RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET (BOB VAN GORDER) (09/20/89)
Today in Pennsylvania, a 15 year old died of a heart attack when he
inhaled butane in order to "get a rush".
I am a chemist leaning towards the inorganic and having no background in
biochemistry. I was therefore wondering if anyone out there could tell me
exactly what caused this heart attack. Was it due to the products of the
oxidation of the butane, or something else? I had expected the person would
have died of a stroke, or suffocation, why a heart attack?
I have never heard of anyone doing something that stupid before and I
quite hope to never hear of a similar tragedy.
Thank you for your time,
Robert Van Gorder
B.S. Chem PSU '88
_____________________________________________________________
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|_____________________________|_____________________________|gcook@cps3xx.UUCP (Greg Cook) (09/20/89)
From article <89262.194442RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET>, by RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET (BOB VAN GORDER): > Today in Pennsylvania, a 15 year old died of a heart attack when he > inhaled butane in order to "get a rush". Unfortunately, there are a lot of kids out there inhaling all kinds of things for a "rush" from glade air freshener to gasoline. All of these things are potentially fatal (not to mention what it does to the lungs). We hear so much about the drug problems, but we neglect to consider this very real problem. ========================================================================= Greg Cook All good things come through chemistry! gcook@horus.cem.msu.edu cook@frith.egr.msu.edu
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Gordon E. Banks) (09/20/89)
In article <89262.194442RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET> RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET (BOB VAN GORDER) writes: > > Today in Pennsylvania, a 15 year old died of a heart attack when he >inhaled butane in order to "get a rush". > I am a chemist leaning towards the inorganic and having no background in >biochemistry. I was therefore wondering if anyone out there could tell me >exactly what caused this heart attack. Are you sure it was a heart attack? Who did the autopsy? Often people who die without an obvious lesion are labelled heart attack. It is possible that his heart suffered anoxia due to butane displacing the air in his lungs.
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (09/21/89)
In article <89262.194442RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET>, RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET (BOB VAN GORDER) writes: > Today in Pennsylvania, a 15 year old died of a heart attack when he > inhaled butane in order to "get a rush". > I am a chemist leaning towards the inorganic and having no background in > biochemistry. I was therefore wondering if anyone out there could tell me > exactly what caused this heart attack. Was it due to the products of the > oxidation of the butane, or something else? I had expected the person would > have died of a stroke, or suffocation, why a heart attack? There are not enough details in your article to be precise as to the actual mode of death in this particular instance, but here are some general comments. In a sufficiently high concentration at atmospheric pressure butane is known to induce narcosis. The effect of butane is not unlike that of an aliphatic, non-halogenated anesthetic agent such as cyclopropane; however, butane does not possess a lipid solubility as great as that of cyclopropane, and therefore its anesthetic effect is no where near as great. The problem with inhalation of a substance such as butane is not the adverse physiological effect of butane per se, but its inhalation may often be carried out under circumstances which result in oxygen deprivation and hence death by asphyxiation. Since a high concentration of butane is required before any "effect" is noticed, it is not likely that its administration would carried out merely by inhaling the contents of say, a butane lighter. A more likely scenario is that a victim would discharge the contents of one or more butane lighters into a plastic bag, and either place the bag about their head or merely inhale and "rebreathe" into the bag. In the former situation a victim might lose consciousness as a result of the combined effect of hypoxia and narcosis, leaving the bag about the mouth and nose, hence blocking any natural attempt to breathe. The latter situation tends to be somewhat self-limiting and less likely to be fatal in that as the victim loses consciousness as a result of both hypoxia and narcosis, they drop the bag, allowing the mouth and nose to be exposed to the atmosphere so that breathing can occur. Assuming that no irreversible condition has occured, a victim who has lost consciousness due to inhalation of an agent such as butane will generally spotaneously recover consciousness once they resume breathing atmospheric oxygen. One of the problems in "rebreathing" butane from a plastic bag is that the victim may encounter a race condition where: (1) butane uptake occurs; (2) oxygen remaining in the bag is consumed; (3) carbon dioxide is accumulated; (4) increased