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Thanks for all your specific and well thought out opinions, President Trump.

Brush licking is a habit that I pcike up, drop and pick up again.
I mostly do it when brushes are dry.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 MajorTom11 wrote:


It has recently come to my attention that a well known brand of mini acrylic paint, I am not going to say which, has given several people cancer. This is due to the trace presence of certain minerals or chemicals such as Cadmium, Cobalt and Chromium in their line. Any of these, but particularly Cadmium, are considered toxic even when ingested at very small amounts.

As in, the definitive, sole cause of Cancer? Yeah? From a reputable medical source, peer reviewed, and definitely not The Man In The Pub?

I completely understand your EXTREMELY valid line of questioning, I am usually the guy asking for exactly those things (seriously not being sarcastic at all). I am not naming the company because I don't want this discussion to turn into a bash fest or get detracted from the main point of the warning. But yes, reputable medical source, peer reviewed and proven with sufficient rigour and cause to stand in a court of law.

Gonna need a link to the paper.

 MajorTom11 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 MajorTom11 wrote:


It has recently come to my attention that a well known brand of mini acrylic paint, I am not going to say which, has given several people cancer. This is due to the trace presence of certain minerals or chemicals such as Cadmium, Cobalt and Chromium in their line. Any of these, but particularly Cadmium, are considered toxic even when ingested at very small amounts.

As in, the definitive, sole cause of Cancer? Yeah? From a reputable medical source, peer reviewed, and definitely not The Man In The Pub?

I completely understand your EXTREMELY valid line of questioning, I am usually the guy asking for exactly those things (seriously not being sarcastic at all). I am not naming the company because I don't want this discussion to turn into a bash fest or get detracted from the main point of the warning. But yes, reputable medical source, peer reviewed and proven with sufficient rigour and cause to stand in a court of law.

Then link it, if its peer reviewed then it will most likely have been published so the "bash fest" has already passed. trying to help people without evidence is just scaremongering in my opinion, you either have the review and should post it or are making things up

Well, I'm not gonna do it. Gave my reasons, and I understand your reservations, but I guess if you feel it's scaremongering go ahead and eat your paint and we let natural selection decide lol

 MajorTom11 wrote:
I completely understand your EXTREMELY valid line of questioning, I am usually the guy asking for exactly those things (seriously not being sarcastic at all). I am not naming the company because I don't want this discussion to turn into a bash fest or get detracted from the main point of the warning. But yes, reputable medical source, peer reviewed and proven with sufficient rigour and cause to stand in a court of law.

So what you are saying is that you have solid evidence that one of the companies in our hobby is producing dangerous materials with insufficient warning of their contents and you're more concerned with preventing a "bash fest" than getting this vital safety information out so that people can avoid the hazard? By withholding this information if anyone here is hurt by these paints their blood is on your hands.

https://tangibleday.com/paint-brush-licking-is-it-really-dangerous-scientific-evidence/

Thing is this topic has already been discussed elsewhere, years ago. All it takes is some simple google searches to turn up dozens of threads and results n articles on this. So I don't get the reservations about sharing at this point. It's been known for some time that licking brushes is probably not a good idea. And if you're talking about who I think you are the newer production paints should have had these substances filtered out in favor of safer alternatives, cause no one wants a lawsuit on their hands if they can help it. And honestly what isn't toxic? what doesn't cause cancer. The los angeles air I breathe will probably kill me before these paints do, especially living downwind from a major freeway. Not to mention my daily whiskey nightcap

See, you've mentioned a peer-reviewed paper. But you're not willing to share it 'because reasons'.

As Peregrine said, if it's peer reviewed and published, there is no bash fest.

Your reticence to share your source is a wee bit suspicious.

Just post up the link dude
Its Friday and we needz da dramaz.

If your not going to publish your evidence why bother posting at all? It's just pointless scaremongering to the few people who do lick their brushes and have very old paint laying around.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Thanks for all your specific and well thought out opinions, President Trump.

