Control Act or TSCA…..pronounced TOSCA, has been jokingly misconstrued for the opera of the same name, written by Giacomo Puccini; considered to be one of the most lethal operas of all time as all the main characters – heroes and Read more…
6/16/2016 Peroxides: These are chemical compounds that contain an oxygen–oxygen single bond or the double oxygen anion, O2−2. One of the first synthetic peroxides, barium peroxide, was synthesized by Alexander von Humboldt in 1799 as a by-product of his attempts to decompose air. Nineteen years later, Louis Jacques Thénard recognized Read more…
3/13/2017 Last month, on February 13, Kim Jong-nam, the exiled half-brother of North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong Un, was murdered by having the nerve agent, VX-gas, sprayed into his face while at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), VX is the most toxic Read more…
12/12/2016 Acids: these are a group of chemicals known for their caustic nature. Most acids encountered in everyday life are aqueous solutions, or can be dissolved in water. Acid comes directly from the Latin acidus, which means sour. Probably the most obvious example of understanding this “sour” characteristic is through Read more…