From: lachlan@dmp.csiro.au (Lachlan Cranswick)
Subject: Re: Uses of Be - toxicity
Organization: CSIRO Division of Mineral Products, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 13:32:04 GMT




>> "Death may result from short exposure to incredibly low concentrations.
>> Acute: pneumontis may result from single exposure to berylium
>> and accasionally is fatal.  Chronic: pulmonary granulomatous
>> disease may appear in 3 months  to 6 years, often after short
>> exposure to low concentrations.  Uncertainty as to complete
>> recovery.  Death rate about 25%.  Rewiew: "Berylium
>> and Berylliosis" by J. Schubert in Sci. American 199,
>> no 2, pp 27-33 (Aug. 1958)"
>> -- 
>Look at the date of that article! No one has died of berylliosis in 30
>YEARS!!! 
>There have been 2 (yes, count them, 2) cases of berylliosis in the last 20
>years. The toxicity of beryllium is ONLY related to powder form. Contact in
>any other pure form is absolutely harmless. Back in the 50's when beryllium
>was becoming popular, some workers contracted berylliosis.  Only a small
>fraction of people, about 3%, can even get berylliosis at any exposure
>level.  Most of us are totally immune to berylliosis.  There was an
>immediate panic, evidenced by your quote. Research quickly determined that
>dry machining and ore crushing operations caused the dust which caused
>berylliosis.

>Here at Lockheed we constantly use beryllium, it has many properties
>unmatched by any other material known to man, and it is extremely harmless
>when proper precautions are followed.

>You could propably find a 50's article which shows the benefit of cigarette
>smoking.  I suggest to look into more recent work in the area.

>kevin weber

OK, I admit it, my personal Merck Index is a bit old (1960) but
those health warnings are still current and
"the beryllium panic" is still going on down here to the
extent that the supplier of our X-ray diffraction tubes
(our source of beryllium) considers it an obligation
to safely dispose of the tubes for us free of charge.
In this part of the world, beryllium is a chief nasty
that you don't want to use unless you have to.
One easy way to get you arse kicked here is to risk your own 
health and/or of others - even if the health risk to some
people seems pretty obscure.

Just a small query :-
What handling procedures make handling berylium "extremely harmless"?          
(In theory CFCs can be contained in such a way that they don't
affect the OZONE layer, but why is there the rush for alternatives?)
I am very carefull (almost paranoid) with beryllium metal  
because (1)  it is considered to be highly toxic
and (2) it is so fragile that it does not take too
much effort to break the beryllium window
- wrecking a $4000 X-ray Diffraction tube
and spraying the lab with toxic beryllium splinters.

The worst horror story I have heard about beryllium
(all hearsay) is about a guy who was trying to
sythesize a beryllium mineral by putting the starting
material in an Iron bomb, then into an furnace.  Being  in a rush to
cool the bomb down (claiming afterwards full knowledge of the possible 
consequences) he threw the still hot bomb into a bucket of cold
water.  This promptly blew up spraying beryllium all over the lab.
I don't know what had to be done to get the lab
back in a safe-usable condition.  (Mercury spills are cleaned
up by adding elemental Sulphur over the area, what imobilizes
beryllium?)

Given the above attitude on beryllium, you will
probably find it typically paranoid that our radiation lab
considers anything above background to be a
leak that has to be fixed.  It can be 
argued that compared to the health risks of pollution,
passive smoking, junk food, coca-cola etc,
these potential hazards are not much of a
health risk.  This could be correct, but it is much
nicer to work in an lab environment where the emphasis
is on more safety rather than less safety.

The original question was why Beryllium isn't used more
widely (in mainstream uses).  My opinion (still)
is that Beryllium is so toxic people would
prefer to use alternatives rather than risk its harmful effects.


-- 
  Lachlan Cranswick  -  CSIRO             _--_|\  lachlan@dmp.CSIRO.AU
  Division of Mineral Products           /      \ tel +61 3 647 0367
  PO Box 124, Port Melbourne 3207        \_.--._/ fax +61 3 646 3223
  AUSTRALIA                                            v