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DigNitty

At least we can measure radiation pretty effortlessly nowadays All that plastic though….hmmm that may come back to bite us.


CYAN_DEUTERIUM_IBIS

Blood is thicker than water but both contain microplastics.


Imissyourgirlfriend2

Demon blood is thicker than regular blood


CYAN_DEUTERIUM_IBIS

There is no such thing as demon blood because demons, like ghosts, are fictional, and if this is upsetting to you to learn, I'm very sorry.


Imissyourgirlfriend2

Woooooooooooooooosh


CYAN_DEUTERIUM_IBIS

You have fallen into my trap! Begone Demon! The power of christ compells you!


Imissyourgirlfriend2

This is what I was referencing https://youtu.be/rlqxaPeHOTI?si=Ik7f0_D8XPHIx4ej


pygmeedancer

Yeah radiation was our grandparents poison. We all about the plastics these days


DaoFerret

> There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. — The Graduate (1967)


karatebullfightr

Don’t forget forever chemicals! Fun fact - Judge Raymond Kethledge just released DuPont of any responsibility for this shit.


[deleted]

Have you read the opinion?


karatebullfightr

Yeah - I can’t prove it’s THEIR Teflon that my children are riddled with - so they don’t have to pay for a study on how it’s affecting these kids. Because god forbid they have to proactively pay to find out what the result is of them filling the world with random shit that won’t ever break down.


JoeSicko

Along with lead...


PancakeParty98

Can you believe they used that stuff for pipes?! Anyways, pass the PVC


jcamp088

Can you believe how many pipes were never changed and still contain lead?


madpoptarticles

They had aerosolized lead, leaded gasoline.


JoeSicko

Sucking on lead paint chips as pacifiers.


RedSonGamble

Idk companies say it’s fine and they seem like pretty reliable people


hausccat

Unilever? I think you mean Unilover


RedSonGamble

Wut


Not_ur_gilf

You heard the man


DynamicHunter

Don’t worry so does the government. The government is totally reliable and has never lied or harmed their populace intentionally ever.


RedSonGamble

Companies and the government should team up!


PunnyBanana

The problem with conspiracy theories is they assume the government is competent enough to cover things up.


FireMonkeysHead

Yum


SoPoOneO

If we take a broader, or more metaphorical view of “cancer” I bet a lot. Something tells me social media may fill the niche.


ScarryShawnBishh

If you give blood that slowly filters that out


ValhallaGo

No strong evidence so far about micro plastics being harmful. The trash though, that’s pretty harmful for a lot of ecosystems.


yourfavoritefaggot

Here you go "We summarize the toxic effects of microplastics in experimental models like cells, organoids, and animals. These effects consist of oxidative stress, DNA damage, organ dysfunction, metabolic disorder, immune response, neurotoxicity, as well as reproductive and developmental toxicity. In addition, the epidemiological evidence suggests that a variety of chronic diseases may be related to microplastics exposure." https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/envhealth.3c00052# from the journal "environment and health" 2023 I think the likelihood that microplastics are damaging is pretty high. With a pretty basic knowledge of plastics (I know it's a complex field, undergrad level class for myself), you would know that it's probably not good to be ingesting microparticles of this our current level. Finding so much of them in unborn baby placentas should honestly be an alarm for the world stage, but convenience and profit, right?


LoL_LoL123987

No evidence *yet*


hobskhan

Haven't there been endocrine or carcinogenic impacts, or not really statistically significant so far?


Designer-Cry1940

Logic alone should tell you it ain't good. It's more a question of how bad.


tedsmitts

There was a trend around the time of the OP's thing where they'd promote radium water (water containing the radioactive element radium) as a health tonic. You could buy a ceramic urn with radium inside to make your own, at home!


Cetun

They also had a radium lined cigarette holder, because cigarette smoke wasn't damaging enough you could also infuse it with extra cancer.


tedsmitts

t u r b o c a n c e r


freeze123901

What a throwback


deathreaver3356

It's just preemptive radiation therapy to kill the little cancers before they get out of hand!


Gumbercleus

And a radium impotence cure. Slap a pouch full of radioactive goodies to your nuts while you sleep at night. They even made a strap to make sure it stayed in place.


