Benzene Attorney Blog

Archive for February, 2010

Benzene (petrol additive)
A colourless cyclic hydrocarbon obtained from coal and petroleum, used as a solvent in fuel and in chemical manufacture – and contained in cigarette smoke. It is a known carcinogen and is associated with leukaemia.

Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
A colourless liquid, highly poisonous, used to preserve dead bodies – also found in cigarette smoke. Known to cause cancer, respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal problems.

Ammonia (toilet cleaner)
Used as a flavouring, frees nicotine from tobacco turning it into a gas, found in dry cleaning fluids.

Acetone (nail polish remover)
Fragrant volatile liquid ketone, used as a solvent, for example, nail polish remover – found in cigarette smoke.

Tar
Particulate matter drawn into lungs when you inhale on a lighted cigarette. Once inhaled, smoke condenses and about 70 per cent of the tar in the smoke is deposited in the smoker’s lungs.

Nicotine (insecticide/addictive drug)
One of the most addictive substances known to man, a powerful and fast-acting medical and non-medical poison. This is the chemical which causes addiction.

Carbon Monoxide (CO) (car exhaust fumes)
An odourless, tasteless and poisonous gas, rapidly fatal in large amounts – it’s the same gas that comes out of car exhausts and is the main gas in cigarette smoke, formed when the cigarette is lit. Others you may recognize are :

Arsenic (rat poison), Hydrogen Cyanide (gas chamber poison)

source: Health Education Authority (UK) – Lifesaver

The list of 599 additives approved by the US Government for use in the manufacture of cigarettes is something every smoker should see. Submitted by the five major American cigarette companies to the Dept. of Health and Human Services in April of 1994, this list of ingredients had long been kept a secret.

Tobacco companies reporting this information were:

American Tobacco Company
Brown and Williamson
Liggett Group, Inc.
Philip Morris Inc.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

While these ingredients are approved as additives for foods, they were not tested by burning them, and it is the burning of many of these substances which changes their properties, often for the worse. Over 4000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette, many of which are toxic and/or carcinogenic. Carbon monoxide
nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia are all present in cigarette smoke. Forty-three known carcinogens are in mainstream smoke, sidestream smoke, or both.

It’s chilling to think about not only how smokers poison themselves, but what others are exposed to by breathing in the secondhand smoke. The next time you’re missing your old buddy, the cigarette, take a good long look at this list and see them for what they are: a delivery system for toxic chemicals and carcinogens.

Cigarettes offer people only a multitude of smoking-related diseases and ultimately death.

Smokers…if you are brave enough then have a look.

http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotineinhaler/a/cigingredients.htm

Long-Term Exposure To Incense Raises Cancer Risk

MONDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) — Exposure to burning incense over long periods of time raises the risk of developing cancers of the upper respiratory tract, a new study shows.

Interestingly, the practice did not increase the overall risk of lung cancer.

"Given that our results are backed by numerous experimental studies showing that incense is a powerful producer of particulate matter and that incense smoke contains carcinogenic substances, I believe incense should be used with caution," said study author Dr. Jeppe Friborg, of the department of epidemiology research at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. "That is, frequent use in rooms where people live should be minimized, or at least sufficient ventilation should be secured. In our study, we find the increased risk of cancer to be present in individuals reporting frequent use of incense for many years, thus, repeated exposure for years should probably be avoided."

Others echoed the thought.

"The American Lung Association is going to add it as a risk factor," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the association. "It’s not nearly the danger of smoking a pack a day for 20 years, but it’s a danger."

Not only is incense burned regularly as part of daily life in large swaths of Asia, the practice is also popular among certain segments in the West.

Incense burning produces particulate matter and is known to contain possible carcinogens such as polyaromatic hyodrcarbons (PAHs), carbonyls and benzene.

There have also been reports linking the burning of incense with cancer but the results have been inconsistent.

For this study, researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with more than 61,000 Singapore Chinese aged 45 to 74 who were cancer-free at the beginning of the study.

Incense burning almost doubled the risk of developing squamous cell upper respiratory tract carcinomas including nasal/sinus, tongue, mouth and laryngeal. There was an increased risk both in smokers and in nonsmokers, pointing to an independent effect of incense smoke.

There was no overall increased risk of lung cancer, but it did heighten the risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

Will incense go the way of tobacco? Not necessarily, said some experts.

"Certainly I think bathing yourself in particles is probably not the smartest thing in the world . . . but I think very few people fill up their room with incense," said Dr. Arthur Frankel, a professor of medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and director of the Cancer Center, Cancer Research Institute and Division of Hematology/Oncology at Scott & White in Temple.

The findings, which are in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer, might also point researchers toward other household practices that should be investigated.

"It’s a population-based study, which means that you can make an association but not necessarily a conclusion," said Dr. Erin Fleener, a clinical assistant professor in internal medicine at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and an oncologist at the Bryan-College Station Cancer Clinic. "It probably promotes more work in the area of routine household items and things we need to be looking at more prospectively to make a clear cause-and-effect relationship."

In general, though, it’s not a bad idea to avoid environmental pollutants of various types.

"Anything that affects air quality negatively is not a good thing," said Dr. Len Horvitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "Burning in general and the release of smoke, these things are certainly to be avoided. At the very least, chemical irritants will set off asthma, and that’s reversible. Cancer is not reversible."

