Safety
| This section needs additional citations for verification. |
A fatal oral dose of chloroform may be as small as 10 mL (14.8 g), with death due to respiratory or cardiac arrest.
As might be expected for an anesthetic, chloroform vapors depress the central nervous system. It is immediately dangerous to life and health at approximately 500 ppm, according to the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Breathing about 900 ppm for a short time can cause dizziness, fatigue, and headache. Chronic chloroform exposure can damage the liver (where chloroform is metabolized to phosgene) and the kidneys, and some people develop sores when the skin is immersed in chloroform.
Animal studies have shown that miscarriages occur in rats and mice that have breathed air containing 30 to 300 ppm of chloroform during pregnancy and also in rats that have ingested chloroform during pregnancy. Offspring of rats and mice that breathed chloroform during pregnancy have a higher incidence of birth defects, and abnormal sperm have been found in male mice that have breathed air containing 400 ppm chloroform for a few days. The effect of chloroform on reproduction in humans is unknown.
Chloroform once appeared in toothpastes, cough syrups, ointments, and other pharmaceuticals, but it has been banned as a consumer product in the US since 1976. Cough syrups containing chloroform can still be legally purchased in pharmacies and supermarkets in the UK.
The US National Toxicology Program's twelfth report on carcinogens implicates it as reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen, a designation equivalent to International Agency for Research on Cancer class 2A. The IARC itself classifies chloroform as possibly carcinogenic to humans, a Group 2B designation. It has been most readily associated with hepatocellular carcinoma. Caution is mandated during its handling in order to minimize unnecessary exposure; safer alternatives, such as dichloromethane, have resulted in a substantial reduction of its use as a solvent.
Read more about this topic: Chloroform
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“Perhaps having built a barricade when you’re sixteen provides you with a sort of safety rail. If you’ve once taken part in building one, even inadvertently, doesn’t its usually latent image reappear like a warning signal whenever you’re tempted to join the police, or support any manifestation of Law and Order?”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“Can we not teach children, even as we protect them from victimization, that for them to become victimizers constitutes the greatest peril of all, specifically the sacrifice—physical or psychological—of the well-being of other people? And that destroying the life or safety of other people, through teasing, bullying, hitting or otherwise, “putting them down,” is as destructive to themselves as to their victims.”
—Lewis P. Lipsitt (20th century)
“I nightly offer up my prayers to the throne of grace for the health and safety of you all, and that we ought all to rely with confidence on the promises of our dear redeemer, and give him our hearts. This is all he requires and all that we can do, and if we sincerely do this, we are sure of salvation through his atonement.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)