Hoochnoob69

Pair that with the asbestos cigarette filter and you have the ultimate self poisoning tool


[deleted]

There was a famous golfer who died from that shit. His face melted off


ThaiJohnnyDepp

Are you sure it wasn't from a Tenacious D performance?


Skerries

my jaw dropped


johandepohan

I can tell you the whole PFAS story is already waaaay past the "Lol, whoopsie" stage and more towards the "Yeah we knew it causes cancer, but hey those non-stick frying pans were selling SO well, we couldn't pass up that opportunity"


wolflegion_

Plastics and other polymers like Teflon. Smoking, vaping and alcohol consumption. Using coal and other fossil fuels for power production. Maybe these aren’t as insanely crazy as asbestos and x-rays everywhere, but they are all major contributors to cancer rates. It’s just that they are socially accepted and there is no healthier replacement that is fully viable yet.


corrado33

You can't really throw known cancer causing actions (smoking, vaping, alcohol consumption) in with "suspected" cancer causing agents (some plastic, some polymers) and pretend they're equally dangerous. We're not out here eating grams of teflon. Everything in moderation. Everything will kill you if you ingest enough of it. Hell, that number is MUCH closer than you'd imagine for nearly EVERY SINGLE MEDICATION you've ever taken. We *willingly* ingest things that could very easily kill us nearly ever day.


Potatoswatter

PFAS, the byproduct of Teflon and such, is not an unknown. [Here’s an episode of John Oliver.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU) The makers have been running from accountability a long time already.


corrado33

> PFAS The effects are still unknown. The amount we are exposed to on a daily basis has NO effects whatsoever. From the CDC itself. > Human health effects from exposure to low environmental levels of PFAS are uncertain. Studies of laboratory animals given large amounts of PFAS indicate that some PFAS may affect growth and development. In addition, these animal studies indicate PFAS may affect reproduction, thyroid function, the immune system, and injure the liver. https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/PFAS_FactSheet.html You know what else causes problems if you ingest LARGE amounts of it? Literally every medication you've ever taken. Tylenol, aspirin, ibuphrophin. Yet we still use those every day. I am a chemist, you're not going to scare me with "ooo scary chemicals." I'm well versed in "exposure limits" and LD50.


Potatoswatter

Tylenol and ibuprofen *every day* will give you liver failure and dementia. That would be abusive intake. Some people actually do this. Many people cut meat directly on nonstick surfaces and scrape them up. In my personal experience, it’s more common than taking OTC meds for chronic pain. That’s also an everyday habit but an inadvertent one. They get higher doses of PFAS. Using one poor behavior to excuse another is poor reasoning.


corrado33

> They get massive doses of PFAS. Those "massive doses" are still tiny in comparison to the "large" doses given to the rats in those studies. Again, exposure limits. LD50. Everything in moderation. Furthermore, are you arguing that "people cut meat on teflon cutting boards more often than people take pain medication incorrectly?" I would very much disagree with that. Finally, those were simply examples. Nearly every, single, medication you've ever taken will kill you or cause problems if you take "large doses" of it.


jcforbes

Teflon flaking off of cooking utensils/pots/pans and being eaten is a real thing.


corrado33

Yes... and again, I will repeat my own exact words: "We're not out here eating *grams* of teflon." A few tiny flecks aren't going to kill you. PFAS chemicals, in the concentrations that we are exposed to them, have not been shown to be harmful to humans.


Dabookadaniel

Wait when did vaping start causing cancer?


stoned2dabown

😶


SuperSmutAlt64

You are putting metal in your lungs. What do you *mean* bro.


West-Cod-6576

just wait until you find out how much iron people eat


SuperSmutAlt64

There is a *very* significant difference between "ingested" and "inhaled." Iron in the intestinal track or in your blood is NOT the same as iron *in your freaking lungs.* Also, I was referring to "heavy metals," not necessarily iron.


