Last year my wife broke out in hives, full body chronic urticaria. Dermatologist could do nothing to help, finally went to urgent care. They gave her Histamine 1 & 2 blockers (Allegra & Pepcid). That kept the outbreak under control but it would reoccur immediately if we stopped on the pills. Found and tested with an allergist who prescribed the same regimen, twice a day. Nothing could cure this horrible skin reaction.
7 months later I read an article from the Epoch Times website regarding microplastics. The short story is I had been getting my wife cappuccino every morning from a local coffee house. My thought was the heated coffee cup which is paper might contain a inner plastic coating that is activated when heated with water at high temp. Brought my own metal container for coffee for the next 3 weeks and was able to reduce the Allegra/famotidine doses to once a day. The hives were easing off until finally after 6 weeks we were able to totally stop the H1H2 blockers. It's been over 9 months now and chronic urticaria has disappeared. Hope this is helpful to others.
Yes, thank you Bobby. My wife has suffered for the last few years with something very similar to what you describe. Allergists have not been able to identify a specific allergen. Everyone is baffled.
I'll be making her aware of this today, and suggesting she prepare her food in glass containers instead of plastic.
Thank you for your story. I am sorry for your extended and uncertain condition, but am impressed that you figured it out, used logical, systemic (scientific) processes to test your hypothesis to succeed in getting a positive result. Most research doesn't get such positive results - at least on the first round of trials. Congrats to you both.
It may have helped, but coffee comes in plastic cans now and my coffee maker is made of plastic which holds the water all night since we use programmed starting. The heated water is forced through plastic to brew before it hits that glass carafe.
Plastic is a major part of our lives now - all thanks to The Graduate movie.
Shrugged, I'm sorry you're swamped in plastic! But there's hope: it isn't mandatory. I make lots of coffee daily that involves zero plastic. I dumped my plastic coffee maker years ago. And Drip tastes better! Go for it...!
Lenora, The coffee maker to which I refer is a drip coffee maker. It is a combination of metal and plastic. My only option to avoid plastic is to use my French press - all stainless steel.
Shrugged, yes I do understand. Yours sounds like the one I discarded because of the plastic. My French Press leaves too many coffee grounds. LOL. A simple pour-over the grounds held in a paper filter nested into a ceramic or glass container produces an excellent result. IMO.
Gee, I don’t know, been reading about this for the past year, maybe two, and I thinking micro-polymers may be the only thing holding me together: once-a-week I pop into the sauna, crank the heat up as high as possible/tolerable, and bake a bit - I’m thinking all those micro-polymers melt a little, perhaps repolymerize a bit forming a nano-network type of mesh firming&toning all those sagging bits (cheaper than going under the knife, eh?), some find their ways to my knees where they melt, flow/deform a bit, provide a thin barrier between the bare ends of my femur&tibia and, presto-chang-o I’m back running marathons.
Ya’know, even evil tobacco has benefits in some cases.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic; I grow much of my food, live simple, water comes from my own private well. 🙄
So, been doing some serious reading — and I have questions.
Starting from the first paper cited, from Italy, an examination of patients with carotid artery plaques: why was this only found in 58% of the patients? If environmental micro polymeric particles were as ubiquitous as claimed (and which I believe), why only in half’ish [or, perhaps, only a problem in half’ish]. Is there a behavioral difference?, dietary difference?, exposure difference, etc.
Does one’s behavior compound/exacerbate the problem of environmental micro polymeric particles (EMPPs) - cigarette/cannabis smoking, vaping, pollution from/in dense urban areas, industrial pollution, etc? I’m especially interested in why I didn’t see any mention of EMPPs from tires cited in any of these studies (OK, caveat: I’ve had 4 strokes and sometimes I can be blind to things not specifically what I’m looking for 🤷).
When I look up specific disease(s) caused by EMPPs the best the interwebs can offer is that Italian study where there was a 3x increase in stroke, cardiac event but that’s 3x higher than what?, who? People with the same level of plaque but had no EMPPs (is that really possible if all the suppositions are correct?) in their plaques.
I’m wondering If EMPPs are evidence of something else. Is there an increase in strokes/CHD if plaques are minimal or essentially not present? Is diet/environment/behavior the greater danger or is it truly the presence of EMPPs
Should we be focusing massive $$/resources on EMPPs or more so on diet/environment/behavior? This is not to say we should ignore this issue (EMPPs), I just want to prioritize concerns - am I at greater risk from the plastic container in which I buy whole milk for yogurt or should I give up my Häagen dazs habit? Curious minds want to know.
