VOCs in paint

We needed to have our apartment painted and insisted on low-VOC paints. The contractor screwed up twice (hmmmm) and just used whatever crap he had that was lying around. The landlord tried to tell us that after speaking with the people at the paint store, that after 30 days, it's all offgassed anyway, no biggie.

We did a little research on our own and found that VOCs are terrible and persistent - and can offgas for years. We are gently insisting that the stuff be repainted (it will need primer in some places) even though it will undoubtedly annoy people. Apparently VOCs are so bad, you shouldn't even store your paint where there are humans.

Also, watch out for VOCs in your floor sealer!

From the EPA: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/voc.html

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Deaths tied to YAZ birth control pills:

This is pretty unnerving;

OTTAWA, Ontario — Health Canada records indicate that at least 23 deaths and 600 adverse reactions have been reported among women taking the birth-control pills (BCPs) Yaz and Yasmin (Bayer) in that country.

News of the reports was first reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and has been widely picked up by Canadian media [1].

Adverse-reactions reports, reviewed by heartwire , show that a total of 333 distinct cases, including 15 deaths, were collected for Yasmin and 267 for Yaz, including eight deaths.

The Health Canada database includes adverse reports collected between 2007 and February 28, 2013.

The most common categories of adverse reports for both products are nervous system, vascular, and respiratory/thoracic/mediastinal disorders, but cardiac disorders were not infrequently listed. For Yasmin, cardiac disorders are listed as the primary system organ class in 4.1% of cases; for Yaz, that number was 6.6%.

read more here: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/806286?nlid=31735_1441&src=wnl_edit_medn_obgy&uac=98206PV&spon=16

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