Slashdot Mirror
Is Your Computer Leaking Toxic Dust?
n0alpha writes "A recent study by scientists at the University of Washington suggests that computers emit dangerous chemicals. Specifically, chemicals called PBDEs (poly-brominated-diphyenyl ethers) found in the household dust that collects on your monitor and keyboard could pose a health threat. Scientists say the chemicals have caused developmental and learning defects in laboratory animals and may pose a threat to people and animals. 'It's critical we phase these materials out,' said Suellen Mele, Citizens for Resource Conservation. And some companies are doing just that."
Ya know what... this is going to be another email chain letter... nimby's going ape over the "new killer problem omg!!!" for the next 3 months.
people... *life* is dangerous... deal with it
...I stopped licking my keyboard when I was 16.
FLR
Well, I guess my computer WILL be the death of me ; ;
Like I could develop a learning disability from chemicals leaking from my... uh... thingamjig...
Crap....
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
I don't know about you, but the on;y
new computer smell' I get is from NewEgg's packing materials. If you're referring to something like what a new Dell smells like, I have no idea. If it's anything like a car's new smell it's probably some volatile compounds left over from the plastic manufacturing.
Evil will always win, because Good is DUMB
Reading this post is bad for my eyes. Going to the toilet to often can give me RSI and serious backproblems. Eating wears out my jawbones. Everything is bad for you if you sart thinking about it. Everything dangerous is called life.
they also mentioned that these compounds are found on many electronic devices. Let's just suppose, for the sake of argument, that this dust shortens your life span by 10-15 years. Are we willing to change our lives radically (go back to 19th century living) in order to live longer? Or will we just deal with it as a cost of progress? Like an earlier poster said, everything kills you.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
So let me get this straight.
Computers
1.Cause neurological damage
2.Cause your eyes to go semi blind.
3.Cause you to become lazy and fat
Am I missing anything here?
-Dipster
After some research, I can provide some more informations without totally talking out of my ass:
Penta- and octa-BDE (PBDE and OBDE) are the most toxic and will be banned in the entire EU come august (not yet banned here in Sweden, sorry for the irresponsible, blatant lie).
Deca-BDE will not be banned in EU yet, but Sweden is working on getting a national ban (and trying to get EU to ban DBDE as well).
I sit corrected.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
It's already been documented that silicon valley has the highest incidence of autism in children, as well as a growing rate of infertility. No idea on cancer yet.
Health care people also have increasing rates of autistic children, and at the same time their work environment has become increasingly technical (higher end imaging systems etc) I have not seen breakouts on different professions, expect more studies to follow.
I have four friends with recently diagnosed autistic kids, Parents: radiation technician, nurse, medical equipment technician, programmer, data administrator.
The fall of the Roman empire was attributed partly to the fact that the wealthy and affluent would drink wines out of lead vessels while the poor drank from animal sacks. The wealthy and powerful ended up poisoning their minds and allowed the barbarians to overun them. We may be doing the exact same thing with technology.
Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.
I am a little confused. My research indicates that computers really don't generate very much dust at all. When they are new, they are very clean and generally devoid of fibrous substances that could be liberated as dust.
I have found, however, that computers make excellent dust accumulators. PBDEs are not only used in computers, but also in children's pajamas, mattresses, etc. - all of which generate large quantities of dust. If there are harmful flame retardant chemicals in the dust, wouldn't that have more to do with the mattress, furniture, and clothing than it would with the computer?
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
...may not be your own. There's been a lot of jokes here about how no one's going to live forever and all that bullshit, but there are other considerations than yourself.
r s_ pr.html
Let me give you a *painful* personal example. Three years ago, my six year old son was diagnosed with Autism - a genetic defect that may in fact be linked to chemicals such as these.
It would really piss me off to find that my career was directly responsible for his condition. My wife sent me this article before even Slashdot picked it up and it got me thinking about it.
It's all water under the bridge now, but my son's condition has affected our lives in countless ways including the decision not to have children in the future.
It also made me wonder about this article on Wired:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/asperge
It's how Silicon Valley has the highest rates of Autism in the country. Maybe it's not so much who you mate with, but in what environment...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I know that you are trying to be funny, but my budget allows me $1000 to build a new computer in the next couple of months (big news for me, since I use a Celeron 466 at home). I also have two small children at home -- a three-year-old and a two-year-old, and I love them very much and want them to be healthy.
What I want to know is if the "dust" is left on the item from manufacture, or if the "dust" is regular houshold dust which leeches chemicals from any exposed surface. The first one you can hope to clean off, the second one you can't. I did read a version of the article linked from the Yahoo new site (not sure how different it is from the article mentioned here). But in the article that I read, they just found dust, and apparently made no effort to determine the source, or if cleaning a new computer would help.