Thank you for your medical opinion, doc - best laugh I’ve had so far today.
NOW, if I could design that polymer mesh to selectively permit steak, potatoes, peas nutrition to pass thru but none of the ice cream or chocolate chip cookies.
I’m with you on the ice cream! One of my vices (that I will admit). And, laughing is the best medicine. Someone important said that once, but I can't recall who it was.
Appreciate your wry humor. My favorite! I did read recently that boiling water removes microplastics, so the sauna remedy might not be too far off the mark. Lol!
In the 70s, I was a boy. I remember virtually all grocery and retail store bags of that time as made of brown paper.
In the 80s, one of my early jobs was as a courtesy clerk, bagging groceries. "Paper or plastic?" was my question to each customer, the latter added as a then-modern alternative. Save the trees, save the environment. We were making progress, you see.
The East Palestine PA train wreck carrying vinyl chloride (used to make plastics) - The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday the controlled chemical explosion following the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment more than a year ago was unnecessary. Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy also said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and incident commanders on the scene were not given complete information before executing the explosion near the Ohio-Pennsylvania they said was needed to prevent an uncontrolled explosion.
“This town very well may have been poisoned to facilitate the rapid movement of freight, or at the very least, it was poisoned for reasons that we can't identify. That should really concern every single person on this committee,” Vance said during his questioning of Homendy at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Shelley, The East Palestine, OH tragedy was horrendous and is still playing out. Will be playing out for decades. I live less than an hour from there and stream/river waters from there flow my way. The whole charade was a cover up.
Remember Watergate (or look it up if you are younger). "The coverup was worse than the crime".
J.D. Vance appears to agree. If you read the entire article I linked to you may be persuaded the fire was out of convenience to the RR. I think the National Transportation Safety Board is still covering it's arse.
Good to know. I have a read a bit on microplastics and its effect on the environment. When I was growing up and we no longer had a milk cow , we would get milk from a local dairy in a glass jug. We would wash it out and return it to the dairy in exchange for a new gallon of milk. I have not seen and glass containers around for years. I will have to look around.
Plastic has been so easy to get and use. I need to be more diligent in using glass containers instead of the cheap plastic containers you get in the grocery stores with which to store leftovers in the fridge.
I saw an advertisement a few days ago that had glass containers with lids for food storage
Thank you for this coverage. Was aware, but have been dodging it as the problem seemed hopeless. Can see ferreting about for glass would be a start.
ET had a recent article advising that boiling hard tap water removes up to 90% of microplastics. Ons wonders whether starting by boiling vegetables might also help.
Lotsa things to reflect about. Refrig storage possibilities. What to container plant in.
Looking forward to your Fallout program tomorrow. Safe travels.
The store I usually go to wraps different veggies in plastic and advertises three for $9. I have to pay more if I get the same veggies not wrapped in plastic.
Never have bottled water, never reheat left overs in plastic containers, buy juices in bottles not plastic. I use corning ware and the lids are rubber but probably part plastic?
Well isn't that something. I hadn't thought of micro plastics in the much broader view. This was an eye opener, especially when thinking about fish and polluted waters. Thank you again!
I find this article very interesting and I appreciate the ideas for limiting the influence of plastics in our lives. My wife is the one of us who works out about everyday and is very watchful of what we eat. I am easy and eat what she puts in front of me. The benefit is that I don’t find a comparable meal at a restaurant compared with what she makes.
I am a water well driller of 34 years and I have wondered since the early 90’s about the effects of all of our water being transmitted through pvc. I started noticing all of the names that the local bank put up on the drive through window of people with cancer. Water is the universal solvent. It will leach anything over time. I can’t verify and almost impossible to get totally away from the pvc transmission lines.
I use Parverio, Inc. for testing my water for microplastics. I was using ZeroWater filter but found out at Score 3 (toss at Score 6) that the filter started releasing x2 the microplastics over tap water. ZeroWater Filter also didn’t reduce microplastics by more than 20%. I am now testing ProOne G2 filter. No surprise we have so much disease! Some are injecting Borax to detox microplastics but other articles say Borax is toxic. Does Zeolite bind to microplastics?
interestingly, the mount of plastic in the drink bottles is about a 3rd of what it was 15 years ago. https://www.actionpakinc.com/blog/why-are-bottles-and-cans-made-so-thin-today/ and this was the only article I could find online, its almost like the leftist vermin search engines do not want you to know that innovation solves many problems, rather than just killing off the poor
Same number of bottles, 2/3rds less plastic, and it breaks down quicker.
