[net.med] How bad is rosin vapor?

fish@ihlpg.UUCP (Bob Fishell) (02/28/85)

***    AC  T              YOUR     AGE ***

I've been doing a lot of soldering lately.  Try as I might, I can't
completely avoid getting a snootful of rosin vapor from time to
time.  Now, I know this can't be good for me, but is rosin vapor
something that's been singled out by, say, OSHA as a significant
occupational hazard?
/_\_

				Bob Fishell
				ihnp4!ihlpg!fish

mab@ttidcb.UUCP (Michael A. Bloom) (03/16/85)

In article <212@ihlpg.UUCP> fish@ihlpg.UUCP (Bob Fishell) writes:
>
>I've been doing a lot of soldering lately.  Try as I might, I can't
>completely avoid getting a snootful of rosin vapor from time to
>time.  Now, I know this can't be good for me, but is rosin vapor
>something that's been singled out by, say, OSHA as a significant
>occupational hazard?

While I'm unaware of such a study, my own experience indicates that
rosin vapor can indeed have bad effects.

When I was a teenager, I spent much of my time building experimental
circuits.  The fumes from the rosin after a while would cause my
breathing to become labored, much like an asthmatic, and It would
often take half an hour from the time I left the room where I'd been 
soldering before I could breathe freely again.  

Occasionally It was so bad that I would have to borrow my sister's
prescription asthma inhaler.
-- 

--    Michael Bloom 	---  {philabs,trwrb,cadovax,randvax}!ttidca!mab