UK - Skin burns from fungicide on furniture

[2manyfibers]

I posted most of this in the GM crops, organophosphates thread but thought it might be worth posting separately under a more specific title so our friends across the pond could be aware of this story.

This is a story about leather chairs and sofas in the UK (made in China) being treated with a chemical fungicide to prevent mold while they were in storage and being shipped. Dozens of people suffered severe “burns” from contact with this furniture. There is a very clear picture of a little baby that has these burns on his face – to some extent I think they appear similar to Morgellons lesions. Here’s the link:

At least 1,000 people suffer horrific burns from 'toxic' leather sofas | Mail Online

Although I can’t find the name of the specific fungicide used in any of the articles reporting this, after doing some googling, I found that one particular fungicide is known to cause the type of “eczema-related” burns in some people as was noted in this article. The name of the fungicide is benomyl and it is an organophospate (although benomyl is not specified in the article, it would appear to be a likely candidate for causing this type of injury to people). Benomyl was produced by DuPont starting in 1968 and used in the US until 2001 when excessive “legal” costs surrounding the use of it caused DuPont to stop making it and cancel the registrations for use here in the US. Because the patents expired long ago, benomyl is still produced by other companies in other countries and continues to be used as a fungicide. It appears that among other things, benomyl has caused birth defects that prevent the formation of eyes (or severe damage to eyes) in human fetuses when pregnant women have had significant exposure to it.

Of course, I am unsure as to whether or not benomyl is the actual chemical that caused these burns in this case, but if it is, it could be yet another indicator that organophosphates could play a role in (or even directly cause) some of the symptoms of Morgellons. Considering that organophosphate fungicides are sprayed on some food crops and possibly even genetically incorporated into some GM crops (not to mention exposure from furniture and the like as noted in this article), it seems to add to the possibility that there could be some connection between Morgellons and organophosphates.

Regardless of what type of fungicide caused this, I think this kind of thing occurring is something people need to be aware of. It's more and more difficult these days to be able to trust that anything is actually safe.

[Jo]

Hi 2many,

Good article to clock, thanks. One guy was in hospital for a week!

I've just found a different newspapers report, looks like the potent fungicide was Di-methyl Fumarate (DMF).

Argos to be sued after toxic sofas blamed for causing skin burns and allergies - Telegraph

In wikipedia, it talks about a similar incident with chairs made in China....
Dimethyl fumarate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Benomyl sounds like nasty stuff.

Jo xxx

[2manyfibers]

Hey Jo – thanks for finding what chemical it actually was. I read all the articles I could find on it last night but didn’t see the actual chemical mentioned in any of them.

After doing some googling, I found that dimethyl fumarate is used as a fungicide and it is widely used in animal feed and crops that have high moisture content (like hay and grains) to prevent spoilage – which means it is in the food supply all the time. It does have at least some ties to organophosphates, the insecticide malathion in particular. Malathion is used to control mosquitoes and it is widely used to dust food crops as an insecticide. When malathion contacts alkaline water, it breaks down into different components, one of which is dimethyl fumarate (in acidic water, different chemicals result).

Dimethyl fumarate is used to treat psoriasis and is also being used to treat multiple sclerosis. However, it is also considered to be a severe eye irritant and a skin irritant (the picture of the baby kind of verifies that – irritant seems to be putting it mildly). It’s amazing how much we are really exposed to harmful chemicals – in foods and now even furniture. And like most of the chemicals in use today, there have been no studies done to determine the effects of long-term exposure. Here’s a link to how malathion breaks down into dimethyl fumarate in alkaline water:

http://estuariesandcoasts.org/cdrom/..._2_125_128.pdf