Amazing how capitalism always makes things cheaper and better (well, almost always)
Older generations probably recall (when) ALUMINUM was the boogeyman - particularly aluminum cooking utensils - said to be deadly for humans - because of heat transfer of aluminum particles into cooked food stuffs and into human blood streams.
While 'studies' of nano-particles of plastic in human bloodstreams may well have detrimental health effects (heart wise), As one who has had (5) stints added to my heart - the culprit 'clogging' blood vessels to my heart was CALCIUM ( possibly from drinking too much HARD water)?
BTW, there are only (2) forms of ALL plastics - Thermoform and Thermoset.
All types of thermoform plastics can be softened and re-formed, while thermoset (VERY few types -such as Bakelite) cannot. Extreme high heat can burn Bakelite and reduce it to ashes, but it will not soften or melt like thermo plastic compounds.
Mother nature - herself- has a gazillion ways to snuff out ALL forms of animal life on earth - in MANY instances transmitted from one life form to another.
In my job I put tons of pvc boards on homes and buildings. When pvc trim boards were first used I had read an article the chemicals used were mixed in huge hoppers. At the end of the day they would send workers into the hoppers to clean them. Within days or weeks the workers cleaning the hoppers began seeing there feet and hands corroding back to the point they were losing there feet and hands. I know not long after that they reformulated the mix and I’m sure better protective safety equipment began to be used, but I know when my time comes to an end it will be a lung type issue. Years back I demoed a Victorian house in West Roxbury Ma. There was a Grace product called vermiculite that was sprayed into these huge soffits for insulation. This stuff went everywhere when we demoed the house. Come to find out much of this product was laced with asbestos. As we see everywhere today, what you don’t know CAN hurt you!!!!
May not be as bad as the average car mechanic who worked on cars. All brake pads (drum or disc) were made with asbestos and the braking process wore the pads into powder. That's why those fancy cast aluminum wheels on people's cars have a nasty dark stain on them between washings. Every car mechanic breathed that asbestos powder for decades before that connection was made. Mesothelioma.
I sandblasted all of the bins in the grain storage building at an A-B brewery. It was essentially a six story ferroconcrete honeycomb. I had a hood with an air supply and in the dark I watched a hemisphere of blue light generated by the breaking of chemical bonds sweep back and forth on the walls. All of the sand and dust cascaded down to the first floor. Some years later I began reading about free silica dust. Alhough the exposure was limited to about a week, I sometimes wonder about the people that were working on the ground floor.
No, this was during the construction of the brewery. A swinging scaffold was assembled and lowered into each bin so that the walls could be inspected. There was too much porosity in the as-poured surface, so they had to be sandblasted prior to the application of an epoxy coating. The health hazards associated with breathing the microscopically sharp dust particles from sandblasting operations was not recognized at the time.
Leonora, This was the product Grace sold and it was blown into thousands of homes. They still do use vermiculite in soils. https://mesothelioma.net/w-r-grace/
Last year my wife broke out in hives, full body chronic urticaria. Dermatologist could do nothing to help, finally went to urgent care. They gave her Histamine 1 & 2 blockers (Allegra & Pepcid). That kept the outbreak under control but it would reoccur immediately if we stopped on the pills. Found and tested with an allergist who prescribed the same regimen, twice a day. Nothing could cure this horrible skin reaction.
7 months later I read an article from the Epoch Times website regarding microplastics. The short story is I had been getting my wife cappuccino every morning from a local coffee house. My thought was the heated coffee cup which is paper might contain a inner plastic coating that is activated when heated with water at high temp. Brought my own metal container for coffee for the next 3 weeks and was able to reduce the Allegra/famotidine doses to once a day. The hives were easing off until finally after 6 weeks we were able to totally stop the H1H2 blockers. It's been over 9 months now and chronic urticaria has disappeared. Hope this is helpful to others.
Yes, thank you Bobby. My wife has suffered for the last few years with something very similar to what you describe. Allergists have not been able to identify a specific allergen. Everyone is baffled.
I'll be making her aware of this today, and suggesting she prepare her food in glass containers instead of plastic.