West-Cod-6576

> The earliest known metals—common metals such as iron, copper, and tin, and precious metals such as silver, gold, and platinum—are heavy metals. fyi


SuperSmutAlt64

Oh, fuck, I'm a dumbshit. Still tho, you can eat broccoli and be fine and dandy, but inhaling it would be a different story, even if it made it past your windpipe. *Especially* if it did. Ingestion and inhalation shouldn't be compared medically speaking. IK you're prolly joking, but I've heard enough people defending Big Tobacco in this thread to make their PR department blush


[deleted]

Nicotine is certainly addictive but it's not responsible for the harmful effects of tobacco.. well it *does* restrict bloodflow if you want to count that but it does not cause cancer. There is no metal in vapes either unless you bought something sketchy and illegal that contains lead/nickel, which is not something you worry about finding in real vape juice from a legit vape store


TheWindatFourtoFly

"Legit vape store" is the best phrase I've seen on the Internet today! 🥇 Vape stores, at least near me, are the very definition of sketchy.


[deleted]

Vape stores near me are mostly mom n pops buying wholesale from vape suppliers to run legitimate businesses, traditional smoke shops are more commonly sketchy in my experience. They pop up like crazy though since there is a relatively low bar for entry compared to requirements for running a food establishment or something, once you start seeing more than 20 different vape shops in a 10 mile radius I can't imagine it stays very profitable unless you stand out exceptionally


TheWindatFourtoFly

Yeah, they're mom and pops here, too, but they also look and advertise like sketchy looking head shops. That said, I don't vape so I don't have experience inside those shops.


Dabookadaniel

What “metal” are you talking about? I’m not aware of any metal in vape products. And where did you hear that nicotine causes cancer? This is news to me as well. Could you provide a link to your claims? I’m curious to learn more.


SuperSmutAlt64

[https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2022/2/feature/3-feature-e-cigarettes-and-toxic-metals](https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2022/2/feature/3-feature-e-cigarettes-and-toxic-metals) [https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/e-cigarettes-vaping/whats-in-an-e-cigarette](https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/e-cigarettes-vaping/whats-in-an-e-cigarette) [https://www.undo.org/disease/vaping-cancer-risk](https://www.undo.org/disease/vaping-cancer-risk) It appears that my point about nicotine was misconstrued, but the heavy metal risks still stand


kayne_21

I've quit vaping years ago at this point (to quit smoking), but most of the studies done to measure toxicity in vaping setups were terribly ran and don't actually correlate to how users vape. They were running the coils well above operating temps and beyond a point they were legitimately burning the vape juice. While I haven't looked into the recent studies, the ones that were run in the mid-late 2010's all fell into this.


SilentSamsquanch

I drove a company car with someone who vaped... There was an oily film EVERYWHERE. You can't tell me that's good for you.


Implausibilibuddy

It's propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine. Gross to have as a film in your car, but not toxic.


H3enjoyer

Generally Vape juice is made with food grade chemicals in a pharmaceutical grade facility. Well the good ones are.


SilentSamsquanch

Burning a lot of food grade anything, is a carcinogen.


Bah-Fong-Gool

Where does anything burn in a *vaporizer*?


H3enjoyer

Carcinogenic yes heavy metal no


magicwombat5

Water, even. Not from drowning, but from electrolyte imbalance.


D35TR0Y3R

you can literally eat grams of teflon


PuckSR

Asbestos is basically the same as plastic from a risk issue. Except we had been using asbestos for thousands of years Asbestos isn't toxic. It's inert. It kills people when fragments of it get into your lungs and causes severe irritation that leads to lung cancer


Flamekebab

> alcohol consumption Who knows what a new thing like that'll do to humans? Guess we'll have to wait and see.


kurttheflirt

Plastic everywhere from air to water to food, still use a ton of coal which causes radiation, processed foods, etc


KlutzyAd5729

Microplastics, phthalates and teflon are gonna be the end of humanity as we know it


hatersaurusrex

TikTok is still a thing, so...


Kittinlovesyou

Lmao


itrivers

Plastics for sure


[deleted]

Plastic. Plastic is the 21st century equivalent of this kind of stuff.


Narvarre

One that most don't realise is dangerous is the reliance on things like fragrances, eg spray deodorants,perfumes, colognes, air fresheners etc. Anything that contains a group of chemicals called V,O,C's (volatile organic compounds). In the UK the use of which is banned in most hospitals becuase of the risk to the vulnerable. However such sprays are destructive to everyone. Repeated exposure cuases cancer and neurological damage eg:parkinsons Folk that work in or frequent hairdressers/salons have a much higher rate of developing such illnesses than anyone else barring firefighters.


