> At 04:01 PM 12/17/2006, you wrote:
> >Ethylene glycol biodegrades rapidly in the environment ... in fact,
> it's worst
> >effect is that it degrades so rapidly it can potentially take enough
> >oxygen out
> >of the water to suffocate fish ! It's also not particularly poisonous when
> >heavily diluted (healthy human kidneys will remove it), kind of like grain
>
> I don't buy that! From what I know the bodily "failure mode" from
> ethylene glycol ingestion in mammals is kidney failure caused by the
> stuff crystalizing in the kidneys and impairing their function.
>
> [[taking break to research @ Wikipedia]]
> "as little as 30 milliliters (2 tablespoons) can be lethal to adults " in:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol
As little as 30 milliliters of dihydrogen monoxide can be lethal to adults too,
yet I drink more than that every day !
If you'll look at the line before that, it says the "estimated" lethal dose is
approx 1.4 ml/kg; meaning a 100kg man would be killed by ingesting 140 ml, or
about 1/2 cup. This is also better in line with the U of PA article on the
subject :
http://www.pennhealth.com/ency/article/000774.htm
which states "as little as 120ml (about 4 oz [1/2 cup]) _may_ be enough to kill
an average-sized man"
Now look above, where I said "heavily diluted". If we assume it's diluted
1000:1 (which isn't particularly heavy dilution), then you would have to drink
some 500 cups or about 30 gallons of contaminated water _at one sitting_ to be
poisoned. That's basically impossible, you would throw up (or burst) long
before that.
Randall
|