Sorry for her suffering, I know how difficult it is to deal with on a daily basis. God bless you both.
Periodic injections help, but they're wildly expensive and she wants to get off the medical merry-go-round.
Thank you for your story. I am sorry for your extended and uncertain condition, but am impressed that you figured it out, used logical, systemic (scientific) processes to test your hypothesis to succeed in getting a positive result. Most research doesn't get such positive results - at least on the first round of trials. Congrats to you both.
Why didn't you just make coffee - every morning - for your wife with a typical GLASS coffee maker (and) serve in a CERAMIC cup?
That would have also save you a trip to the "local coffee house" each morning.
It may have helped, but coffee comes in plastic cans now and my coffee maker is made of plastic which holds the water all night since we use programmed starting. The heated water is forced through plastic to brew before it hits that glass carafe.
Plastic is a major part of our lives now - all thanks to The Graduate movie.
Shrugged, I'm sorry you're swamped in plastic! But there's hope: it isn't mandatory. I make lots of coffee daily that involves zero plastic. I dumped my plastic coffee maker years ago. And Drip tastes better! Go for it...!
Lenora, The coffee maker to which I refer is a drip coffee maker. It is a combination of metal and plastic. My only option to avoid plastic is to use my French press - all stainless steel.
Shrugged, yes I do understand. Yours sounds like the one I discarded because of the plastic. My French Press leaves too many coffee grounds. LOL. A simple pour-over the grounds held in a paper filter nested into a ceramic or glass container produces an excellent result. IMO.
Thank you for sharing.
Vitamin D substantially reduces microplastic damage
https://vitamindwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page_id=10858
https://hlahore.substack.com = Science-based vitamin D
Vitamin D3 was a magic bullet for COVID. Is there a specific type of vitamin D for plastics remediation?
You do not reveal that your vitamin D promoting wiki is funded by Bio-Tech Pharmacal, the company which produces high-level vitamin D.
Gee, I don’t know, been reading about this for the past year, maybe two, and I thinking micro-polymers may be the only thing holding me together: once-a-week I pop into the sauna, crank the heat up as high as possible/tolerable, and bake a bit - I’m thinking all those micro-polymers melt a little, perhaps repolymerize a bit forming a nano-network type of mesh firming&toning all those sagging bits (cheaper than going under the knife, eh?), some find their ways to my knees where they melt, flow/deform a bit, provide a thin barrier between the bare ends of my femur&tibia and, presto-chang-o I’m back running marathons.
Ya’know, even evil tobacco has benefits in some cases.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic; I grow much of my food, live simple, water comes from my own private well. 🙄
So, been doing some serious reading — and I have questions.
Starting from the first paper cited, from Italy, an examination of patients with carotid artery plaques: why was this only found in 58% of the patients? If environmental micro polymeric particles were as ubiquitous as claimed (and which I believe), why only in half’ish [or, perhaps, only a problem in half’ish]. Is there a behavioral difference?, dietary difference?, exposure difference, etc.
Does one’s behavior compound/exacerbate the problem of environmental micro polymeric particles (EMPPs) - cigarette/cannabis smoking, vaping, pollution from/in dense urban areas, industrial pollution, etc? I’m especially interested in why I didn’t see any mention of EMPPs from tires cited in any of these studies (OK, caveat: I’ve had 4 strokes and sometimes I can be blind to things not specifically what I’m looking for 🤷).
When I look up specific disease(s) caused by EMPPs the best the interwebs can offer is that Italian study where there was a 3x increase in stroke, cardiac event but that’s 3x higher than what?, who? People with the same level of plaque but had no EMPPs (is that really possible if all the suppositions are correct?) in their plaques.
I’m wondering If EMPPs are evidence of something else. Is there an increase in strokes/CHD if plaques are minimal or essentially not present? Is diet/environment/behavior the greater danger or is it truly the presence of EMPPs
Should we be focusing massive $$/resources on EMPPs or more so on diet/environment/behavior? This is not to say we should ignore this issue (EMPPs), I just want to prioritize concerns - am I at greater risk from the plastic container in which I buy whole milk for yogurt or should I give up my Häagen dazs habit? Curious minds want to know.
You're a wise man and will probably never have "leaky gut" with all that nano-network mesh firming and toning it with plastic.
Thank you for your medical opinion, doc - best laugh I’ve had so far today.