carbon dioxide concentration in the blood results in hyperventilation; (5) resultant hyperventilation further increases the effects of (1) through (4), etc. If the bag does not fall from the victim's face upon the loss of consciousness, the above race condition may cause death due to asphyxiation in as little as five minutes. A victim in a combined state of butane narcosis and hypoxia may not even be aware that they are in a state of both hyperventilation and hypoxia, and are in effect minutes away from death. With respect to the death reported as a heart attack, if the victim had a pre-existing heart condition, the exertion resulting from the hyperventilation and its profound physiological effects caused by the above scenarios may well have triggered such a cardiac event. With respect to direct toxic affects of butane, these may well be minimal. While methane will directly combine with hemoglobin to for methemoglobin, which competes with oxyhemoglobin, I suspect that the butane molecule is too large to undergo such a substitution with hemoglobin. So, the point is, without examining the circumstances of the scene at the time of death, and without knowing the autopsy and toxicology screen results, one can do no more than speculate as I have done above. > I have never heard of anyone doing something that stupid before and I > quite hope to never hear of a similar tragedy. This is _tame_ compared to what other people have done; just ask someone who has been a police officer or worked in an emergency room for several years. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?"
devoz@multimax.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL 1S TL,2622,7568004) (09/21/89)
From article <4655@cps3xx.UUCP>, by gcook@cps3xx.UUCP (Greg Cook): > From article <89262.194442RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET>, by RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET (BOB VAN GORDER): >> Today in Pennsylvania, a 15 year old died of a heart attack when he >> inhaled butane in order to "get a rush". > > Unfortunately, there are a lot of kids out there inhaling all kinds of things > for a "rush" from glade air freshener to gasoline. All of these things > are potentially fatal (not to mention what it does to the lungs). > Greg Cook All good things come through chemistry! Yeah, I got a "funny" one to add to this. I was working at a convenience store while going to college, and this kid came in and shuffled around for a while, then he grabbed something and headed for his car. This not being the normal way to get past me with goods from the store, I vaulted the counter and caught up with him in his car. He had stolen a can of PAM cooking spray. Yup. No typos. He said that they take a tube from an empty roll of toilet paper, stuff it with some toilet paper, then spray the PAM in one end, inhaling from the other. I don't find this humorous in the least. Who figures these things out? What's in this stuff? devoz
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (09/21/89)
In article <3398@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: >While methane will directly combine with hemoglobin to >for methemoglobin, which competes with oxyhemoglobin, I suspect that >the butane molecule is too large to undergo such a substitution with >hemoglobin. I had always understood that methemoglobin is simply an oxidized form of hemoglobin, with the ferrous iron (Fe++) in heme oxidized to the ferric (Fe+++) state. I don't see where methane comes in. Methane certainly isn't one of the traditionally-enumerated toxic agents which cause methemoglobinemia, such as nitrites and certain aromatic amines. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu
gcook@cps3xx.UUCP (Greg Cook) (09/21/89)
From article <9977@multimax.Encore.COM>, by devoz@multimax.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL 1S TL,2622,7568004): > He had stolen a can of PAM cooking spray. Yup. No typos. He said that > they take a tube from an empty roll of toilet paper, stuff it with some > toilet paper, then spray the PAM in one end, inhaling from the other. > > I don't find this humorous in the least. Who figures these things out? > What's in this stuff? I think, in many cases, the "rush" comes from depriving oxygen to your brain and not necessarily what is in the stuff. ========================================================================= Greg Cook All good things come through chemistry! gcook@horus.cem.msu.edu cook@frith.egr.msu.edu
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (09/22/89)
