On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:28:33 -0000, Bob wrote:

On Oct 11, 6:40 am, Martin Baxter wrote:

There are people that are allergic to aluminum, and there are health
risks of excessive aluminum consumption. But you get more aluminum
from a couple of antacids than you do from years of drinking out of a
water tank.

Not to mention skin absorption from antiperspirants, sun block,
moisturizers........

Cheers
Marty

Hi All......

Ya I guess I your right. Really cant argue against, "we are exposed to
lots of it so it cant be harmful." Pretty air tight case Id say. Maybe
we should also use that argument for lead and mercury. We could go
back to lead water supply pipes and using mercury as a medicine.


You know, I wonder whether we aren't overdoing this terror of lead,
Mercury, zinc, this and that?

A couple of examples:

When I was in high school I worked a couple of summers for the Vermont
Forest Service and one of the projects was to re-shingle the barn roof
on the Calvin Coolidge homestead. The house was pretty well run down
by this time but we camped out in one room and cooked there. We found
that the water pipe from the spring, out back, to the kitchen was a
lead pipe. Since, as far as I know Calvin was born and raised in that
building he drank lead tainted water throughout his childhood. Seemed
to do all right in later life.

When I was a youngster my mother was a fanatic about oral health so I
have fillings that date back to the 1940's - made with "amalgam" a
mixture of silver and mercury. Don't seem to have developed any
strange symptoms in the years since.

This is not to say that I advocate drinking lead paint, sniffing zinc
fumes or anything like that but I do believe that this fear of any
exotic metals is carried to extremes.


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)