Solder sniffers beware,,, lead = bad

Thats widely believed to be due to mercury, not lead, as mercury-based compounds were used in the manufacture of felt hats in the

poisoning causes dimentia and sympotoms of general illness such as abdominal pain whereas mercury can cause more severe psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations.

Bob

Dave, If you really think that your lead level may be that high, consider getting a blood test. They can also evaluate other heavy metals. If the symptoms are that noticeable, it's best to resolve that one way or the other, right?

If you really have high lead content, you'll probably get to take some strong chelating agents made with mercaptans. It will be great. (Known to clear an entire building due to the odor)

That would be mercury, but that would make for a great cocktail.

After denying possible problems for years, many dentists are now discontinuing use of mercury for some reason.

Hadn't heard that one.

sensible thing would be get a blood lead test, as you may be barking up the wrong tree otherwise. Or meowing.

Is there genuine evidence for the chelating effects of the things you mention?

Re nutritional supplements, lead does some of its harm by competing in the body with iron, calcium and zinc. Thus some of the effects can be reduced by increasing levels of these minerals to the upper end of what is healthy. In so doing one must also raise levels of the minerals iron, calcium and zinc compete with, to prevent deficiencies.

Vitamin C is also a weak lead chelator. See wikipedia's lead poisoning article.

But all this is only useful if you actually do have a lead problem. You need to find out, vague guesses arent much good.

NT

Alcohol !

Were you in the habit of licking your fingers while soldering ? Or chewing the solder ?

If not forget lead.

Graham

Lead as a metal does not fume at soldering temperatures, such that it can be ingested in that way. The fumes and vapour that you see when soldering, are from the flux contained in the solder, burning away. There is some evidence that prolongued exposure to the rosin based fluxes used to date, can cause respiratory tract ailments such as industrial asthma, and may in extreme circumstances be carcinogenic. The fluxes that are now being used with the new-fangled lead-free solder that has been forced on us in Europe as a result of new legislation, are quite acidic, and very aggressive compared to the previous rosin compounds, so bench ventilation is now rather more important than it was.

It may be possible to suffer a degree of lead poisoning from continuous handling of the basic metal, although it is a fairly inert material that is not generally associated with absorption through the skin, unlike beryllium for instance which is used elsewhere in electronics. Some commentators have also refuted that there is any free lead toxicity issue with solder, as it is a stable alloy with tin, and chemically locked in. Even over 30 years of handling the stuff daily ( as indeed I have myself ), it is unlikely that you would have ingested as much lead as you would have from the exhausts of gasoline powered vehicles in say a year, prior to the switchover to unleaded some years back. Once you have metal deposits in your body, I understand that it is very difficult to drive them out, which is why this kind of toxicity is cumulative.

There has been some suggestion that in ye olden tymes, people were lead-poisoned by drinking wine and cider from mugs made of pewter (traditionally, another tin / lead alloy of the ratio of about 4 :1, but can have other components also). The acidity of the drink supposedly broke down the alloy, and dissolved the lead, giving it a nice route into the body.

Many people now seem to suffer "short-term memory loss". People everywhere joke about it. One of the games console makers have even brought out a memory training game that they have been advertising on tv over here using the TV presenter from "Millionaire". I know people who have never worked with solder in their lives, or any form of lead come to that, who claim that they can be thinking of something that they have to say, and by the time they come to say it, it's gone ... Sound familiar ? This is reaching epidemic proportions over here, so what's the cause ? Crap that they're putting in the food ? The water ? Genetically modded oils that they are cooking stuff in ? Much more worrying, I think, than lead from solder ...

Arfa

There we are! Don't overdo it.

Selenium is an element in the same group as Sulphur. Don't mix up its use for rectifiers with hopefully medical effects.

Regards, H.

PS Medicine is the more effective the less we understand it.

On a sunny day (Wed, 7 Mar 2007 02:56:52 -0600) it happened "Dave Moore" wrote in :

It is normal at age 110, do not worry. On a more serious way, I too have been soldering for say

Stay clear of the marijana though:

hehe

I would have thought that this would have happened much sooner than 30 years.

can

down

that

The modern version is phthalate poisoning from leaching out of plastic packaging and bottles. I have an industrial chemist friend in the food industry , seriously concerned about this. I am coming to agree with him. When I was young you never saw youngsters with bottles (glass or plastic) hanging out of their mouths all the time. Anyone would think the function of these ubiquitous bottles of water was psychological, like baby's dummies.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

Everybody loves to give advice, but this is pretty easy...and serious, if it is lead. Get to a doc and get the blood test. Easy call on that...and get real treatment, if it is lead. Otherwise, it may just be too much fun from the Sixties, catching up with ya...and general aging.

On Wed, 7 Mar 2007 02:56:52 -0600, "Dave Moore" Gave us:

That's just stupid. For a definitive control, go to your doctor and tell him you need a heavy metals screening. Check for lead, mercury, and cadmium.

You'll likely find very little. Metallic form lead is not dangerous, and the lead alloyed in solder even less so. Cadmium has been out of use in dangerous form for a long many years now... decades even.

So I did some

You can hurt yourself by taking too much of many vitamins. E and selenium are just a couple. You should take no more than that found in a normal multivitamin.

Better off merely getting a blood screening to find out if any of your actions are even warranted at all.

Hahahaha... ever heard of placebo response?

How about psychosomatic illness?

Indeed. Even in areas where lead pipes are used for water there's little evidence of lead getting in the body. Lead compounds are a different matter.

Not likely lead. I work in the electronics manufacturing industry and have been soldering with lead-based solder since I was a kid. Not taking any precautions either. I got curious and got a lead test about a year ago. It found nothing. You must really have to eat the stuff for it to be absorbed.

Steve Noll | The Used Hi Tech Equipment Dealer Directory: |

Mercury poisoning, not lead poisoning...

So have you considered just getting a test done? There are real systems for Dx-ing and treating that sort of thing that don't involve guessing and eating odd weeds.

I believe it was mercury that got the hatmakers.

Are we to blame lead for some of the blithering rage, inchoate hatreds and shrieking, unending verbal spewage that we are subjected to around here.

They say it was the lead that caused house painters to become the drunks that they historically were. Is this refuted by the fact that so many painters are still drunks even though the lead is gone. Does it explain more of the drinking habits of some of our players around here.

Get the fillings replaced with composite while you're at it. There's enough idiocy here already.

Ron

Effect pedal demo's up at

Seaweed...J.P.

Do not forget the possibility of virus damage that has not been discovered yet..J.P.

I remember in the good ole days when i was a kid and we used to shine up coins with mercury............

Still alive. Maybe not smarter though....... ;)

Bob

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----

----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Mercury in teeth fillings is a known problem ..........