Printer toner linked to genetic changes, health risks in new study:
Getting printer toner on your hands is annoying. Getting it in your lungs may be dangerous.
According to a new study by West Virginia University researcher Nancy Lan Guo, the microscopic toner nanoparticles that waft from laser printers may change our genetic and metabolic profiles in ways that make disease more likely. Her findings appear in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
"The changes are very significant from day one," said Guo, a professor in the School of Public Health and member of the Cancer Institute.
[...] "In particular, there is one group I really think should know about this: pregnant women. Because once a lot of these genes are changed, they get passed on through the generations. It's not just you."
On the same days that the researchers assessed the rats' genes, they also measured every metabolite available in their blood.
[...] The metabolic levels that the researchers detected reinforced their other findings. The same health risks that the genetic profiles pointed to were implicated by the metabolic profiles as well.
Building on these results, Guo and her colleagues have since investigated the genomic changes that Singaporean printing company workers have experienced. In many respects, the workers' genomes changed the same ways the rats' genomes did. The results from these workers are included in a manuscript ready for submission to a journal.
"And they're very young," Guo said. "A lot of the workers ranged from 20 to their early 30s, and you're already starting to see all of these changes.
"We have to work, right? Who doesn't have a printer nowadays, either at home or at the office? But now, if I have a lot to print, I don't use the printer in my office. I print it in the hallway."
Nancy Lan Guo, et. al. Integrated Transcriptomics, Metabolomics, and Lipidomics Profiling in Rat Lung, Blood, and Serum for Assessment of Laser Printer-Emitted Nanoparticle Inhalation Exposure-Induced Disease Risks. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2019; 20 (24): 6348 DOI: 10.3390/ijms20246348
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @09:02PM (11 children)
And that's fine, because if you're not a multimillionaire ready to retire by age 30, you made the wrong life choices. You should have learned to code.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @09:13PM (1 child)
10 years from now: should have learned to drive trucks.
20 years from now: should have learned to unclog toilets.
30 years from now: should have elected Andrew Yang.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @09:33PM
Should have voted to make USA a province of Communist China.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday March 01 2020, @10:22PM (8 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @10:34PM
You would know, since you're such a litigious bitch yourself.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 01 2020, @11:05PM (6 children)
I think they should change the toner to a safer, more environmentally-friendly formulation [caranddriver.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @11:28PM (3 children)
Interesting article. I wonder if they can add an environmentaly friendly substance that deters rodents from chewing on stuff?
IIRC, they add something to book glue to prevent bookworms from finding their way into books.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday March 02 2020, @02:39AM (1 child)
Not helpful, I know, but the first thing that comes to mind is snakes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:05AM
Reminds me of a childhood song ... there was an old lady that swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed a fly. She then swallows a spider to catch the fly etc.... until she dies from swallowing a horse.
IOW, if you put a snake under your car to catch the mouse you will eventually end up with horses under your hood. I guess that's where they got the term horsepower?
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Monday March 02 2020, @05:48AM
I used to have a problem with squirrels chewing the wires on the outdoor Christmas lights. One year I wiped the wires with Frank's Red Hot and no more problems.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday March 02 2020, @12:18AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 02 2020, @03:54PM
Good idea. But only half of a complete solution.
The remaining supplies of the existing toner can be used as a new flavor of vaping for teenagers.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday March 01 2020, @11:53PM (3 children)
Everything causes damage. We have to reverse that. Can't we make a toner that gives you super powers and makes ya all smart 'n stuff?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @12:29AM (2 children)
I guess technically the toner can print words that you can read and learn from. Learning makes you smart?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @01:21AM
No, as we learned from a Spanish research article yesterday, being smart makes you learn.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday March 02 2020, @05:51AM
Unfortunately, it's more commonly used to print minutes of the pre-meeting meeting and other corporate dross. Reading that does more damage than snorting lines of the toner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @01:51AM
guess I'll have to find something else to snort besides printer toner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @04:10AM
From TFS:
I been huffin' ink cartridges, marks-a-lot & sharpies markers since the 80s. Hasn't affected me one...*thump*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:22AM (2 children)
I tried going through the Wikipedia article on this and there is a citation
"Laut Studie kann Tonerstaub Krebs verursachen" [Toner dust can cause cancer, according to study]. Berliner Morgenpost (in German). Retrieved 2017-08-06.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toner [wikipedia.org]
I tried reading the linked article but it's in German.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @05:32AM
From the above Wikipedia article
"Health risks
Muhle et al. (1991) reported that the responses to chronically inhaled copying toner, a plastic dust pigmented with carbon black, titanium dioxide and silica, were also similar qualitatively to titanium dioxide and diesel exhaust.[9]
Carbon black, one of the components of toner, is classified as "possibly carcinogenic" (Group 2B) by the IARC."
From the Wikipedia article on Carbon black
"Carcinogenicity
Carbon black is considered possibly carcinogenic to humans and classified as a Group 2B carcinogen because there is sufficient evidence in experimental animals with inadequate evidence in human epidemiological studies.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_black [wikipedia.org]
Worth reading the rest of the articles as well (I'm not going to copy and paste all of it though).
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 02 2020, @08:23AM
DeepL does a decent job in translating that article:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 02 2020, @06:45PM (1 child)
Guess, it already does:
https://www.kmart.com/canon-1658b001-111-toner-6000-page-yield-magenta/p-020V005601012001P [kmart.com]
Not meaning to make fun of people that have been harmed by the stuff. Still, you stick a label like that on everything and soon it becomes just more noise.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @07:14PM
I think the fact that you consider it noise says way more about you than about the message.