DANGERS WE NEVER HEAR ABOUT :

MopberN life has several dangers quite as common and insidious:.as radio-activity.. Like radio-activity, they differ from the old dangers—fire, shock, injury—because they are invisible, and special instruments are needed to show them before it is too late.

The commonest is television, which has led to 85 per cent. -of American children getting minor abnormalities of the spine due to too much hunching over the; set.

It will be a catastrophe if illnesses du€ to lack of exercise ‘spread to other nations.

‘Very few readers of The Newsletter, however, are likely to get heart disease and hardening of the arteries through.

sitting too long eating and drinking too much at too many banquets—an exclusively ruling-class affliction! |’

Most of the dangers come from new chemicals. A few " people react violently to’ some of the new (or old) drugs.

Penicillin used to be sold indiscriminately, and many people got acute dermatitis. -200Another reason for its restriction is that unskilled use can breed new strains of resistant germs.

At present the chief drug danger is from imported meat which may have been fed on antibiotics (penicillin, aureomycin, terramycin, sulphonamides etc.) to make it grow faster, The effects of prolonged small doses are quite unknown— and some commercial interests regard this as reason enough for their unbridled use.

New insecticides and fungicides are another potential source of trouble, as they can be taken up even through the skins of plants and animals.

Dangerous flavours and colours Hormones used to treat plants are less likely to be danger-_ ous, but the giving of sex hormones to meat animals (and people, in proprietary drugs) is strongly to be condemned.

Flavours and colours in foods can be dangerous. The — Ministries of Food and Health have a fairly good record, but not nearly up to U.S. standards, which themselves leave - room for improvement.

Plastics give no reason to fear danger in themselves, but a watch should be kept for solvents and modifiers which might be used with them.

Solvents can cause cancer and many other slowly develop- _ ‘ing illnesses upon long exposure to even very small amounts, as well as immediate. poisoning. Several dozen new solvents come into industrial use every year.

Tt is now known that several distinct types of chemical groupings of atoms incline the substance to cancer formation, and others may always be found in the future.

Real identity often masked ;

Their real identity is often masked under trade names, a practice which should be prohibited. At least the full chemical names and amounts of the ingredients of mixtures should be stated.

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Oils, tars and smokes are all potentially dangerous unless carefully refined. Chimney sweeps are notoriously prone ‘to cancer of the skin due to soot; crude oil has traces of similar substances. Pure refined oils are not dangerous in most cases. Many of the dangerous cancer-producing substances will take the colour out of iodine solution in smal! amounts.

The commonest poisons are, of course, the scot and sulphur dioxide from coal and oil, and the tar from tobacco, which pour into our lungs.

Mercury. is found chiefly in fluorescent lamps. outside . : industry, and in an increasing number of industrial electronic valves.

Not so strict industrialists -A few valves contain radio-active. materials, and the colour markings (an orange band) should be well known. Any cut from them should be well washed immediately, all material gathered carefully together and -buried—-NEVER BURNED —and the matter reported to. a doctor.

Happily, beryllium has almost vanished from modern AuGuUST 9, 1958 fluorescent lamps after causing many deaths, but a large beryllium industry is being built up for atomic energy work. The Atomic Energy Authority is exceedingly strict; one cannot expect the same of all industrialists.

The departmental machinery of the Ministries of Food and. ‘ Health and the Factory Inspectorate have not led to legis. lation at anything like a reasonable rate.

They should be transformed into public” bodies based on’ the trade unions, and their dealings well publicized in the Press. Pious phrases and advice which it is never intended to enforce must be replaced by adequate powers, , - Robbery with violence is a capital crime, if anyone is accidentally killed. But an employer who fails to take the most elementary precautions for the lives of his workers is not even prosecuted. This shows a complete lack of the ‘sense of proportion’ which our ruling class boasts that it possesses.

It must be a first principle that no substance, process or method should be used until all foreseeable dangers have been tested and overcome. ;

Oxus on the employer Adequate scales of compensation must be set up for any remaining risks, with onus on the employer to prove he was not responsible.

Many thorough tests will take several years, and a few mis- ; ; ; ; takes will slip through. Older workers should be employed where long-term risks are unknown, so that diseases shall not have time to develop before they retire.

Too expensive, Mr Employer? Not at all. Human life and. health are too cheap.