Dichloromethane-DCM or methylene chloride is a colorless, volatile liquid with a somewhat sweet-smelling aroma. It is used as a solvent in paint strippers and degreasers, in the manufacture of polyurethane foams, and in the food industry. It is also widely used by model builders to glue plastic parts together and as a fumigant in agriculture.
The labels on products widely sold over-the-counter in hardware stores, home improvement stores and online do have warnings. They most often warn of DCM being a known carcinogen and warn of not getting the product on the skin. Some even mention using DCM in a well-ventilated area. But they don’t say anything about the possibility of death from breathing the vapors.
And the risk of a very rapid death is one of the worst outcomes from using DCM. In areas where fumes can concentrate, workers or consumers are at risk of asphyxiation or a heart attack while engaging in seemingly routine tasks reports Slate.
Fourteen deaths in the U.S. have been linked to methylene chloride exposure since 2000. Many of the deaths involved the use of paint strippers, but a few deaths involved people using the chemical to clean or glue carpeting. Teenagers on the job, a mother of four, a retired man, and workers nearing retirement, the chemical’s vapors killed all of them.
In 1986, three workers in a South Carolina plant were killed in a single incident. A 24-year-old church maintenance worker who had survived the Iraq war died in 2010 while stripping a church baptismal pool. In 2013. LHSFNA Management Co-Chairman Noel C. Borck, said that DCM deaths among bathtub refinishers has risen to 14 since 2000.
TOXNET, the toxicology data network reveals that DCM can be found in low levels in the air as well as in surface, ground and drinking water. As far as being cancerous, TOXNET says that the Environmental Protection Agency decided dichloromethane is likely to cause cancer in humans.
Actually, TOXNET cites a whole list of national and statewide studies that have investigated the human health and environmental impact of the chemical, and they all agree on DCM’s potential to cause cancer. Exposure studies are also cited, proving the toxicity of DCM to humans from exposure to the vapors of the chemical.
Federal actions on the use of DCM
Slate mentions that the EPA has promised to take action on stiffening the wording required on warning labels, something they have been considering for the last thirty years. Now they are saying they just need to get the wording right on a new rule, supposedly to be proposed next year.
Of course, the industry is lobbying against any change, saying DCM is already well regulated and remains the most effective way to remove paint, even though there are other products available on the market today. Faye Graul, executive director of the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, says the best way to reduce deaths from DCM is to adhere to the warning on the label.
In 1985, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) denied a petition to ban DCM in household products because of cancer fears, ruling that a carcinogen warning on the label was sufficient. And in 2012, the CPSC downplayed requests from California and Washington state to require stiffer labeling of products containing DCM.
The CPSC later said that the problem cited in the 2012 request was an occupational problem, even though consumers have also died from exposure to the chemical. A toxicologist later wrote a letter to the states, stating, “To provide information to the public concerning this matter, CPSC has produced a paint stripper pamphlet.”
Better regulation of DCM needed
All California and Washington wanted was a rule similar to what the European Union did in 2011. The EU removed DCM paint strippers from general use. In the petition to the CPSC, the states pointed out that the use of specialty respirators and polyvinyl alcohol gloves wasn’t sufficient because deaths have occurred with workers wearing them.
If you are thinking the risks from DCM are not that great, consider this: Poison control centers in the U.S. have handled 2,700 calls concerning exposure to methylene chloride in the five years ending in 2013. So this leaves many people wondering why the EPA has not done anything to either ban the use of DCM, or limit its use to industrial applications.