How dare anyone ask for evidence in an information age. Listen and believe.

I'm extremely doubtful that it's possible to gather enough data to establish a statistically meaningful link, unless it really causes very specific types of cancers. There aren't that many mini painters out there, the amount they ingest is very small and probably varies widely over the course of the decades needed to see the health impact.
Studies that show Cadmium or Chromium are toxic? Of course. Studies on professional construction workers exposed to large quantities of acrylics? That's possible too.

It's probably best to avoid licking your paintbrush. But if you want to know if there is actually a non-negligible risk to your health, the best bet is probably to try to estimate how much paint you ingest when licking (which isn't that easy to do), then calculate the amount of harmful stuff you're ingesting, and finally compare to know effect for similar dosage. This of course can only work for well-known substances (like the heavy metals you mentioned, even though they're almost non-existent in paints nowadays), while paints probably contain a long list of chemicals that haven't been studied extensively.

So people not using the brand-that-shall-not-be-named may now unjustly be scared as they falsely believe they might use the brand-that-shall-not-be-named, while people using said brand may unjustly believe another brand to be the issue and feel unjustly safe.
Furthermore, the only brand actually named in this thread may be unjustly vilified as they may not be the brand in question, in addition to which the contents apparently have changed in recent years, making any supposed accusations less supported than they were to begin with.
Without further information, we do not know who is affected, as we are not aware of the brand, any timeframe on the study, or indeed anything really.

This has most certainly been very helpful.

On the whole bashing angle I think that's overblown.There are lots of dangerous chemicals which can cause cancers and other faster and more guaranteed medical issues, including death, which we interact with on a daily basis.

I'm betting most of us have bottles of bleach in the cupboard for cleaning and yet we've not died of poisoning from using it. And lets not touch on things like smoking, drinking alcohol, driving cars etc...


So I don't see any issue with naming the company nor with posting the article to review the collected data and argument put forth. In fact it would be very sensible and shouldn't result in a bashing situation. Instead it would increase the validity of the advice and of the message being given. At present the lack of presenting any clear evidence seriously undermines the attempt at passing on the advice because at the same time as you're trying to sound serious about the medical advice you're also hiding all the evidence/information about it.

We have clear health labels on all those deadly products and it might well be that the new scientific findings will require the paint company to label their paint as such. Though such things can take time to work through the system so there is likely a long lag period before all the paint on the shelves would carry a warning.

 Peregrine wrote:

 MajorTom11 wrote:
I completely understand your EXTREMELY valid line of questioning, I am usually the guy asking for exactly those things (seriously not being sarcastic at all). I am not naming the company because I don't want this discussion to turn into a bash fest or get detracted from the main point of the warning. But yes, reputable medical source, peer reviewed and proven with sufficient rigour and cause to stand in a court of law.

So what you are saying is that you have solid evidence that one of the companies in our hobby is producing dangerous materials with insufficient warning of their contents and you're more concerned with preventing a "bash fest" than getting this vital safety information out so that people can avoid the hazard? By withholding this information if anyone here is hurt by these paints their blood is on your hands.

Agreed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
See, you've mentioned a peer-reviewed paper. But you're not willing to share it 'because reasons'.

As Peregrine said, if it's peer reviewed and published, there is no bash fest.

Your reticence to share your source is a wee bit suspicious.

Ding ding ding. Peer reviewed data explicitly goes through that process so that it *can* be disseminated widely, not used as a secretive bludgeon of "I know all ze thingz, listen to my wizdomz mortalz".

 MajorTom11 wrote:
rstand your EXTREMELY valid line of questioning, I am usually the guy asking for exactly those things (seriously not being sarcastic at all). I am not naming the company because I don't want this discussion to turn into a bash fest or get detracted from the main point of the warning. But yes, reputable medical source, peer reviewed and proven with sufficient rigour and cause to stand in a court of law.

