There was an article in the New York Times a few days ago about women who work in nail salons in the US having a significantly larger incidence of giving birth to children with deformities or a higher incidence of cancer.
The hypothesis is that these issues are being caused by consistent excessive exposure to solvents like those in nail polish removers.
Reminds me of a similar issue from decades ago when women who worked in watch factories lost their teeth. Turns out, that was due to the fact that these women were handling Radium, a radioactive material used in watches for glow-in-the-dark numbers; and back ten radioactivity was seen as this cool source of free benefits.
It was only after the passing of Marie Curie whose death was attributed to excessive exposure to radiation that humans started to treat radioactive substances with a little more respect.
What surprises me about the more recent spate of issues induced by solvents is that this was not something we were blind to. We have been working hard for decades to reduce benzene in gasoline for it is known carcinogen.
I guess we, as humans are either slow learners or we find it very easy to disregard longer term issues such as health especially when juxtaposed against shorter term gains; like profit.
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