In article <4633@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>, dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes: > In article <3398@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > >While methane will directly combine with hemoglobin to > >for methemoglobin, which competes with oxyhemoglobin, I suspect that > >the butane molecule is too large to undergo such a substitution with > >hemoglobin. > > I had always understood that methemoglobin is simply an oxidized form > of hemoglobin, with the ferrous iron (Fe++) in heme oxidized to the > ferric (Fe+++) state. I don't see where methane comes in. Methane > certainly isn't one of the traditionally-enumerated toxic agents which > cause methemoglobinemia, such as nitrites and certain aromatic amines. Congratulations - you caught me in a typographical error. I had meant to say "methanehemoglobin" instead of "methemoglobin", which is entirely different and much more common. However, my typo had no real bearing on the context of my article, which would be clear had you included the sentence preceding that which you quoted: "With respect to direct toxic affects of butane, these may well be minimal." In any event, methane does happen to combine with hemoglobin in a manner analgous to that of carbon monoxide. While the effect is rarely seen in humans and certainly would occur in no instance other than toxic exposure to methane, it has been identified in ruminant animals (like sheep and cattle). Methane gas is produced in the rumen and reticulum and is usually expelled via eructation, although some of the expelled methane is inhaled and thereby absorbed through the lungs. In particular, even more methane is absorbed under the pathological condition known as "bloat", where the methane concentration and vapor pressure increases to the point where it is absorbed by blood vessels in the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. Using methane tagged with carbon-14, methanehemoglobin has been identified. While most of these studies have appeared in the veterinary rather than "human" literature, there was a study on this topic by Dougherty et al which appeared in the American Journal of Physiology in the mid 1960's. While the absorption and metabolism of methane and certain related hydrocarbons in humans is a bit arcane, I happen to be familiar with some literature on the topic as a result of developing analytical methods and instruments for evaluation of human occupational exposure to various chemical agents. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?"
djm@castle.ed.ac.uk (D Murphy) (09/22/89)
In article <4633@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes: > >I had always understood that methemoglobin is simply an oxidized form >of hemoglobin, with the ferrous iron (Fe++) in heme oxidized to the >ferric (Fe+++) state. I don't see where methane comes in. Methane >certainly isn't one of the traditionally-enumerated toxic agents which >cause methemoglobinemia, such as nitrites and certain aromatic amines. > >-- >Steve Dyer No. There is no iron oxidation in the hemoglobin - oxyhemoglobin reaction. If there were there would be significant risk of Fe(III) precipitation in the (mildly) alkaline blood. What happens is that the first oxygen (there are 4 heme units per molecule) complexes with the Fe(II) in one of the hemes, causing it to move slightly out of the plane of the heme. This causes a small conformational change which assists the uptake of an oxygen molecule by the next heme and so on until all 4 are occupied. The reverse is also true - oxygen release is facilitated by the conformational change when one heme releases its O2. What's more, the oxygen remains intact. If the iron oxidized, oxygen radicals would be produced which would do lots of damage. Also, a lot of energy would likely be required to bring about release of O2 at the tissues. Murff...
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (09/22/89)
In article <3400@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > Congratulations - you caught me in a typographical error. I had >meant to say "methanehemoglobin" instead of "methemoglobin", which is >entirely different and much more common. > However, my typo had no real bearing on the context of my article, >which would be clear had you included the sentence preceding that which >you quoted: "With respect to direct toxic affects of butane, these may >well be minimal." Larry, you might like to think that this is a game of competition and one-up-manship, but I don't. In any event, I think such a clarification was fairly important, and I'd expect the same if I had made such a statement. An article which claims (even via typo) that methane causes methemoglobinemia certainly deserves a correction. I mean, we're discussing people abusing inhaled hydrocarbons. If someone compares butane to methane (not an unreasonable comparison), and then makes a misstatement about methane, it should be noted. Why would including a conjecture of yours about butane's toxicity make any difference? > In any event, methane does happen to combine with hemoglobin in >a manner analgous to that of carbon monoxide. The chemistry of this must be interesting, since carbon monoxide and methane don't resemble each other bond-wise. I'd always thought that methane was rather inert. Methane is always mentioned in toxicology textbooks as a simple asphyxiant. If it combines with hemoglobin, it must have substantially less affinity than carbon monoxide, or methane would have a much greater reputation for toxicity. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu
jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) (09/23/89)
devoz@multimax.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL 1S TL,2622,7568004)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
quoted this, after a short discussion: ^ what is this stuff? ^
>> Today in Pennsylvania, a 15 year old died of a heart attack when he
>> inhaled butane in order to "get a rush".