NOW, if I could design that polymer mesh to selectively permit steak, potatoes, peas nutrition to pass thru but none of the ice cream or chocolate chip cookies.
See, you laugh,… but someday 🤔
I’m with you on the ice cream! One of my vices (that I will admit). And, laughing is the best medicine. Someone important said that once, but I can't recall who it was.
Appreciate your wry humor. My favorite! I did read recently that boiling water removes microplastics, so the sauna remedy might not be too far off the mark. Lol!
😘
In the 70s, I was a boy. I remember virtually all grocery and retail store bags of that time as made of brown paper.
In the 80s, one of my early jobs was as a courtesy clerk, bagging groceries. "Paper or plastic?" was my question to each customer, the latter added as a then-modern alternative. Save the trees, save the environment. We were making progress, you see.
Too bad the FDA isn't doing their job.
"There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"
The Graduate, 1967
Thanks, now that song is running around my head.....
Coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson . . . You mean that Simon & Garfunkel hit?
You just made it worse . .
Ben was mired in boredom for the moment. But not for long.
You must have watched it twice and have a better memory than me! I still have a crush on Mrs. Robinson. Is that why his boredom didn't last long?
Actually, I just went back and watched clips, and laughed all over again. And wrt to Mrs. Robinson, you have good taste.
At my age, she is a babe. . . and a challenge. N'uff said.
Anymore I'm just like a dog chasing a car... What the heck am I gonna' do with it if I ever catch it?
The East Palestine PA train wreck carrying vinyl chloride (used to make plastics) - The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday the controlled chemical explosion following the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment more than a year ago was unnecessary. Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy also said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and incident commanders on the scene were not given complete information before executing the explosion near the Ohio-Pennsylvania they said was needed to prevent an uncontrolled explosion.
“This town very well may have been poisoned to facilitate the rapid movement of freight, or at the very least, it was poisoned for reasons that we can't identify. That should really concern every single person on this committee,” Vance said during his questioning of Homendy at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/ohio/article_36da9774-dbf3-11ee-9b52-0b89f438bf80.html?a&seyid=122898
Shelley, The East Palestine, OH tragedy was horrendous and is still playing out. Will be playing out for decades. I live less than an hour from there and stream/river waters from there flow my way. The whole charade was a cover up.
Remember Watergate (or look it up if you are younger). "The coverup was worse than the crime".
J.D. Vance appears to agree. If you read the entire article I linked to you may be persuaded the fire was out of convenience to the RR. I think the National Transportation Safety Board is still covering it's arse.
Thank you. Vance is a newcomer to Ohio politics, but he holds promise.
Good to know. I have a read a bit on microplastics and its effect on the environment. When I was growing up and we no longer had a milk cow , we would get milk from a local dairy in a glass jug. We would wash it out and return it to the dairy in exchange for a new gallon of milk. I have not seen and glass containers around for years. I will have to look around.
Plastic has been so easy to get and use. I need to be more diligent in using glass containers instead of the cheap plastic containers you get in the grocery stores with which to store leftovers in the fridge.
I saw an advertisement a few days ago that had glass containers with lids for food storage
Hobby Lobby is good source for the glass containers. They are available in all sizes and not too fragile, similar to the bell jars.
Thank you for this coverage. Was aware, but have been dodging it as the problem seemed hopeless. Can see ferreting about for glass would be a start.
ET had a recent article advising that boiling hard tap water removes up to 90% of microplastics. Ons wonders whether starting by boiling vegetables might also help.
Lotsa things to reflect about. Refrig storage possibilities. What to container plant in.
Looking forward to your Fallout program tomorrow. Safe travels.
Bestest always ♡♡♡
It’s getting harder and harder to find products in glass containers because they keep switching to plastic. But I keep trying.
The store I usually go to wraps different veggies in plastic and advertises three for $9. I have to pay more if I get the same veggies not wrapped in plastic.
Never have bottled water, never reheat left overs in plastic containers, buy juices in bottles not plastic. I use corning ware and the lids are rubber but probably part plastic?
Well isn't that something. I hadn't thought of micro plastics in the much broader view. This was an eye opener, especially when thinking about fish and polluted waters. Thank you again!
I find this article very interesting and I appreciate the ideas for limiting the influence of plastics in our lives. My wife is the one of us who works out about everyday and is very watchful of what we eat. I am easy and eat what she puts in front of me. The benefit is that I don’t find a comparable meal at a restaurant compared with what she makes.