That's all very interesting, but at this point, totally irrelevant. The validity of the study is meaningless - instead I'm being asked to take the world of some Canadian I know nothing about, whose credentials are unknown. No-one here is doubting the results of a peer-reviewed medical article. They're doubting you because you are the only source of this scaremongering thread at present.

Weasel words are fun.

FWIW, whether a person is accredited as an expert witness and/or whether a specific piece of evidence is admissible into evidence is decided by the factfinder at the time of trial. In this case, you would need an expert witness to get the paper in. Then there's cross-examination.

So alleging that a paper has "cause to stand in a court of law" is nonsensical gibberish, prima facie, and adds no support at all to an already poor appeal to authority.

gak, or get off the pot.

It sounds like a manufacturer was found liable for causing cancer in customers, based on the statement that the science stood up in a court of law. I'm not sure where, but the US, some pretty flimsy science has stood up. California courts have found no end of things to be toxic or carcinogenic, which is why you'll see products labelled for the state that everybody else kind of ignores.

I think we can all take the caution under advisement, and make of it what we will.

But were they? Or this is information akin to 'vaccines cause autism, honest, Guv!'

We don't know, because OP is bizarrely reticent to share a source he's not actually responsible for the validity of.

Lex parsimoniae says that the answer that requires fewest assumptions is likely correct.

While I don't at all disagree with your opinions on the flimsiness of jury-trials in the civil system, the answer that requires fewest assumptions is that the OP is making this up.

I will NOT STOP EATING PAINT just because a bunch of NERDS on the internet say it's bad.

POST SOURCES OR I WILL DRINK TWO EXTRA POTS OF NULN OIL WHEN I GET HOME TONIGHT.

To quote the wise words of Patches O'Houlihan…

"I drink it 'cause it's sterile, and I like the taste."

and if that's not a good enough answer to putting paint in your mouth, I don't know what is.

"If you can dodge a paintbrush, you can dodge a ball!"

 Excommunicatus wrote:
the answer that requires fewest assumptions is that the OP is making this up.

The answer with the fewest assumptions is an assumption?

That's an... inventive, use of a basic principle.

For clarity, pooh-poohing the OP does not mean I'm advocating for the free consumption of cadmium.

I'm actually surprised at the number of people who don't lick their brushes. I'm pretty sure everyone I know does it. Albeit that's usually to put a point back on the brush after rinsing it, but still. I'd always thought it was more common than not.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
the answer that requires fewest assumptions is that the OP is making this up.

The answer with the fewest assumptions is an assumption?

That's an... inventive, use of a basic principle.

I have no idea what you just said.

Answer with fewest assumptions = likely correct. Does not exclude the answer being an assumption or based on an assumption. Mandates only that it is the fewest assumptions. Fewest assumptions = OP is trolling. At the very least, "OP is trolling" requires fewer assumptions than "OP is referencing an inherent weakness in the civil law system as it exists in the United States of America".

Would you like me to walk you through it again?

If all that is going to be presented is Nyah Nyah I know something you don’t, but I’m too afraid to cite any sources, this post should be locked for trolling and forgotten.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Would you like me to walk you through it again?

No. I can spot the law school equivalent of "I took psychology 101 and now I understand everything" just fine. Walking through it again doesn't change how badly your applying a basic principle.

It's not news that paint contains cadmium, among other things. I have no idea why OP feels the need to raise the alarm about it now, but speculating as to their motive is all nothing but assumptions and I don't really see how it matters.

Commercial paints contain lots of chemicals you really probably shouldn't put in your body, so I'm more alarmed by the knee jerk reaction of "proof or ???". I don't see why it needs to be a controversy and a big internet fight that chemicals you can't identify or understand should probably not enter your mouth. I see people lick their brushes all the time, and it baffles me. Regulators still find lead contamination in paint fairly frequently. There was recall on hobby and craft paint just a few years ago that was infested with bacteria. If you don't know what's in it, and you really can't know what's in it, why would you put it in your mouth?

The OPs motivations for raising an alarm probably aren't as significant at this point imo as the apparent reluctance to engage in basic health safety.