Nobody over there seems to believe this was a heart attack. In the UK this
is a fairly frequent occurrence with people who inhale butane or solvents.
The usual explanation is that these substances make the heart likely to go
into fibrillation after strenuous exertion, like a sprint to get away from
a cop. (So, not an infarction, but near enough). I suppose the reason
this isn't mentioned in anaesthesiology books is that surgical patients
aren't often required to run round the recovery room when they wake up. I
think other drugs (amphetamine?) can make it even more likely when combined
with glue.
--
Jack Campin * Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND. 041 339 8855 x6045 wk 041 556 1878 ho
INTERNET: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: jack@glasgow.uucp
JANET: jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs PLINGnet: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jackdyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (09/23/89)
In article <469@castle.ed.ac.uk> djm@castle.ed.ac.uk (D Murphy) writes: >In article <4633@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) >>I had always understood that methemoglobin is simply an oxidized form >>of hemoglobin, with the ferrous iron (Fe++) in heme oxidized to the >>ferric (Fe+++) state. > >No. There is no iron oxidation in the hemoglobin - oxyhemoglobin reaction. Oh, for God's sakes, read what I wrote. I wasn't writing about the hemoglobin-oxyhemoglobin reaction. . -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu
benfeen@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Ben Feen) (09/23/89)
Well, _I_ almost had a heart attack when my butane torch decided to unscrew
itself in the closet, so after I punctured a new cylinder, gas leaked out of
the sides of the torch frame, and when I lit it - Ever see the last scene of
_Raiders of the Lost Ark_?
Death is just a 5 letter word.
--
|Opus and Frodo live! | "Sometimes, when your cat just died and you've cut
off your favorite appendage(s) with a power saw and there's epoxy in the
Visine and you brush your teeth with Clearasil it helps to say 'What the
f*ck'" | This signature consists of non-blanks separated by blanks.James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com (09/23/89)
devoz@multimax.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL> writes: >He had stolen a can of PAM cooking spray. Yup. No typos. He said that >they take a tube from an empty roll of toilet paper, stuff it with some >toilet paper, then spray the PAM in one end, inhaling from the other. > >I don't find this humorous in the least. Who figures these things out? >What's in this stuff? > >devoz Someone recently posted to rec.food.cooking that Pam contains alcohol (ethanol, I presume). I have not confirmed this for myself, but it sounds plausible. Snorting Pam? Move over NyQuil-guzzling... Jim James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com Kowalczyk@chemistry.utah.edu
seibel@cgl.ucsf.edu (George Seibel) (09/23/89)
In article <22452@cup.portal.com> James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com writes: >devoz@multimax.UUCP (Joe DeVincentis,EFD TR 75S TR 4S TL> writes: >>He had stolen a can of PAM cooking spray. Yup. No typos. He said that >>they take a tube from an empty roll of toilet paper, stuff it with some >>toilet paper, then spray the PAM in one end, inhaling from the other. >>I don't find this humorous in the least. Who figures these things out? >>What's in this stuff? >>devoz >Someone recently posted to rec.food.cooking that Pam contains alcohol >(ethanol, I presume). I have not confirmed this for myself, but it sounds >plausible. Snorting Pam? Move over NyQuil-guzzling... It's most likely the propellant. Seems like most any lipophilic molecule that's a gas at room temp will have some anesthetic effect. A lot of spray-can propellants fall into this category. Who knows who figured it out in the first place... but I knew 12 year olds who were doing this 20 years ago. (these guys were idiots, BTW) The question "Who figures these things out" reminds me of something I heard at a lecture on substance abuse a while back. Seems that the Vikings used to get ripped by drinking metabolized