Hi,

I agree lead and other heavy metals (Ni, Cd, Ba, even Hg) are dangerous in
ionized state. According to this, I recall an interesting story:

here in Hungary, the "paprika" (approx. red chili pepper) powder is VERY
popular and used daily in cooking different dishes. This gives also nice
red colour to them.

3 years ago or so, there was a bad harvest, so "paprika" was imported even
smuggled. However, that sort was not so nice red so unresponsible people
have added lead oxyde to colour them. Consequently, a lot of customers
were intoxicated in a dangerous manner that hospital treatment was
necessary. Ridiculous, the symptoms were not defined (different pains,
anaemia, tiredness). Only a causal blood control of lead level has
discovered the true reason.

Regards,
Imre

On Sun, 10 Sep 2000, Roman Black wrote:

> Dan Michaels wrote:
> >
>
> > Did your doctor have anything to say about children and lead?
> >
>
> No. But i remember a big fuss here to re-paint a lot of schools
> to get rid of the lead paint. Seemed a prtty important issue. I
> think lead paint is more dangerous as it flakes into tiny bits
> with a high surface area that oxidise a great deal. I think the
> contact with lead oxide is probably more dangerous than conact
> with lead itself. Most metals are not biologically available in
> their normal state, ie your body can't absorb them until they
> are a oxide or sulphate or something. Like magnesium or iron
> supplements, if you just ate iron dust or magnesium dust you
> wouldn't absorb any. By the same logic, contact or even eating
> lead probably wouldn't get into your blood unless it was lead
> sulphide of something. I think that's why lead paint is the worst
> type of lead for lead poisoning.
>
> But how does that affect soldering? I often spend a few hours
> a day with my face over a hot soldering iron, and who knows
> more about the flux?
>
> Isn't there a new lead-free solder? I have seen it in the EE
> catalogues but never tried any.
>
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>

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