Not signed in (Sign In)

WorldWeird: Scary Science from the past

Bottom of Page

1 to 20 of 26

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. >
    •  
      CommentAuthorLBA
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2008
     (1304.1)
    Scary Science

    including my favorite - Bayer Heroin from 1898

    I wonder what people in 100 years will look back on some of the things we put into our body with the same kind of superiority we look at this with?
    • CommentAuthorharchangel
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2008 edited
     (1304.2)
    Botox.

    Injecting Bochelism into our faces.....what an awesome idea!!!
    •  
      CommentAuthortedcroland
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2008
     (1304.3)
    Injecting Bochelism into our faces.....what an awesome idea!!!


    Psh...duh. I do it every day.
  4.  (1304.4)
    and really...who doesnt
  5.  (1304.5)
    i work in the medical field, and the amount of literature available about this specific strain of botulism is staggering...but i still dont see the logic behind dangerous enzyme/bacteria/whatthefuckever being injected into anyone EVER. this isnt even a subject of contention for me: its a substrain of a potentially deadly thing-WHO THE FUCK PAYS MONEY TO HAVE IT PUT IN THEM FOR SUPERFICIAL REASONS?!?!?!?
    •  
      CommentAuthorLuke
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2008
     (1304.6)
    Same as a lot of other stuff Joe, if you're even able to ask the question then the answer will be automatically unsatisfactory. Botox has reached that terrible point of "It's so wrong and widely known to be wrong that it becomes cliche to mock it". Weird stuff.
    • CommentAuthorzenbullet
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2008
     (1304.7)
    The Superficial?
  8.  (1304.8)
    The Superficial?


    haha, i guess that would be correct.....sorry i was channeling some of my patient induced rage. please take an active role in your healthcare, people.
    •  
      CommentAuthorobliterati
    • CommentTimeMar 7th 2008 edited
     (1304.9)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    <blockquote>WHO THE FUCK PAYS MONEY TO HAVE IT PUT IN THEM FOR SUPERFICIAL REASONS?!?!?!?</blockquote>
    Mercury fillings in teeth. About one of the most toxic substances on the periodic table and the dentist gets paid thousands to make sure it touches your food. Makes me want to find some Bayer Heroin next time my teeth hurt instead of seeing Mr. Doctor.
    • CommentAuthorharchangel
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2008 edited
     (1304.10)
    Mercury Fillings?!?!?! when on earth did that go up for grabs? i'm not very up on my metalurgy but isnt that a liquid in it's natural state....sems that would make a crap filling.

    What on earth would be the benefit of Mercury in a filling?
    •  
      CommentAuthorAriana
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2008
     (1304.11)
    Mercury Fillings?!?!?! when on earth did that go up for grabs?
    SCIENCE! assignment for today: Google "amalgam" and write me a report on why mercury is awesome.
    • CommentAuthorharchangel
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2008
     (1304.12)
    Well now i'm not sure which is worse: The Mercury amalgam fillings or the resin, cork, turpentine, gum, lead and gold leaf fillings that preceeded them.

    cork fillings...those must have been in for the long haul.
    •  
      CommentAuthorNygaard
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2008
     (1304.13)
    Huh. Amalgam is still in use? Checked the wikipedia entry. Scandinavian entries are stubs, but reflect what I thought "everyone" knew - constantly chewing on mercury for 20 years is bad for your health. I had quite a few of those fillings in my milk teeth from numerous encounters with an overenthusiastic kommune dentist, and I still remember some of the things the new dentist had to say about that while he was replacing them...

    In fact, there is a smell of spin in the air. This in particular:
    Because mercury is a regulated waste in some countries, its disposal can be costly.

    I mean, is it just me, or is this phrasing just screaming "I'm an industry representative annoyed at the extra expense"?

    Mercury is a regulated waste in a lot of countries because it's fucking *poison*. Safe disposal is expensive because it's *so damn hard to handle safely*. Mercury is one of the reasons churchyards are becoming toxic hazards right up there with the industrial dump sites from the 60's.

    Anyway, scary science? Try the fashion for using chloroform as an anaesthetic.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJohn R
    • CommentTimeMar 10th 2008
     (1304.14)
    As memory serves, the actual evidence regarding health and mercury fillings is that they have no discernible negative effect on health. (Bad Science piece from 2006 on the topic, and Quackwatch's entry on the subject.) And that's not for lack of looking, either.
    •  
      CommentAuthorNygaard
    • CommentTimeMar 11th 2008
     (1304.15)
    Yep, but that's only considering one particular form of mercury fumes and its effect on the patient - and the quackwatch article is understandably mainly concerned with quacks trying to profit on the mercury scare. I was thinking of stuff like this:
    (Response from Dental Biomaterials Adverse Reaction Unit, Bergen, Norway. Which points out the low direct risk from amalgam fillings, but takes a much bigger picture into the account.)