I am a water well driller of 34 years and I have wondered since the early 90’s about the effects of all of our water being transmitted through pvc. I started noticing all of the names that the local bank put up on the drive through window of people with cancer. Water is the universal solvent. It will leach anything over time. I can’t verify and almost impossible to get totally away from the pvc transmission lines.
What are your thoughts?
I use Parverio, Inc. for testing my water for microplastics. I was using ZeroWater filter but found out at Score 3 (toss at Score 6) that the filter started releasing x2 the microplastics over tap water. ZeroWater Filter also didn’t reduce microplastics by more than 20%. I am now testing ProOne G2 filter. No surprise we have so much disease! Some are injecting Borax to detox microplastics but other articles say Borax is toxic. Does Zeolite bind to microplastics?
Microplastics now causing problems in most life forms - many studies
https://vitamindwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page_id=10858
Vitamin D substantially reduces the DAMAGE
interestingly, the mount of plastic in the drink bottles is about a 3rd of what it was 15 years ago. https://www.actionpakinc.com/blog/why-are-bottles-and-cans-made-so-thin-today/ and this was the only article I could find online, its almost like the leftist vermin search engines do not want you to know that innovation solves many problems, rather than just killing off the poor
Same number of bottles, 2/3rds less plastic, and it breaks down quicker.
Amazing how capitalism always makes things cheaper and better (well, almost always)
Older generations probably recall (when) ALUMINUM was the boogeyman - particularly aluminum cooking utensils - said to be deadly for humans - because of heat transfer of aluminum particles into cooked food stuffs and into human blood streams.
While 'studies' of nano-particles of plastic in human bloodstreams may well have detrimental health effects (heart wise), As one who has had (5) stints added to my heart - the culprit 'clogging' blood vessels to my heart was CALCIUM ( possibly from drinking too much HARD water)?
BTW, there are only (2) forms of ALL plastics - Thermoform and Thermoset.
All types of thermoform plastics can be softened and re-formed, while thermoset (VERY few types -such as Bakelite) cannot. Extreme high heat can burn Bakelite and reduce it to ashes, but it will not soften or melt like thermo plastic compounds.
Mother nature - herself- has a gazillion ways to snuff out ALL forms of animal life on earth - in MANY instances transmitted from one life form to another.
Risk-free (human) life is not gonna happen.
In my job I put tons of pvc boards on homes and buildings. When pvc trim boards were first used I had read an article the chemicals used were mixed in huge hoppers. At the end of the day they would send workers into the hoppers to clean them. Within days or weeks the workers cleaning the hoppers began seeing there feet and hands corroding back to the point they were losing there feet and hands. I know not long after that they reformulated the mix and I’m sure better protective safety equipment began to be used, but I know when my time comes to an end it will be a lung type issue. Years back I demoed a Victorian house in West Roxbury Ma. There was a Grace product called vermiculite that was sprayed into these huge soffits for insulation. This stuff went everywhere when we demoed the house. Come to find out much of this product was laced with asbestos. As we see everywhere today, what you don’t know CAN hurt you!!!!
May not be as bad as the average car mechanic who worked on cars. All brake pads (drum or disc) were made with asbestos and the braking process wore the pads into powder. That's why those fancy cast aluminum wheels on people's cars have a nasty dark stain on them between washings. Every car mechanic breathed that asbestos powder for decades before that connection was made. Mesothelioma.
I sandblasted all of the bins in the grain storage building at an A-B brewery. It was essentially a six story ferroconcrete honeycomb. I had a hood with an air supply and in the dark I watched a hemisphere of blue light generated by the breaking of chemical bonds sweep back and forth on the walls. All of the sand and dust cascaded down to the first floor. Some years later I began reading about free silica dust. Alhough the exposure was limited to about a week, I sometimes wonder about the people that were working on the ground floor.
Are you saying Budweiser beer is contaminated?
No, this was during the construction of the brewery. A swinging scaffold was assembled and lowered into each bin so that the walls could be inspected. There was too much porosity in the as-poured surface, so they had to be sandblasted prior to the application of an epoxy coating. The health hazards associated with breathing the microscopically sharp dust particles from sandblasting operations was not recognized at the time.
James, we used to use vermiculite as a soil additive in gardening!
Leonora, This was the product Grace sold and it was blown into thousands of homes. They still do use vermiculite in soils. https://mesothelioma.net/w-r-grace/