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Re: Help: rashes caused by handling produce

Howdy, all--

> The produce manager at a food cooperative in Madison, Wisconsin is
> desperately trying to find out why she and many of her staff have
> been suffering from serious rashes on their hands and arms over
> the past few years or more.  

Some quick thoughts from one of the resident
chemical-health-stuff-watchers (that's a technical term).  

1.  Some people's skin reacts to, or develops a reactivity to, oxalic 
acid, which is found in some leaves.  

2.  Bristly leaves (like squash) can tattoo the skin with whatever
happens to be on the bristles--plant toxins, mold spores, bug feces,
chemical drift.  These can provoke reactions or reactivities.

3.  People whose skins are often wet can develop additional problems;
any potential reactive substances (plant toxins, mold spores, bug
feces, chemical drift) are soaked into the skin and basically kept in
solution there.  

The winter I spent as a sandblaster on the Delaware River waterfront,
I thought my skin would dissolve, and not from the sand. At the time
we chalked it up as "river rash," which is what my father and others
who worked at the shipyard who often had it, called it.  I now figure
it was the combination of constant dampness (sweat *and* air) and the
chemicals and crap coming off the lab benches and other stuff we were
blasting. And who knows what the hell else.

4.  Some pesticide residues induce rashes in some people.
Increasingly, however, MSDSs (Material Safety Data Sheets) don't
report acute or nontoxicological effects, so they're hard to track or
identify.  Which is why some people choose to avoid them altogether,
wherever possible.

5.  It could be some combination of all of the above--interactions 
between different substances.  Including interactions with body care 
products.

My experience with this stuff is it's often hard to find ONE cause of
such body-reactions because there generally isn't ONE cause. (That's
the classical toxicology model--one cause, one reaction, one LD50.)
But sometimes there are ways of reducing the overall load on a body
that lead to improvement of acute *or* chronic health problems.

Sometimes the only ONE place to start is the symptom itself--in this
case the skin rash--and learn more about how to support the body's
healing of the symptoms.  It takes detective work.  I personally
found that when I cleaned up my entire physical and environmental
act--to take the maximum possible load off my body--a lot of chronic
reactivities went away.

These folks might want to contact environmental medicine/clinical
ecology folks for advice.  The Community Pharmacy offers contacts.
The Human Ecology Action League and the folks in Evanston who publish
"The Canary" newsletter might also have leads.

peace
michele

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Michele Gale-Sinex, communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems
UW-Madison College of Ag and Life Sciences
Voice: (608) 262-8018   FAX: (608) 265-3020
http://www.wisc.edu/cias/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The course was intense.  Picture if you will a 
common kitchen funnel.  Stick it in the top of 
my head and drop a car in it.  --Mister 3D
References: