"Holy Geez" - APM's Marketplace Interviews Dow (Chemical) CEO

"oh man, whatever they make is probably toxic. It's chemicals, it's hydrocarbons - holy geez, I don't want any of that stuff."


"Holy geez," indeed. The above quote, Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal's (KR) opening volley from today's interview with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris (AL), really sets the tone for the whole conversation. From there, to summarize: there's some kitschy Australia jokes, and a truckload of corporate newspeak about Dow's re-branding efforts and American manufacturing readiness. Without further ado, here's some choice quotes:

KR - "...if I say "chemistry," what do you think? People in white lab coats, right? Vials full of liquids, maybe?"

Sure, if you're into stock photos. Don't forget to include beakers, jokes about social awkwardness, and references to Breaking Bad!

Source: Busplug

AL- "But these days, you may have seen our ads on TV. We are really branding Dow. The word "chemical," of course, from a heritage point of view is still in our name." [Emphasis mine]

Again, when a major multinational conglomerate says these kind of things on syndicated radio, how can we ever hope to fight chemophobia?

AL - "So we've got to go out there and really re-educate humanity, because at the end of the day, 95 percent of all products out there have chemistry in them"

Dare I ask? What's the other 5%? Dark matter? Pixie dust? Aether? (This sounds like a job for Dr. Rubidium over at JAYFK, or our old pal Deborah Blum)

AL - "The word manufacturing, you know, even the word industry just doesn't sit well. People think about it as a smokestack, environmental, yesterday's era; that everything should be services."

I'm a proud member of the chemical industry. I make things. So do most of my colleagues, family, and friends. I'd like to say it's part of today's era. Anyone else?

AL - "We're re-branding what science, technology, engineering, maths mean to this economy and how we can transfer that into American jobs for the next generation."

Perhaps the most galling quote of all. I can hear Chemjobber sharpening his linguistic knives from all the way across the internet. Keep 'em ready, because the fight against mainstream #chemophobia continues...

Chicken Chemophobia

A recent New York Times Op-Ed spot made the rounds late last night on Twitter. Full of inflammatory language, it seemed wholly bent on scaring the heck out of anyone reading it. The title - "Arsenic in Our Chicken?" - didn't exactly calm me down.

Is this in my chicken? Only very, very little
Credit: slashfood.org

Well, I'm a scientist, so let's look at this rationally. First things first: here are links to the two papers referenced in the study, one from Environmental Science and Technology (ACS), and one from Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier). (Editor's Note - Whenever a columnist feels pressed to validate his opinion with the words 'published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal,' I turn on the skepticism). 


In both papers, analytical chemists take a peek at feather meal, a poultry industry byproduct, for compounds you might expect from factory farms: antibiotics, stimulants, and antihistamines. A surprise dark horse was encountered in arsenic, which apparently caught everyone so off guard that they required a full second paper to adequately discuss it. 


Glancing quickly at both journals' major tables, it's clear we're talking small amounts here: parts per billion (ppb), which for EST means ng / g, and for STE ug / kg. To put this in perspective, let's imagine we had a swimming pool, which we filled with 1000 L (~270 gallons) of water, which will weigh 1000 kg (density of water = 1 g / mL @ room temp). Now, what's a ppb for this scale? One milligram of material, or about what you'd add if a snowflake fell into your pool.

Better start eating....
Source: Home of Science Wonders

Overall, the article smacks of rampant chemophobia and fear-mongering. While the individual compounds, in acute (high) doses might be cause for concern, the detected values aren't near that much. The LD50 (oral, mouse) for arsenic, the value at which half of tested lab animals die, is 145 mg / kg; the maximum arsenic detected in feather meal = 4 mg / kg! This leap of logic contains an even more far-fetched premise: you'd have to eat two pounds of feathers just to take in that much!


Remember: infinitesimally tiny amounts of several "bad" substances float by you every day, but you don't often see people dropping dead.


Maybe that's the reason that this NYT reporter buries his lede - a quote from his source, Dr. K. Nachmann, an author on both papers: "We haven't found anything that is an immediate health concern." 


And look, now I've gone and buried it, too.


(Update, 12:09 4/5 - Commenters on Twitter point out that a topic I did not address - detection of banned antibiotics - could be cause for concern. I agree with that point)

Are You Scared Yet?**

Sensationalist journalism pervades our society. Usually, investigators focus their attention on stores, local government, unions, and the like. But chemistry labs...are they terrorist plots waiting to happen? Lucky for us, ChemBark to the rescue! His post Friday (click over there to see the video in all its scandal-filled and melodramatic musical glory) alerts the chemical community to a pressing National Security emergency: unlocked research labs in otherwise nondescript academic buildings.