And if chemicals are being emitted by every available surface, are any airborne, or do they need a carrier such as dust in order to travel?
If the resudue can be cleaned off of the parts, what is a safe cleaner to use on a motherboard?
At least I am glad that I have already decided on an Antec server case which has air filters over the intake fans in the front. If I do find a way to clean off the mobo and other internal electronics, then I might be able to keep dust off of the inside of the case.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Maybe, but I can't imagine anyone ever coming back in a couple of years and saying these chemicals are good for us.
As far as I can tell, nobody can really tell for sure that they are bad for us now. I haven't been able to find any health effects on humans, and the studies I have found are limited to lab mice and don't appear to be conclusive (IANA biologist). If someone could point me towards something a little more conclusive I would appreciate it.
I'm not saying there definitely isn't a problem, but at the very least it looks like we need more research. There's enough bad science going on now to make me skeptical of any health warnings printed in major news media, and the article takes it as a given that PDBE's are toxic to humans while only really reporting that they are present in computers.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Their wipe tests were performed after dust was allowed to accumulate for at least five days. Let's suppose that I regularly remove and ingest the dust from 200 cm^2 of my computer. That would be licking the dust off about thirty square inches of my computer's case.
In that case, I'm being exposed to 40 ng per week, or about 2 micrograms per year. That's about 0.1 mg over the course of my lifetime--a tenth of a milligram.
A recent literature review(1) (abstract and full text) gives a threshold for toxicity due to octa-BDE (the most toxic compounds studied in the wipe tets) as 2 mg/kg (fetal toxicity/teratongenicity, rat and rabbit models.)
The most toxic compound being phased out (penta-BDE; not measured in the wipe tests) affects neurobehavioural development from 0.6 mg/kg (rat and mouse models.)
The carcinogenicity of these compounds is not well-characterized, however any effects seem to appear at much higher exposures that one would expect in the real world.
In other words, these compounds bear watching and the fact that they are bioaccumulative is troubling--but they're definitely not something to panic about. I'd also be more concerned about ingestion from other sources--bioaccumulations in fish and eggs--rather than from your computer hardware. Those problems, in turn, can be addressed through proper disposal of retired computer equipment.
(1) Darnerud PO. "Toxic effects of brominated flame retardants in man and in wildlife." Environ. Int. 29(6):841-53 (2003).
~Idarubicin
"According to other scientists, such as Dr. Gina Solomon, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, there is no need to panic. They say that although the levels of PBDEs are high enough to be worth talking about, they are unlikely to pose a serious threat to human health."
'Nuff said.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Think of life an a game of russian roulette with over 1000 chambers and one bullet. I will freely admit that chemicals from electronics is a minor issue. But enough minor issues added together amount to a major issue. Life is not safe, and there are many things that I cannot control. But if there is something that I CAN control, then I would be a fool for not doing it. I am not saying that I am going to throw out my computer. I am just saying that if I can swab my mobo and processor with alcohol wipes first and help protect the health of my family, then it may be worth the effort.
;)
Secondly the "chemicals may be emitted" phrase IS valid. Have you ever heard of a moth ball? There is not chemical reaction there, but vapors are present? It is a physical process called "sublimation." Sublimation is NOT a chemical process, but it does happen. Look it up.
Whenever you smell ANYTHING, it is because either particles or chemicals are in the air. So your theory of chemical reactions is false. Anything which can vaporize will emit chemicals. Plus, the problem is worse if there are porous materials saturated with a volatile chemical (volatile meaning that it can emite a vapor).
As far as cleaning everything first (if that would work), I am not worried about myself, but my children. I feel free to gamble a little with my life, but not those of my kids.
Also, using an air filter on the air intakes of my computer is a step to keep dust out. On my old PC, I found dust around the I/O connectors on my sound card, around the edges of the CD-Rom drives, etc. Then I installed an intake fan and found dust on all of the fans, and all over the processor heat sink. So I decided that I wanted filters to help keep the system running cool, and NOT for health reasons. But if the dust is the problem, then no dust in = no dust out. As simple as that.
If this turns out to be a threat that cannot be controlle, that I am happy to live with it. I am not getting paranoid here. I am still getting my computer. But if I can remove even a minor source of chemials easily, I will do so. If not, then I will just live with it and not worry about it. There is a difference between taking sensible precautions if possible, and spreading panic. Douglas Adams would be proud of me
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Is it just me or does everything kill lab rats?
TOOTHPICKS FOUND TO CAUSE DEATH IN LAB RATS
Scientists have discovered that force feeding lab rats 50,000 toothpicks caused death in 99.9% of cases studied. The one rat that survived eventually died from starvation.
"This proves that toothpicks are dangerous and should have warnings printed on them," said Bob T. Scientist, one of the researchers who turned mice into twiching pincushions.
The FDA has yet to comment on this story.
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