    Independent of risk management decisions, and of the economic considerations in restorative
    dentistry, a sustained reduction in the use of dental amalgam in oral health care provision is
    expected across the European Union, the rate of which is dependant on trends in dental
    education towards the increasing use of alternative materials in place of amalgam and the
    possible reduced availability of mercury products in general.
    Mercury is the major metallic element used in dental amalgam. It is recognized that mercury in
    general does constitute a toxicological hazard, with reasonably well defined characteristics for the
    major forms of exposure, involving elemental mercury, organic and inorganic mercury
    compounds. It is accepted that the reduction in use of mercury in human activity would be
    beneficial, both for the decrease in indirect human exposure and environmental considerations.

    (...)
    The use of dental amalgam results in environmental exposure to mercury, primarily through its
    release during amalgam placement and removal, and the handling and disposal of amalgam
    waste products in general. Improvements in the treatment of waste water from dental clinics and
    amalgam waste has generally reduced this exposure. A further source of environmental exposure
    occurs through the burial or cremation of individuals with dental amalgam fillings. It should be
    noted that a significant increase in amalgam usage occurred between 1950 and 1990 that may
    result in a rise in environmental exposure over the next few decades as these individuals die.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJohn R
    • CommentTimeMar 11th 2008
     (1304.16)
    Oh, quite true. But there's a world of difference between "amalgam is scary because mercury KILLS" and "unnecessary use of amalgam may cause minor environmental exposure in the future and should best be avoided; there is little or no direct health risk from it"; the latter's not really that scary/stupid. There are a great many things commonly used in daily life that create long term environmental and indirect health risks. Pointing out that mercury is in general toxic is a bit of a fudge on that article's part, IMO. Looking back on the past when mercury was swigged by Chinese emperors thirsting for immortality or used to pretty up hats and faces - that's scary. :-)
    • CommentAuthordkostis
    • CommentTimeMar 12th 2008
     (1304.17)
    Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, most likely died of mercury poisoning from pills he was told would make him immortal. It's also rumoured that his burial tomb has a large relief map of his empire made of mercury pools.
    •  
      CommentAuthorobliterati
    • CommentTimeMar 13th 2008
     (1304.18)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    I got the <i>so</i> very trendy computer death syndrome happening or else I would have seen the responses earlier. Ariana, I will get you that essay as soon as I stop seeing these damn spots everywhere. :)

    I had some amalgam fillings in teeth which eventually cracked open, leaving little metal bits for me to play with after I'd actually plucked them out of a candy bar I was eating. Back in New York I still have some of the little shards, it was pretty encouraging stuff. For a little while I didn't get what had happened and was wondering when the cookie center of a Twix bar started being made of bike parts. I guess it's unusual for someone to be extracting their fillings at home after an accident, so maybe from a statistical standpoint a lot of people aren't exposed to the same amount of mercury as certain special cases. This is similar to what some people were saying about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-31.htm">mercury in various childhood vaccinations</a>, that in general mercury wasn't bad to be <i>injecting directly into babies</i>, only that the lowest bidder who produces those injections might not get it right all the time. I am not a scientist, really, I think, or at least not that kind of scientist, so I can't be certain.

    As far as I know, the only reason I'm always pointing toward magnetic north is because of social pressure, and not because of the component metals floating around my precious humours.
    •  
      CommentAuthorwilliac
    • CommentTimeMar 14th 2008
     (1304.19)
    •  
      CommentAuthorobliterati
    • CommentTimeMar 15th 2008
     (1304.20)
    I'm having a time out until I can learn some manners.
    Thimerosal is 49.6% ethylmercury as measured by weight. Feel free to put some in your baby <i>all you want</i>. If the problem is that there are too many autistic kids in a given study for it to make sense, which is the central problem I'm getting from the stats in those articles, please consider that there are other sources of mercury poisoning and autism available for personal research and enjoyment. And chemical science aside, all I was complaining about was how the stuff was manufactured given all the "small percentages" and "rare incidence" of mercury poisoning which is already accepted as true and an "acceptable risk".

    The lady who kept Thalidomide off the U.S. market eventually won a medal for fighting off the pharmaceutical industry for so long, even though she was called a fool, even though other governments didn't see any problems with Thalidomide. Just saying.

    Agreed though about Kennedy somewhat. I always assumed the reason he doesn't have more of a public life is because he's kind of wobbly and hysterical. Gives hope to wobbly hysterical people like myself though on occasion.

1 to 20 of 26

  1. <
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. >