When doctors find the blood in urine (not always checked for) they often dismiss it or think it is something else going on; as it does not match what they are seeing in the blood work. This is a significant part of those with severe exposure.

Worst exposure is vapors in the eyes and through the cuticle area. They are testing for dermal or respiratory or ingestion exposures. They do seem to find harm, though. www.valdezlink.com/inipol/pages/2-butoxy_msds.htm 

I have noticed from the Exxon Valdez oil spill workers I've talked with that diabetes seems to show up early on; with a severe exposure look for spikes of 500-700 glucose counts. I notice that several have come down with NHL, CLL ...  arthritis, lots of things.
what
  

What happened to those who worked in the Otter Recovery center?

Even those who worked just with the otter recovery! ETC

One lady had all the classic symptoms valdezlink.com/evos/eyes.htm#eyes  Robin eventually had her spleen and pancreas removed. I haven't heard from her for quite some time, so most probably she has died. Her child was born with a serious heart malformity.  She worked in the Seward seal recovery center & secondarily received some of the otters from the Valdez recovery center.  "They did not survive," she said.  "They were too badly damaged."

Others have bones that do not heal

A goodly number of these autoimmune issues should be suspect for this chemical's harm
www.valdezlink.com/pages/autoimmune.htm  especially the thick dark blood autoimmune issue.

I suspect that if you look at the soft tissue sarcomas as a group they are not all that rare. http://home.gci.net/~blessing/pages/allthatrare.htm Since I do suspect this chemical for a lot of things, and others just blame one of its side effects as the 'cause of illness - death' What are the prospects that medical science is going to look in the direction of 2-butoxyethanol for the root cause?

We have a young woman who worked in the Sea Otter recovery and then in an office - a non smoker who has come down with non small cell carcinoma in the lungs and bronchial tubes. So, from my perspective, I would say that even though DAWN is only an ethanol Oxygen-Hydrogen ... that there was a great deal of it used continuously in a small area. That these vapors were constantly getting in the eyes of workers. Later she worked in an office. If it was a small office, and workers with strong exposure were coming in to get their pay checks, there would be a build up of this chemical in the room also.

There is a very strong second hand solvent exposure possible for 2-butoxyethanol. The gulf war vets many times share, "Why is it that our spouses and the children born before we were deployed have come down with the 'syndrome' also?

CFIDS would be the core issue for those with too much direct exposure. When doctors know what the fatigue is, they will find the common denominator for this chemical's harm (Would not apply, though, for singular birth defects)

I have a hypothesis that is worthy of being 'checked out' I wouldn't have come to the conclusions I have if I hadn't spent so much time these past 4 years looking into it. It is true that my theories are based on anecdotal stories of multiple people. However, I suspect that it is also true that even with the most accurate diagnosis of everything this chemical can do ... immature red blood cells, blood in urine, headaches, CNS depression ... hormones out of whack ... that most probably it couldn't be worked backwards to this chemical exposure.

What do you think?

e-mail  12-22-05