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Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

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Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#541
post #67

I've been seeing content on Tiktok where even 100 miles away they're seeing small dead fish which is apparently according to the folks making the videos a massive red flag. In general I grow super weary of companies and the government downplaying these sorts of things. It seems to constantly follow the pattern of people saying "It's not that bad" and then only years later do we actually see the horrific health and en…

I'm finding it extremely hard to separate signal from noise in the social and legacy media spheres right now. I'm waiting for things to settle.

That's because someone is pushing very hard for the after effects of the derailing to be believed catastrophic.

There's zero critical thinking being applied because they (whomever they are) have been building up belief leveraging mistrust of the government, mistrust of corporations, mistrust of science (related to the actual chemicals involved) and false information about the facts of the derailing.

It's very similar to the way that Trump and company brainwashed their followers into almost overthrowing the US government. I won't be surprised to find out it's being done by the same people as before.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ECP brakes would have saved the day Citation needed. It sounds like all administrations (especially those currently in charge) deserve criticism for not focusing on the correct regulations for train safety. Requiring something that isn't needed doesn't help... It can hurt as it takes resources away from actual necessities, like sensors, and tighter maintenance inspections.

Did you just ask for a citation from a hypothetical universe?

Well then, we’ll have to do with a hypothetical citation from a real universe.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that a train derailment near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May 2015 was prevented from being a disaster thanks to the train’s Emergency Control Power (ECP) brakes. According to the NTSB report, the ECP brakes, which are activated when the engineer loses control of the train, stopped the train within 1.25 seconds of the engineer’s attempts to stop it, preventing it from derailing. The ECP brakes are the most efficient braking system available, allowing trains to stop within a very short amount of time. Without them, the tragic derailment of Amtrak Train No. 188 may have been much worse.

"U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "Investigation Report: Derailment of Amtrak Train No. 188 Near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 12, 2015." May 2016. https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/....

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#543

- "On Sunday, the EPA released a list, written by Norfolk Southern, of the toxic chemicals that were in the derailed cars. In addition to vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate, it mentions ethylhexyl acrylate, which can cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems in people exposed to it; as well as isobutylene, which can make people dizzy and drowsy." This is anodyne phrasing that omits the lede, which is that this…

Finally, what can these chemicals react into when in a blaze.

I've researched this recently.

Thermal decomposition of Vinyl Chloride Monomer forms HCl, CO, CO2, and trace phosgene.

Thermal decomposition of literally all the other chemicals listed produces CO and CO2.

It's likely that a certain number of animal deaths in the area have been caused by HCl being absorbed by water (in lungs) and forming acid, or CO/CO2 displacing oxygen and suffocating them.

As far as I have found, none of the chemicals spilled is toxic to marine life. Dead fish could be coming from soot or other pollutants from the fire rather than from the chemicals.... hard to say.

By the way, VCM has a half life of about 20 hours in the atmosphere.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ECP brakes would have saved the day Citation needed. It sounds like all administrations (especially those currently in charge) deserve criticism for not focusing on the correct regulations for train safety. Requiring something that isn't needed doesn't help... It can hurt as it takes resources away from actual necessities, like sensors, and tighter maintenance inspections.

Did you just ask for a citation from a hypothetical universe?

easy! serial HNer contrarianism

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#545
post #94
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which can cause headaches, nausea, and respiratory problems.... can make people dizzy and drowsy I also love this phrasing that talks about the immediate uncomfortable reactions, but makes no mention on the extremely serious long-term implications of exposure. These chemicals won't just make you feel unpleasant in the moment, they'll kill you in the long run.

> can make people dizzy and drowsy LMFAO vinyl chloride is a multi-organ carcinogen...its literally one of the quickest ways to stage 4 right up there with Benzene exposure. phosgene was also part of the release when Ohio decided a "controlled burn" of the vinyl chloride was somehow a good idea. the plume could be seen from commercial flights. honest to god the damage control media outlets are attempting in the midst…

Do you know how much phosgene, though?

It's trace amounts. Barely enough to detect.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no severe acute effects - there were no hospitalizations, the vast majority of the vinyl chloride was intentionally burned, and the little that remains has very low environmental or biological persistence.

As is so often the case, people who fearmonger about what could happen fail to notice that the medical establishment keeps quite good records on what is happening. We'd know about the acute effects by now from hospitalization, and we generally know about the chronic effects in the environment because this isn't even the first vinyl chloride spill. Is Paulsboro, NJ currently a cancer hotbed? https://www.popularmechani…

Yes, actually. Along with a ton of other medical irregularities. https://www.nj.gov/health/hcpnj/documents/county-reports/HCP...

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#547
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it’s not? There’s one measly story way down past the fold on the NYT homepage. It’s nowhere on the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or USA Today homepages (I cmd+F’d). There’s a tiny clip on the left of the Fox News homepage that’s tangentially about it but really about Tomi Lahren bashing Pete Buttigieg. The most prominent is the New York Post, which has a headline about it being “worse than feared” after a b…

Your comment would have credibility if three of the sources you cite weren't Murdoch mouthpieces. Also USA today is literally a printer and the AP wire service rewritten to a 5th grade level and with even more less information then the AP stories that are copy pasted.

I’m not really making any claim as to their credibility; we’re talking about what the news is publishing and these are the most popular newspapers.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, there's no particular need to make the list of chemicals public Fitting username, I didn't realize you were a novelty account.

The username actually refers to an old They Might Be Giants song. They lyrics of the song tell the tale of a man who goes through life being paranoid about a massive, organized government operation spying on him personally. In the end, he's murdered and disappeared by his town's local mayor because he's inconvenient, the mayor's just a thug, and there is no shadowy overarching organization watching over him. People b…

Just because there’s nobody out to get you, the person, doesn’t mean there isn’t anybody out to get you, the people.

One may or may not be true. One is demonstratively false.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other vehicle and we would hold the worker accountable for not refusing such a negligent order. Say the worker refuses that order and their boss says "okay, you're fired". Would we also give that worker legal protection? Would we also hold accountable the higher ups who gave that order and set the policies for how trains are to be run? If not, then you now understand why the accident happened.

>Would we also give that worker legal protection? Yes I believe that's exactly what is to happen. See this explicitly spelled out https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/mou/2012-07-16 . I've worked in goods transport in interstate navigable waterways and we had the same thing, literally anyone can "stop work" for unaddressed imminent dangerous conditions and are protected against retaliation. Even if the protection fails it…

But who’s got the time and money to deal with it? I’ve tried to file an osh complaint before. They told me they hadn’t even gotten to the ones from this decade yet.

Re: Health concerns grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after train derailment

#550
post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In contrast, this is a big scary smoke cloud of a well-understood volatile compound that we've spilled into the ecosystem in the past In past events, vinyl chloride was not burned, and minimal amounts of it went unrecovered. We also know that hydrogen chloride is a byproduct of burning vinyl chloride, and when combined with water, makes hydrochloric acid, which is not good to come into contact with, and has killed…

> We also have seen some evidence that animals nearby are dropping dead and humans feeling sick. This is precisely the kind of decontextualized data that leads to inaccurate conclusions. Without data on normal animal die-off rates, there's no reason to believe finding dead animals is unusual in this part of town. And of course people feel sick; they've been told they were exposed to a scary chemical. It's going to be…

What an obvious troll. Do you get paid for this or is this just something you do for fun?

Either way, boring. Move on elsewhere. Maybe Reddit will be more susceptible to your lying rhetoric.

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