"This is not unlike the type of risk that one experiences from secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "At the end of the day, people who use incense casually, I don’t think that’s a cause for major concern, but those cultures which embrace incense as part of their daily lifestyles have to consider this has a real potential risk for cancer."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080825/hl_hsn/longtermexposuretoincenseraisescancerrisk;_ylt=AgTQT4Gkj.RpB6wNuLTUOPUDW7oF

wow didn’t know that, thanks for sharing. I don’t burn them but my dad does. this info will come in handy.

what is your opinion on smoking. i hate it and will not go near a ciggiratte ever and i think the smoking ban was fantastic as my local pub smells better and you can actually go in there without choking on the fumes and when i found out that this is in a ciggy:

Acetic Acid (Corrosive to respiratory tract)
Acetone (used in nail polish removers.)
Ammonia. (Used in floor and toilet cleaners)
Arsenic (a poison)
Cadmium (Car battery Fluid)
Carbon Monoxide (interferes with the supply of oxygen in the blood to the rest of the body)
DDT/ dielderon (Insecticides)
Ethanol (Alcohol)
Formalin (used in preserving human tissue and fabric)
Hexamine (used in explosive compounds)
Hydrogen Cyanide (Poison)
Methane (Petroleum Gas)
Naphthalene (used in moth balls)
Nicotine (Schedule 6 Poison)
Nitro Benzene (a petrol additive)
Phenols (used in disinfectants)
Stearic Acid (used in candle wax)
Toluene (Industrial solvent)
Vinyl Chloride (used in PVC)
sorry i ran out of words
but any way every time a smoker walked p[assed me i thought a) i was gonna die
b) how can these people live
c) no wonder it kills you

I like that you don’t like to smoke. But you can’t just READ something and say you know everything on it. I personally hate smoking and alcohol because of family members who have abused the two substances and made my life a living hell and still to this day. I also gag when I smell smoke, and pissed off when I see liquor.

Dear local townspeople,

Do you believe our town is as clean as it could be? Everyday you walk the streets of our city and smell that nasty smoke which smokers leave behind. All those chemicals and poisons can not be good to have floating around in the air. Smokers have an adverse effect not only on themselves, but also to those people around them as well. Smokers are trashing our peaceful town by just throwing their cigarette butts on the ground where we all have to walk and our children have to play. This type of filth is not acceptable. Our city deserves to be a clean place suitable for all of those who live in it. I am proposing that we put a new law into place that bans smoking in all public areas in our town. I am advocating for this change because smoking exposes innocent people to secondhand smoke, it fills our town with unwanted filth, and because it encourages negative health actions by letting children watch adults who are smoking.
Smoking out in public not only damages smokers’ bodies, but also those who have to be around them. Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers. It lingers in the air hours after cigarettes have been extinguished and can cause or exacerbate a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma. Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. It contains hundreds of chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic ammonia and hydrogen cyanide. Secondhand smoke causes almost 50,000 deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year. Therefore, if we ban smoking in all public places in our town we will be able to prevent many diseases and deaths from occurring. Together we can make our town a healthier place to live.

What can I do to make this better?

Well, I’d like to first say that you have a pretty solid basis here, but I would add some stylistic changes to increase the persuasive function of the essay.

First, don’t name smokers as the cause right away.
start by just pointing out all the filth, getting your audience agreeing with you, THEN you blame it on the smokers. If you lay blame to quickly, your audience may think you’re finger-pointing or presumptuous, and that’s not persuasive.

Second, I would make the descriptions more vivid. Don’t just stop by saying that there’s filth and smoke, but DESCRIBE the experience, it’ll be more convincing,
other than that it’s good

Acetone: – nail polish remover
Ammonia: Household cleaner
Angelica root extract: Known to cause cancer in animals
Arsenic: Used in rat poisons
Benzene: Used in making dyes, synthetic rubber
Butane: Gas; used in lighter fluid
Carbon monoxide: Poisonous gas
Cadmium: Used in batteries
Cyanide: Deadly poison
DDT: A banned insecticide
Ethyl Furoate: Causes liver damage in animals
Formaldehiyde: Used to preserve dead specimens
Hydrazine: – rocket fuel
Hydrogen Cyanide: – rat poison
Lead: Poisonous in high doses
Methoprene: Insecticide
Megastigmatrienone: Chemical naturally found in grapefruit juice
Maltitol: Sweetener for diabetics
Methyl isocyanate: Its accidental release killed 2000 people in Bhopal, India in 1984
Napthalene: Ingredient in mothballs
Nicotine: – a poison used to kill cockroaches
Polonium: Cancer-causing radioactive element

Additives in manufactured & processed cigarettes.
(Which is different than plain tobacco.)
For the complete list on 599 additives see…
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotineinhaler/a/cigingredients.htm

Scroll down looking at left side of page for a total of 3 pages.

The following was sent to me. Is it true? I don’t have a/c in my car but know people who do.

Please do not turn on A/C as soon as you enter the car. Open the windows after you enter your car and turn ON the air-conditioning after a couple of minutes.
Here’s why: According to research, the car dashboard, sofa, air freshener emit Benzene, a Cancer causing toxin (carcinogen – take time to observe the smell of heated plastic in your car). In addition to causing cancer, Benzene poisons your bones, causes anemia and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure will cause Leukemia, increasing the risk of cancer. May also cause miscarriage. Acceptable Benzene level indoors is 50 mg per sq. ft.. A car parked indoors with windows closed will contain 400-800 mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors under the sun at a temperature above 60 degrees F, the Benzene level goes up to 2000-4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level… People who get into the car, keeping windows closed will inevitably inhale, in quick succession excessive amounts of the toxin.
Benzene is a toxin that affects your kidney and liver. What’s worse, it is extremely difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.
So friends, please open the windows and door of your car – give time for interior to air out – dispel the deadly stuff – before you enter.
Thanks.
I know a lot of emails like that are scaremongering but I don’t have or know much about air con to have an opinion. It was sent to me by someone who I thought would know about these things.

It is a load of rubbish. Any such harmful chemicals are in too low a concentration to cause problems or not present at all.