Is my home color killing me? lol

[Poisson Du Jour]

Studies that look at people and their habits have linked vegetarian diets with a decreased risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and colon cancer.]

Not entirely true; individual/familial predisposition to cancer, hypertension etc., is a major trigger, not solely what is consumed. Randomised studies often do not have control references in them unless over a very large population sample, and often biased with ethnicity factors. Besides which, all things in moderation.

[DREW WILEY]

I'm not gonna bother going thru the whole damn thread, but anyone who handles color chemistry without gloves and good ventilation is a fool. I know a couple of commercial lab owners who can't
even walk into their own building due to sensitization; and one needed multiple lung surgeries. It seems that "artistes" have the same mentality as chain smokers and think it's cool to take known
risks. I've sure seen my share of them ruin their health over the years. I've been very cautious, but
despite that, just from cumulative very small amts of exposure, now have to do my color processing outdoors. I load the drum in the dark, but the processor itself is on a movable cart which I push outside in suitable weather. There are reasons MSDS sheets exist.

[Photo Engineer]

Drew, call me a fool then. Back when I was about 12 and started color processing, you could not easily get any sort of protective gloves, and where could a 12 year old get a ventilator for the darkroom (really the fruit cellar)? We could not get this type of stuff even in my later teens.

When in a hurry, I still can do some items without gloves, and I never use a mask.

All color chemistry has become safer over the years. No more dichromate, ferricyanide, formalin, t-BAB, well I could go on.

PE

[Prof_Pixel]

I started color processing in my mid-teens and the only time I had any problems was during the RX chemistry days at Kodak when I had some dermatitis issues on my hands; the company doctors thought it was probably the CD-6 and not the Cohex. (Of course, I never had such problems when I started working on digital projects. ;- )

[Photo Engineer]

And yet, the doctors cleared CD6. Just goes to show you.

PE

[EASmithV]

How about bw developers? Are they still skin sensitizers? If so, much less?

[DREW WILEY]

Plenty of people have gotten dermatitis from metol. Plain ole stop bath can get to your lungs, esp if
you are diluting it down grom glacial acetic without good ventilation. I work in an industry where everyone used to "tough it" with respect to chemicals - lots of them aren't around any more at my age! No excuse in this day and day to plead ignorance or not have a box of disposable gloves around. And digital - well, in mfg of course. Silicon Valley has a gigantic toxic groundwater problem
right now. But in printing use, yeah ... enough exposure to glycol fumes and you can indeed get
sensitized. Inkjet ink is fulla them. And I wouldn't make a habit of drying big inkjet prints in an unventilated room. They're steadily being phased even out of housepaints. Not an ingredient to panic
about by any means. Eating potato chips every day is probably more hazardous. But yeah, I know
folks who have gotten seriously sensitized to low levels of glycols year after year.

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I think allergic reactions that make you aware of issues is a good thing. What I'm really afraid of are cumulative toxins that aren't excreted which show up as cancer or other diseases later. I have 2 photo professors that died at a young age. It's rumored that both have died from years of chemical exposure. One died from ALS and another died from brain cancer. I don't live in fear, but I'm not foolish with chemicals either.

[Old-N-Feeble]

I'm alergic to my ex-wife... and she gave me dermatitis somewhere. I won't touch the stuff anymore. That reaction was quite caustic... to my brain, I mean.

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Hope you recovered from your dermatitis. Anyway, it's a good to avoid toxic people and toxic chemicals.