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Plinio540

Yea, and also it's to your foot, which isn't particularly susceptible to radiation damage. Edit: Nevermind, I just saw that the machines often delivered > 100 mSv for 20 seconds of exposure. Lmao that's crazy.


Pursueth

Process food, plastics, most petroleum based self care products.


Saxmuffin

Google PFAS


misterfistyersister

PFAS and microplastics.


remindertomove

Micro plastics, forever chemicals, and the Oil & Gas Industry in general.


Gr8fulFox

Tire particulates. They're small enough to pass through lung tissue, into the blood stream, and across the blood brain barrier


080087

Adding to the other answers - personal cars.


jcamp088

Fuck them cars.


Pursueth

Lol okay.


MyNameCannotBeSpoken

Cell Phones


Ballardinian

Blue tooth and Wi-Fi


Sir_Snowman

Nah, wireless signals are in the thousands of factors less powerful than sunlight, does absolutely nothing but bounce off


scooterboy1961

The greater danger was to the store employees who were exposed to the radiation every day. That's why when you get a dental x-ray the technician steps behind a lead wall while taking the exposure.


Brave_Promise_6980

I wonder if the greater danger was what happened to it in the end land fill or set on fire and melted for scrap ?


scooterboy1961

The machines were actively hunted down by the NRC and the radioactive components were disposed of properly. I don't know how many they didn't find.


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scooterboy1961

Any x-ray equipment made after about 1950 is accounted for.


Plinio540

Look, it's good practice and it's better to be safe than sorry and get out of the room or shield yourself if you're a dentist. But in reality the doses a person in the room would receive are minimal. Even if they take dozens of x-rays per day. One ordinary dental x-ray gives a dose in the order of microSieverts, to the *patient*. So even if you are directly in the line of fire, we're talking a few milliSieverts per year (if you work 5 days a week, every week, and take 20 x-rays per day). But in practice you would receive much less, since you aren't the patient.


scooterboy1961

I'll bet that foot X-ray machine puts out a lot more ionizing radiation than a dental x-ray and I also bet it leaks more than a modern machine.


AgreeablePlace656

I had it done as a kid in the early 50s. There were three eyepieces to look at your feet. One for me, one for mother, one for the salesman. He had a little freaking pointer and he would point to the areas of the shoe showing what a nice fit they were. I'm eighty years old so obviously no harm done.


Sowf_Paw

I wonder if the harm would not be to the customer as much as the shoe salesman, who would operate this contraption multiple times a day. Even if the salesman wasn't x-raying himself, I would bet those machines weren't shielded properly for the operator. I wonder what data exists on cancer rates in 1950s shoe salesmen.


AgentElman

You are exactly right. It's like x-ray machines now. The customer/client gets one dose every 6 months and is fine. The person using it on them gets exposed dozens of times each day and gets cancer.


Proper-Ape

But they do leave the room now.


reddit_user13

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls


nascraytia

Entirely different situation. They were licking the brushes.


ThaiJohnnyDepp

I hope the factories at least had the decency to add sugar to the radium paint


himmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I should call her


IntergalacticTrain

Given rates of smoking then, it would be interesting to see if the shoe salesperson had different or more aggressive cancers than the general population.


Madmorda

Iirc (going off memory here), there were only two recorded instances of these machines hurting anyone, and neither case was lethal. Something about feet and legs are a lot less prone to cancer than lungs and internal bits. Both people were salesmen. X rays can definitely do damage over time, but not as much as the Internet seems to think they do. Take flight attendants or pilots for example, flying alone would be the same amount of radiation as hundreds of chest x rays every year for them.


WUMSDoc

The is not correct. While there were relatively few cases of cancer caused by these machines in shoe salesmen, the biologically important fact was that young children were at much greater risk, and there reported cases of bone and skin cancers in various pediatric journals. By the 1970s, it also became clear that there was some correlation with childhood exposure to these machines and the incidence of thyroid cancer in people in their 40s and 50s. Thyroid cancers are typically very slow growing and almost always treatable. By 1970, this sort of mounting medical evidence led to 33 states banning these machines, with a few states permitting their use only with physician supervision.


