re: irradiated mail

["Philip Egidi" <phil.egidi@state.co.us>]

My understanding from talking to some NJ folks is that the heat

generated from this process was melting shrink wrapping and perhaps

volatilizing other chemicals (perhaps in the inks?).

Second hand info, someone from NJ out there that knows??

Phil Egidi

phil.egidi@state.co.us 







>>> <RuthWeiner@AOL.COM> 08/28/02 01:04PM >>>

Re the government report that suggests that radiation may have caused

some 

chemical changes in paper, which then produces skin irritation.



High-wet-strength hard-surface paper is produced by the "kraft" process



("Kraft"  is the German word for "strength"), in which the lignins are



removed from wood using organic reduced sulfur compounds -- sulfides

related 

to H2S.  The sulfides are responsible, incidentally, for the noxious

odor 

from kraft pulp mills.  Paper pulp is wood with the lignins removed.  

White 

paper is bleached with chlorine dioxide or related oxidizing compounds.

 

Low-wet-strength paper, like a lot of cardboard (and egg cartons, and

the 

center roll for paper towels and toilet paper) is produced by a process

that 

uses sulfites (SO3-) and removes lignins an oxidative rather than a

reducing 

process.



Alphas would almost certainly react with organic sulfide residues, but

I 

expect the irradiation of mail would be gamma or x-ray, not alpha, if

you are 

going to kill anthrax bacteria.  Gammas would also react with organic

sufides 

 as well as with the cellulose in the paper itself, but I doubt if

enough 

irritant would be produced to cause a physiological effect. I did my 

dissertation work in this area, and we had to really zap a small

molecule to 

detect any chemical change at all.   The irradiation that produces

color 

changes in crystals  is appreantly not enough to produce chemical

changes 

that can be detected without instrumentation.  



X-rays produce chemical changes in photographic film, and might produce

some 

ancillary changes that could cause irritation, but I don't know that

x-ray 

technicians complain about irritation.  Xerox is a chemical process

that 

leaves a discernible residue (so does ink, for that matter) and I don't

know 

of generalized complaints about chemical irritation from either.  If

x-rays 

or gamma radiation were producing an irritant in paper products,

wouldn't 

that irritant be different for white paper, colored paper, cardboard,

Xeroxed 

labels, handwritten envelopes, black ink, and colored inks?  I'd like

to see 

a double-blind experiment where mail handlers handle unirradiated mail

that 

they think has been irradiated, and irradiated mail that they think

hasn't 

been irradiated.



Ruth  



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com 



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com

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