To reiterate Paul's main point: yes, the labs in question should not have been so easy to access. Most of the academic labs I've worked in have had key card / ID fob access built into the doors, and critical facilities (storerooms, NMR, clean rooms) behind keypad-locked doors, or good old-fashioned metal lock and key.

Cogent arguments aside, the piece fails on just about every level for meaningful chemistry communication. Here's a random sampling of quotes from the story:

0:10 "...just the right chemicals to make a bomb?"
Well, most bombs require high explosives, like nitroglycerin or TNT. As most readers of this blog realize, materials such as iodine or hydrazine - unlike the dilute HCl or ethyl ether featured in the news spot - can actually be used to make bombs, and are under strict DOT and DHS purchase regulations.

0:53 - What's with the gunshots? Since when did that have anything to do with organic chemistry labs?

1:16 - "Compounds that could potentially be used in terrorist attacks"
While (potentially) true, you're more likely to find allyl alcohol in drug leads, and acrylonitrile in superglue!

A real-live chemical storeroom (not caught on tape, sadly)
Credit: University of Delaware / Fisher Scientific

1:20 - Oh no, duck and cover, that scientist is using a Karl Fischer apparatus!

1:35 - "...inside this glass case..."  Did you mean a fume hood, perchance? ...which improves lab safety?

2:43 - "...chemistry lab and storeroom." Have these people ever seen a chemical storeroom?

2:50 - "...cabinets, some unlocked, labeled ACIDS and FLAMMABLES."
Were the researchers supposed to just store them in plain gray cabinets? I would argue that the labels increase safety. Also, if they were allegedly "unlocked," why is there no camera shot of a cabinet door hanging open?

3:05 - "...large nitrogen tanks..." If the announcer knew that he was referring to liquid nitrogen, he'd be doubly afraid!

3:54 - "...hydrochloric acid, a highly corrosive chemical that can burn skin to the bone"
This bottle reminds me of the 1.0N HCl shown earlier (1:29).  If anyone's wondering, the pH of 1N HCl is 0.1, which, while enough to give you some decent skin irritation, won't char you on contact. I see no concentrated HCl anywhere, and even that's no TFA or triflic acid.

4:07 - "...ethyl ether, a highly flammable solvent that could cause respiratory problems!"
Or knock you out for surgery, like in the olden days at the MGH Ether Dome.

6:01 - "schools must list their chemicals of interest, but only if those chemicals exceed a certain amount"
This sounds an awful lot like "the dose makes the poison." (i.e., it's terribly tough to mount a terrorist attack with 25 g of magnesium sulfate...)

**Just for those keeping score at home, I counted 26 mentions of the word "chemical" (or once every 14.4 seconds). Always preceded by a sensationalist adjective like "dangerous," "deadly," "interest," "maim," or "flammable." 

Orange Juice: Full of Vitamin C, Fiber, and....Carbendazim?

NPR reports that the US FDA recently detained several shipments of orange juice imported from Brazil. The agency received a December 2011 tip-off from a juice company (Minute Maid, via parent company Coca-Cola) that the imports contained low concentrations of the fungicide carbendazim. While this amount is unlikely to harm anyone, FDA indicated in its letter that the EPA hasn’t established safe levels for the compound in juice, and thus considers it an unlawful additive.

Carbendazim, a benzimidazole (a two-ringed aromatic structure with two nitrogens) metabolite of benomyl, was first prepared as a discrete compound by DuPont in the early 1960’s. It’s approved in several other countries to treat black spot, Dutch elm disease, powdery mildew, and a host of other fungal diseases. The fantastic NIH resource Toxnet tells us that carbendazim is a “Group C Possible Human Carcinogen,” but given how many different standards exist for this metric, what does that mean?

Diving deeper into the data, carbendazim appears to be both a teratogen (meaning it impairs fertility or embryonic development), and causes chromosomal aberrations; both effects appear at relatively high doses that you wouldn’t drink in a single glass of OJ.

The unspoken fear here may be long-term exposure. Consider other recent reports on the ability of PFC’s (perfluorinated compounds, like the long-chain PFOS found in Scotchgard) to decrease vaccine response. Or, read the never-ending list of maladies brought on by exposure to phthalates, omnipresent plasticizers known to cause endocrine disruption. Health risks from accumulated compound may prompt the FDA’s proactive stance towards even tiny amounts of this fungicide in imported juice.

Surly Chemist Soapbox Moment – Both NPR reports refer to their subjects as “chemicals” sometimes as early on as the article’s title! The connotation for this word is overwhelmingly negative, which should be apparent from the “chemical-free” movement and the interchangeable use of “chemical” with toxin, poison, or contaminant. Doesn’t chemistry already have image problems?

Here are a few chemical synonyms for the next go-around: compound, moiety, substance, entity, additive, species, or molecule. None of these are perfect for every situation, but any would be preferable over the catch-all, “chemical.”