lichen juice. They would gather up a bunch of some kind of lichen, and steep it in a big pot of boiling water. The guys would all stand around and drink the stuff, and when they had to pee, they would do it right in the pot. They kept drinking... Apparently the lichen extract itself had no psychotropic effect, but its metabolite did. Eventually they would get sufficiently blasted to go out and pillage or whatever it was they did. This talk was a long time ago, and I've forgotten the lecturer's name. He presented this as truth, although you couldn't prove it by me. But if it is true, then I have one question: Who figured *this* thing out?! George Seibel, UCSF
raydu@ico.ISC.COM (Ray Dueland) (09/26/89)
In article <22452@cup.portal.com> James_J_Kowalczyk@cup.portal.com writes: >[reason for inhaling Pam] >Someone recently posted to rec.food.cooking that Pam contains alcohol >(ethanol, I presume). I have not confirmed this for myself, but it sounds >plausible. Snorting Pam? Move over NyQuil-guzzling... Reasonable idea, but it's not easy to become intoxicated by inhaling ethanol. I once had some ethanol boiling for some reason and decided to try inhaling enough to feel the effects. I tried pretty hard without results. I would imagine some type of freon propellant would be responsible for the effects. -- Ray Dueland raydu@ico.isc.com
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (09/27/89)
In article <16129@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>, raydu@ico.ISC.COM (Ray Dueland) writes: > >Someone recently posted to rec.food.cooking that Pam contains alcohol > >(ethanol, I presume). I have not confirmed this for myself, but it sounds > >plausible. Snorting Pam? Move over NyQuil-guzzling... > > Reasonable idea, but it's not easy to become intoxicated by inhaling ethanol. > > I would imagine some type of freon propellant would be responsible for > the effects. The use of chlorinated fluorocarbons (i.e., Freons) as aerosol propellants has been banned in the United States since 1979. 90% of all aerosol propellants use isobutane as a propellant, singly or in some combination with n-butane, propane and/or isopentane. The average consumer is unaware how truly flammable and hazardous the propellants in aerosol cans are. As a good example, take a look at a can of Gilette Foamy shaving cream; the ingredients clearly include isobutane, n-butane and propane. The reason for a mixture of propellants is to achieve a particular effective vapor pressure not possible with a single ingredient by itself. In any event, the propellant in a can of Pam is isobutane; scary to be intentionally spraying a mixture of ethanol and corn oil propelled by isobutane around a stove, huh? How the makers of Pam can afford the liability insurance for their product is a mystery to me. It would appear that persons inhaling Pam are getting their alleged high from the isobutane propellant. It is also interesting to note that the FDA requires _explicit_ labeling of chemical contents on soap and cosmetic products, which accounts for the specific propellant ingredient listing in the shaving cream example above (you don't think Gilette REALLY wants consumers to know that there is butane and propane in their product, do you?), but many food products are exempt from the specificity requirement for propellants. This is why a can of Pam simply states "propellant" as an ingredient. <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?"
jk3k+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) (09/28/89)
Larry Lippman writes: >In any event, the propellant in a can of Pam is isobutane; scary to be >intentionally spraying a mixture of ethanol and corn oil propelled by >isobutane around a stove, huh? How the makers of Pam can afford the liability >insurance for their product is a mystery to me. Presumably because it's pretty safe. If a dozen people blew themselves up every year because of this, i'm sure we'd hear about it. Here's my analysis. If somehow you managed to spray it into an open flame, you'd have a small blowtorch for a little while. It _might_ explode if you're stupid enough to keep doing this for a while. Of course throwing it into a fire is another matter...
