[Keith Tedford]

Where I worked they used to have a booth with exhaust fans for the solvent tanks. Now the tanks are sitting in the open and you can drag a fan over to blow the fumes around the tool room for everyone else to breathe. At least there are gloves and masks available. Want to see something dangerous, check the MSDS sheets on Beryllium. Lead is 50-80 parts per million limit while for Beryllium it is about .002 parts per million. Breath the fumes or dust and you end up with berylliosis of the lungs. This element is used to toughen the copper in weld gun arms and other copper based parts. Very common in the auto industry. Like the guys laughing at the gloves, our guys weren't any better. We've had guys who spent years on surface and cylindrical grinders dying with cancer. A friend died just this past year and he was only about 58. Hard things to prove in specific cases, but statistics tell the true story. Elements of the same family usually cause the same problems in humans so I have been told eg. chlorine, fluorine, and bromine. In the past, when one has been found to be bad they just moved on to the next one until it was found out for what it is. It's a murky world this use of chemicals.