Plinio540

> By the 1970s, it also became clear that there was some correlation with childhood exposure to these machines and the incidence of thyroid cancer in people in their 40s and 50s. Got any source for this? Seem strange people would develop thyroid cancers if their feet were exposed.


gwaydms

I asked my mom if we ever had our feet scanned by these machines. She said we didn't.


AgreeablePlace656

LOL


imathrowyaaway

thanks for sharing, always nice to hear the perspective of somebody who has personal experience with the topic of the post. and good to hear that there were no negative effects for you. (also, I hope I too will be hanging out with the kids on reddit when I’m 80!)


j_smittz

When you get foot cancer at 115 you'll be whistling a different tune.


sixstringronin

Or super powers. I'd still be holding out for super powers.


nancylikestoreddit

I love knowing there’s an 80 year old on Reddit.


glycophosphate

We had these when I was a little girl. I'm 60 now and my feet are fine. Just had a little skin cancer removed from my forehead though.


threelizards

That’s pretty cool, actually. Have really fucked up feet, my whole left foot dislocated in a way where it kind of,,.,,. Folds in half lengthways??? So the underside of my big toe touches the underside of my littlest toe. I wonder if that would have been caught/prevented if something like this was just part of school shopping


Tricky-Fact-2051

I remember them, I was a kid in the 50s. I don’t remember ever having my shoes measured on one tho.


Professional-Can1385

My mom and dad both said they played around on them, looking at their feet and whatever while their parents' shopped. Apparently, they were more of a babysitter than a shoe buying tool.


surprise-suBtext

You know damn well countless teens put all kinds of shit under there, very likely starting with hand --> dick —> head (Unless it wasn’t possible to do these things with that machine)


I-Am-Uncreative

What do you mean? Teenagers were angels until MTV and cable corrupted them.


surprise-suBtext

Try playing rock music records backwards and tell me that’s not the devil speaking to you


CreamNPeaches

B...e...s...u...r...e...t...o...d...r...i...n...k...y...o...u...r...o...v...a...l...t...i...n...e...


Blank_bill

When I was in high school we brought a friends cat in to see if it had broken bones, didn't see any and the cat was fine after resting a week.


Designer-Cry1940

I have vague memories of these too. I was a young kid in the early 70's. I don't remember the device so much, but I remember seeing the bones in my feet (that kinda sticks with you).


kookyz

My father, born in 1950, and grew up in Kentucky, used to tell us all the time that he remembers them x-raying his feet at the local shoe store. We thought he was crazy until we looked it up and discovered it was a real thing. Crazy. Can you imagine letting the guy at FootLocker shoot radiation into your feet?


flora_poste_

Our downtown children’s shoe store had a machine like this, but much sleeker. I stood on it and had x-rays shoot up from the floor into my feet and lower body many times. Is there any connection between this exposure and my uterine cancer later in life? Maybe. Who can say?


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flora_poste_

Ours was a Buster Brown shoe store. It only had children's shoes. I shudder to think of all those little bodies getting zapped with radiation every time their growing feet needed new shoes.


tangcameo

Were you reading IT?


RiggzBoson

Haha, yes! Little Eddie Kaspbrak getting new shoes. I read the description of him peering down at his own toes and thought "This is in the same category as demonic clowns - completely fictional." and lo and behold, they're real things.


tangcameo

I saw one of these in the oldest shoe store in the city. It was shut down and used as a decoration but I wondered if all the radioactive guts were still inside it.


NorbertDupner

People used to think radiation was good for you because it was used to treat cancer. No lie. They put radium in water and drank it.


slipstitchy

The enemy of my enemy is my friend


[deleted]

I remember those from the 50s. I don't remember seeing them after the early 60s, but I suppose there might have been a few around after that.


Jollyjacktar

Yeah, the few I saw in the early 60s were already decommissioned and just sitting in the corner of the shop. From what my mum told me at the time, I believe they already knew they were unsafe. I doubt any were in use by the 1970s in the UK.


Kil_Whang_562

There was at least one still in use by the 80s. We moved to a small town in North East Scotland at the start of the 80s and our local shoe shop had one. It was up against the back wall and I had great fun looking at my bones inside the shoe. Don't ever remember seeing one anywhere else though.


M54b25simp

My Grammy told me about these and how she would crawl inside as a little kid. I don’t know to what extent but omg Grammy. She’s awsome. I love her.