vistlik@watcsc.waterloo.edu (Vistlik) (10/11/89)
In article <3412@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes: > > It is also interesting to note that the FDA requires _explicit_ >labeling of chemical contents on soap and cosmetic products but many food >products are exempt from the specificity requirement for propellants. >This is why a can of Pam simply states "propellant" as an ingredient. > Interesting. In Canada the propellants *are* listed on the can. I went to the grocery store and checked when the Pam-high was first mentioned here. The propellants were both alcohols, but not ethanol, and there was a note to the effect of, "Don't worry, the propellants will evaporate and will neither contaminate your food nor cause environmental damage." -- Vistlik the Romulan (Robyn Stewart) In: Fourth Year Honours Chemistry Native Planet: ch'Rihan Email: vistlik@watcsc.waterloo.edu Local Address: 86 Allen St.E., Waterloo, ON, N2J 1J4 Phone: (519)-749-2005 "This place is even better than Leningrad!" -Chekov (and me, now I'm in Canada).
larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) (10/13/89)
In article <1989Oct10.194858.2798@watcsc.waterloo.edu>, vistlik@watcsc.waterloo.edu (Vistlik) writes: > > It is also interesting to note that the FDA requires _explicit_ > >labeling of chemical contents on soap and cosmetic products but many food > >products are exempt from the specificity requirement for propellants. > >This is why a can of Pam simply states "propellant" as an ingredient. > > > Interesting. In Canada the propellants *are* listed on the can. I went > to the grocery store and checked when the Pam-high was first mentioned here. > The propellants were both alcohols, but not ethanol, and there was a note to > effect of, "Don't worry, the propellants will evaporate and will neither > contaminate your food nor cause environmental damage." I would be interested in knowing *exactly* what the Candian version of "Pam" states on its ingredient listing. There may be a different formula for the Candian market. There are no alcohols which are propellants, and any alcohols listed would be solvents for the corn oil and lecithin. There are comparatively few aerosol propellants available today. If the propellant is not an alkane such as propane, butane, isobutane, pentane, isopentane, etc., then it is most likely dimethyl ether (DuPont's Dymel [tm]), methylene chloride, or fluorocarbon C-318 (octafluorocyclobutane). <> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. - Uniquex Corp. - Viatran Corp. <> UUCP {allegra|boulder|decvax|rutgers|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <> TEL 716/688-1231 | 716/773-1700 {hplabs|utzoo|uunet}!/ \uniquex!larry <> FAX 716/741-9635 | 716/773-2488 "Have you hugged your cat today?"
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (10/17/89)
> I would be interested in knowing *exactly* what the Canadian version > of "Pam" states on its ingredient listing. INGREDIENTS: Contains natural corn oil, natural lecithin and grain alcohol. Propellants isobutane and propane evaporate harmlessly when sprayed and are environmentally safe. INGREDIENTS: Contient de l'huile de mais naturelle, de la lecithine naturelle et de l'alcool de grain. Les propulseurs isobutane et propane s'evaporent sans danger au moment de la vaporisation et n'endommagent pas l'environnement. [Plus appropriate accents on appropriate letters.] By the way, bringing this back to the original topic, there is also a WARNING: Intentional misuse by deliberately inhaling concentrated vapours may be harmful or fatal. AVERTISSEMENT: L'inhalation deliberee et abusive des vapeurs concentrees de ce produit peut etre nocive ou meme mortelle. [Plus appropriate accents.] -- Mark Brader, Toronto "Don't be silly -- send it to Canada" utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- British postal worker
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (10/18/89)
> > I would be interested in knowing *exactly* what the Canadian version > > of "Pam" states on its ingredient listing. I replied: > Contains natural corn oil, natural lecithin and grain > alcohol. Propellants isobutane and propane evaporate harmlessly when > sprayed and are environmentally safe. While Richard Snell replied: | lecithin (pure vegetable product), propellants isobutane, | trichlorofluoromethane and propane. Contains 29 calories per 100 ml ... And both of us were reporting on cans bought in Toronto. The obvious conjecture is that Richard's can was older stock than mine (which also has a sticker about having no CFC's). But the really weird part, unless it was simply Richard's error, is the omission from his list of the principal ingredient on mine! -- Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto "These days UNIX isn't very UNIX-like" utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com -- Doug Gwyn This article is in the public domain.