[Leica] Why the mad rush / toxic chemicals

[steve.barbour at gmail.com (Steve Barbour)]

On Nov 5, 2009, at 11:50 AM, Richard Man wrote:
> It occurs to me that there have been two trains running in these
> threads, one is the "what should the current crop of darkroom people
> do, in terms of safety?" and the answer probably comes down to
> Good ventilation, avoid touching, breathing, ingesting, any and all
> chemical whether in liquid, powder, or vapor form. Use "safe" chemical
> as much as possible (e.g. Xtol and others).
> The other thread is "OMG, I wasn't aware or I wasn't careful all those
> years ago" and the "unfortunately, lots of old darkroom workers got
> horrible problems due to unsafe exposure."
> I am mainly talking about the first thread, which unfortunately seems
> to have gotten some people upset because they mainly were talking
> about the second thread...


what we now do should be, in part, based on an objective evaluation of  
what happened then...
conclusions, then new safer practices if needed.
is there in fact any clear conclusions, that lead to altered practices?
so far, I haven't been able to see a clear linkage...

surely some of the old pro's who have lived through all this can  
enlighten me,

Steve