Word: polyvinyl
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...fourth draft of a note to the plumber about replacing an old cast-iron wastewater line with polyvinyl-chloride pipe. After a fairly straightforward preamble, it veers off into a six-page symbolist idyll about a lake and a passenger-less rowboat "drifting away in errant eddies like a strange and mute child." It's really quite beautiful...
DIED. WALDO SEMON, 100, inventor and holder of 116 patents including vinyl and bubble gum; in Hudson, Ohio. As a young researcher for B.F. Goodrich, he turned a little-known chemical called polyvinyl chloride into a flexible, functional material. And as the U.S. was on the verge of depleting its natural rubber supply during World War II, he led the effort to produce a viable synthetic...
...truth, Bakelite--whose more chemically formal name is polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride--was just a harbinger of the age of plastics. Since Bakelite's heyday, researchers have churned out a polysyllabic catalog of plastics: polymethylmethacrylate (Plexiglas), polyesters, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC, a.k.a. vinyl), polyhexamethylene adipamide (the original nylon polymer), polytetraperfluoroethylene (Teflon), polyurethane, poly- this, poly-that...
Abbott Laboratories was not interviewed for this article, however you stated [based on a product flyer] that it "admits there is too little data to draw hard conclusions" about the safety of polyvinyl chloride. This is completely untrue and contrary to our position. PVC is the material of choice for many lifesaving medical products because of its compatibility with medications, sterilization capabilities and other positive qualities. These products have a superlative 40-year record of safe and effective use in the health-care industry. Nor is Abbott a "PVC maker." Abbott Laboratories fabricates safe, government-approved health-care products using...
...plastic products raising the loudest alarms are made of a material known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. To make PVC pliable, manufacturers treat it with softeners known as phthalates (pronounced thalates)--loosely bound chemicals that easily leach out of the plastic. In the U.S. millions of IV bags made of PVC are used annually. If the liquids the bags contain pick up stray phthalates, they can be transfused straight into the veins of patients. Animal studies suggest that phthalates can damage the liver, heart, kidneys and testicles, and may cause cancer. "We don't know the toxicity mechanism," says Charlotte...