The news has been filled, of late, with stories of a massive spill of benzene headed towards a Chinese city (and from there, it’s going to Russia) and that the stuff’s dangerous, but they’ve given no explaination as to what happens to someone who injests the stuff. Is it simply poisonous, and will kill you pretty quickly due to something like kidney failure, or is it one of those things that will cause cancer/other ailments that will eventually kill you?
The big problem with benzene is it’s a fairly potent carcinigen. Aside from that it’s about on par with gasolene in terms of harmful effects. IOW even if it weren’t carcinogenic you still wouldn’t want to drink it, but it probably wouldn’t kill you if you did.
A tip for future reference: if you put the substance name and MSDS into Google you will find the safety sheets for the substance, which list all the nasty health effects.
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=benzene+MSDS&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
Thing about benzene is it is oxidised to phenols and hydroquinone in the body, which produces diseases of the bone marrow and liver, including cancer.
Theoretically toluene would protect against damage by competatively inhibiting benzene metabolism. Sort of the same way as pure ethanol is a good at preventing a hangover caused by oxidation of methanol into formalin.
Much of my job right now is inspecting crude oil and products tankers. As a matter of official policy, we don’t enter cargo areas until a certified marine chemist has tested the space and identified the benzene levels. From one of our instructions on the subject:
“Benzene has been identified as a human carcinogen. Occupational exposure to benzene has been associated with the development of leukemia, a cancer of the body’s blood forming system. Chronic exposure to even a low concentration has been correlated with other adverse changes such as aplastic anemia. Aplastic anemia is a disease that reduces the ability of the bone marrow to produce sufficient red blood cells to adequately oxygenate the body’s tissues. Inhalation of benzene vapors is the primary route of exposure, although absorption through intact skin is also possible.”
Bad stuff. Sadly, many vessel inspectors from years past didn’t live long past retirement, if they made there at all.
>The big problem with benzene is it’s a fairly potent carcinigen. Aside from that it’s about on par with gasolene in terms of harmful effects.
By “Aside from that” do you suggest benzene is worse than gasoline?
Gasoline is about 1/4 benzene, followed by toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and other smaller and smaller constituents, many of which are also carcinogenic and teratogenic and, well, smelly. Not to mention explosive and flammable, which kills many people or injures them beyond imagination.
I think our standards are out of whack. Remember scrubbing your bicycle chain clean in a pail of gasoline, or similar things? That’s about how dangerous benzene is - after all, it was sold as a household cleaning agent for many years. It does increase your odds of getting cancer, somewhat, which is ugly - but if you ever had a roomate who smoked, that is probably the bigger lifelong issue for you. Smoking cohabitants kill more Americans a month than terrorism killed during all of 2001.
It’s like farting in church to say so, but a more quantitative sense of risk would be helpful for us all. Better to reduce secondary smoking deaths by ten percent (5000 Americans a year) than fix airbags in cars so they are safer for people of small stature (isn’t this supposed to kill about 5 Americans a year?). By the way, no slight intended against people who are shorter than average, and certainly none intended against everybody but the Americans, I just don’t remember the world statistics.
How can anyone possibly interpret " is about on par with gasolene" as possibly meaning “is worse than gasoline”?
Gasoline is not 25%
Sorry. Gas is not 25% benzene, its a minor component of the order of 1%.
Says who? Got an authoritative, non-biased source for that?
[QUOTE=Napier]
>Gasoline is about 1/4 benzene, followed by toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and other smaller and smaller constituents, many of which are also carcinogenic and teratogenic and, well, smelly. Not to mention explosive and flammable, which kills many people or injures them beyond imagination.
I think our standards are out of whack. Remember scrubbing your bicycle chain clean in a pail of gasoline, or similar things? That’s about how dangerous benzene is - after all, it was sold as a household cleaning agent for many years. /QUOTE]
As mentioned previously, gasoline is about 1% to 2% benzene. Most of gas is relatively non-toxic aliphatic hydrocarbons. Benzene is **by far ** more toxic than gasoline. Just because we used to use it as a household solvent doesn’t mean its ok.
Read the original post. It has nothing to do with smoking.
I’m not sure if it is the same, but Benzene in German (or Germany for that matter) is fuel/Gas/Petrol.
That’s Benzin. Benzene is Benzen in German (and no, they doesn’t seem to be confused often).