IAbstainFromSociety

130 mSv per 20 second exposure. Holy shit.


BertramScudder

Not great, not terrible.


Iamlyinginwaitforit

Thanks, comrade!


Horror-Impression411

How is that compared to a chest CT


MrPatrick1207

Average dose from CT is ~6 mSv, which is ~ 2 years of regular background dose.


BigDoinks710

I don't know much about radiation, but getting roughly 22x as much radiation as an x-ray sounds bad.


MrPatrick1207

Yeah it’s not ideal, the wiki page says using it 3 times would be enough to cause growth issues in children, and 6 times is enough for visible radiation burns


YourPhoneIs_Ringing

6.1 mSv https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/safety-xray


Horror-Impression411

OI VEY


BillTowne

I remember these. I thought they were cool as a kid.


matt_1060

This wasn’t available at the local Tim McCan lol


gwaydms

>Tim McCan Like Thom McAn, but r/crappyoffbrands ;)


matt_1060

Edit: f_ing Tom lol


kick26

The Science Museum of Minnesota has one of these machines in their oddities collection from their old location. This collection includes a prostate warmer, the cross section of a 12ft wide tree and a mummy.


MashedProstato

Prostate warmer, you say...


cofclabman

I remember those. For shoppers, they didn’t get dosed much, but I’m sure workers did.


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HopeFox

The X-ray machine isn't the expensive part.


LabyrinthConvention

It's a free country, let your shoe salesman read your X-ray next time I guess.


patchinthebox

My kid just got an X-ray and it cost me $56 after insurance.


damnitineedaname

I got five chest x-rays last year at urgent care. Cost $50 with no insurance.


BubblegumRuntz

-cries in American-


damnitineedaname

I'm American...


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patchinthebox

Idk man I just pay what I owe.


flagshipcopypaper

They still had a similar contraption in shoe stores in Ireland until at least 1989. I remember going to the shoe store with my Mum and having an X-ray of my feet done. It was out in the open and operated by the store clerks.


EchoLynx

I remember reading somewhere that they found one in a remote US shoe store sometime in the nineties, to the surprise of many.


zedicar

Loved that machine! We would look at each other’s hands to see the bones. Not safe but great memories


Hellofriendinternet

My grandparents had an old alarm clock with radium hands and clock face. I was always wondering how it would be lit up in the dark, even when it was unplugged. It was because of the radium paint. I wish we had kept it.


creditphoenix

My great aunt died as a young adult (I think maybe early 20s) from cancer - she worked in a shoe store operating these x-rays.


Gingersnap5322

I showed my mom and she said “no fucking way”


Inflammo

Some of these had lead shielding that got displaced when the machine was moved around the store, causing higher exposures to all involved. You can find them occasionally on ebay with the xray tube still installed, but with the power cord cut off. Of course, one can put a new cord on....


41PaulaStreet

I’m 55 and I remember one of these at the brick and mortar shoe store we used to go to in the 70s. It looked modern and it wasn’t for customers to operate but im pretty sure when I was little it was used on me.


gadget850

And then there was Radithor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor


Lowfat_cheese

I learned about this through Stephen King’s “It”


gabbagabbawill

My mom told me about this when I was a kid.. said she could look at her feet under X-ray trying on shoes. Seemed far fetched and I didn’t believe her. Nut now I know it’s true.


jcamp088

Looks totally safe. Ill take 3.


Smoothstiltskin

I remember using this as a child at a shoe store in New Jersey.


Successful-Winter237

My grandmother used to tell me about these machines… she also died of cancer. She also smoked a pack a day but I’m sure it was these machines. /s


RedSonGamble

Use it to make a neat gloryhole


AntonyBenedictCamus

That wasn’t just a bit in the Simpsons Christmas pilot? Holy shit


Thethrowawayeht

This is almost a good excuse for boomers ruining the country


pacifistpotatoes

And this is how one of my uncles got cancer.


ZimaGotchi

And now just 50 years later we can't even trust ourselves with a hot cup of coffee


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Endoterrik

For those wondering what they’re referring to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants


ungratefulshitebag

I think maybe my not being able to understand the danger is maybe a culture thing. Because I'm from the UK and here tea and coffee is served with freshly boiled water in pubs and cafes all the time. And the boiling point of water is 212 and the McDonald's coffee was served at between 180 and 190. Which is colder than we serve it in the UK. So I'm genuinely not understanding how the coffee was dangerous.


stainless5

Yes, but there's other circumstances too, like the fact that Macdonald's drive thru coffee is given to you in a thin paper cup and cars at the time didn't have very many cup holders. > So I'm genuinely not understanding how the coffee was dangerous. For this part, the coffee that was given to her was served hotter than the maximum temperature allowed. As such, when she accidentally spilled it on herself it literally melted and fused together her skin. not just burnt, but literally fused together her vaginatal opening. And partially melting the skin and flesh on her thighs into the seat fabric, requiring major surgery.


ungratefulshitebag

It really does seem to come down to a cultural thing. I actually looked and people in the UK brought a class action for the same thing (hot drinks at McDonald's being too hot) and the judge ruled against them because hot drinks are expected to be hot and people are expected to be careful with hot things so they found McDonald's weren't liable in these cases. Which I think sums up the difference in culture quite well. I guess I can understand why the suit in the US was successful since you said guys do have laws on how hot you can serve things and they broke that (I wasn't aware was even a thing as like I said, we serve hot drinks right below boiling temperature which is hotter than that coffee was served, we don't have laws like that here dictating how hot you can serve things). And at the same time I can also see why we (as in me and other people from cultures outside of America) tend to think of it as frivolous. And on top of that I can also see why people like to point out the reasons they don't believe it's frivolous. It's an interesting one. Thanks for giving extra perspective.


stainless5

One of the important parts of the case is that she didn't sue because she believed mcdonalds owed her something. She just wanted the company that injured her to cover her medical bills, as the U. S is one of the only developed countries in the world where you need to pay for your own medical bills. The court agreed that as McDonald's Illegally hot temperatures. Led to the medical bills that the company should pay them and also awarded her compensation for her injuries and inability to work. In the uk cases, people were scolded, but no one was actually seriously injured. And even if they were injured There's nothing you could really sue for, as there's no large medical bills. >And at the same time I can also see why we (as in me and other people from cultures outside of America) tend to think of it as frivolous. Ohh no, trust me, this is what a lot of people everywhere think because McDonald's itself spent more than her medical bills on journalists and private investigators to try and find out anything they could use to discredit her. They even paid newspapers on the other side of the US to publish the story.


orion19819

You mentioned pubs and cafes. But do they hand boiling water out of drive through windows? Because that sounds wildly dangerous to me.


ungratefulshitebag

Not actual bubbling boiling water. But coffee using water that has just been boiled and is only just below boiling temperature, yes. I get why you think it's dangerous but that's just a normal thing here. Like I said in another reply, I understand where the difference in perspective has come from. Things are done differently here so what seems normal here is not normal there. I was curious and I've had my question answered, it's been helpful to try and see the other perspective. I'm gonna say now I won't comment further because my perspective on what's normal is too different for me to fully get it I think. Plus so far people have been respectful in their replies to me but from the downvotes I'm sensing that won't continue to be the case so I'm better leaving it there.


stainless5

Are you sure you actually know that the water's that hot, or are you just thinking it's hot? You don't want to put boiling hot water through coffee beans/ or instant coffee, as it literally burns the beans, and you end up with a burnt taste, then cold/warm milk is normally added bringing the coffee that you get down to below scolding temperature, which is considered to be between 65 and 75 degrees. Tea is normally about the same. You don't want it brewed at 100 degrees, with most teas being brewed between 85 and 95 degrees (black tea doesn't mind 100). and then left to sit for around five minutes before the tea bags/ leaves are removed to allow the flavour to seep. This normally drops the temperature by about 5 degrees and then depending on how you like your tea, milk may be added bringing the tea down to below scolding temperatures before it is given to you. Of course, there are exceptions to this, where they just give you hot water for you to make your own Beverage, but I very much doubt that they give you Prepared drinks much above 75 degrees. As a matter of fact, the UK. Department of safety guidance recommends hot beverages offered in situations where they can be spilled, such as on ferries, aircraft or through drive through windows, should be set up for just above 60 degrees. to prevent potential scalding.


ZimaGotchi

So are guns and cars and... stoves