ARTICLES IN JOURNALS AND PUBLICATIONS ON MBT CONTAMINATION FROM MEDICAL RUBBER

MBT is a necessary vulcanization catalyst in the manufacture of natural rubber used worldwide for syringe plunger seals, pharmaceutical ampoule seals, unit-dose syringes or cartridges and in 3 parts of IV infusion sets. These articles reveal that, as an injection contaminant, it becomes bound to plasma proteins and thus forms an IgE allergen and a cumulative toxin. In April 2013, the WHO’s International Drug Reaction Monitoring Centre, in a review of “The Nurses are Innocent,” stated that this “important book”….. “reveals the systemic failure of government health protection agencies to protect citizens from a known allergenic and toxic chemical, MBT, a worldwide contaminant of injections for 30 years, with medical journals aiding and abetting the process by refusing to publish informative articles on public health issues related to MBT contamination.”

Adverse reactions to intravenous pyelography contrast agents

Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1983 Sep 1; 129 (5):405–406

Health Canada’s Bureau of Medical Devices tested a number of my BD Plastipak syringes, rubber parts of which were suspected of causing a cluster of allergic reactions (including life-threatening anaphylaxis).  Dr. Pierre Blais, the Bureau’s expert on rubber and plastics, reported (by phone, only) that all syringes contaminated syringe contents with “a  phenolic compound,” an unusually vague result from a state-of-the art health protection analytical laboratory.  When I phoned the editor of the CMAJ about this cluster of reactions and the rubber contamination, he suggested that I submit a report as a letter. It was published in the September 1, 1983, issue of the CMAJ.

Contamination of contrast agents by rubber components of 50 ml disposable plastic syringes

Radiology (1984), Volume 152, pages 539-540.

Dr. Harry Fisher, an editor of Radiology and a world expert on contrast media reactions, having read the CMAJ article (2, above) asked me to write a similar report for Radiology, for which he would write an accompanying commentary. To his dismay, Dr. Fisher later had to phone me to reveal that Radiology’s editorial board rejected the article. I then contacted the Bureau of Medical Devices, demanding the chemical name of the “phenolic compound”  rhat contaminated my injections.  Dr. Pierre Blais, the biochemist in charge of medical plastics and rubber analysis, confessed that their analysis had found 8 different chemical compounds leaching into the contents of the syringes, three being MBT (mercapto-benzothiazole) compounds. Research revealed MBT was allergenic and toxic, especially intravenously.  Contacting Dr. Fisher with this new information, he asked me to revise the article, send it to his office and he “would attend to this submission, personally!”  Dr. Fisher’s Commentary accompanied this Radiology article. A very troubling question remains: why did  Health Canada’s Bureau of Medical Devices withhold this vital MBT information, putting lives at risk worldwide with any injection using disposable plastic syringes?

Contamination of contrast agent by MBT in rubber seals

Canadian Medical Assocation Journal (1987); Volume 136: pages 1020-1021.

In 1983, I substituted MBT-free all-plastic Danish Pharmaplast syringes and, later, Japanese Terumo syringes, which used a safe new synthetic rubber as plunger seals.  Despite these precautions, another cluster of allergic reactions (including anaphylaxis) occurred (1987), Samples of the radiopaque contrast agent tested positive for MBT in 3 different Canadian government laboratories, the MBT leaching from the natural rubber ampoule seals.  Note that, although all natural rubber is made using latex, it was only when  MBT was identified, that the clusters of allergic reactions occurred on two separate occasions in one small private radiology office. Thus, the major allergen in natural rubber must be MBT, not latex. In spite of a worldwide potentially lethal hazard of MBT contamination of injections by natural rubber seals in disposable syringes and ampoules, these are the only 2 reports of MBT-related allergic injection reactions in the world medical literature.  In all other cases of MBT reactions, the anaphylaxis and the deaths were falsely attributed to allergy to the immunization vaccine, the insulin, the dentist’s local anesthetic, etc.

Medical Rubber Anaphylaxis

The Lancet, Volume 336, Issue 8728, Pages 1453 - 1454, December 8, 1990

This article warns Lancet readers of the continued MBT contamination of medical rubber in contact with injections. Plasma-protein-binding creates  a hapten-protein IgE allergen that causes a foreign protein anaphylaxis (similar to shellfish allergy).  Natural rubber in disposable syringes, ampoule seals and IV administration sets caused potentially toxic MBT levels in 91 Hammersmith Hospital babies. The significant reduction in serious reactions to radiopaque contrast agents for IVP injections in Japan, with a new expensive non-ionic variety is linked to Japanese syringes and ampoule seals being made from non-toxic, non-allergenic synthetic rubber, whereas inexpensive ionic contrast agents in North America were exposed to MBT in the natural rubber seals of syringes and pharmaceutical ampoules. This article’s prediction that, when synthetic rubber replaced natural rubber for medical injection contact, the reactions to non-ionic and ionic contrast agents might become similar, was later proven true;  after 1990, using FDA statistics, Lasser, Radiology, 1997, revealed that the incidence of serious side effects was identical with inexpensive ionic high-osmolar radiopaque contrast agents and the much more expensive non-ionic low-osmolar agents. Suppression of, and/or ignoring, this vital healthcare-cost information has resulted in the continued widespread use of the newer expensive non-ionic low-osmolar radiographic contrast agents.

The Nurses Are Innocent - COVER STORY

Canadian Nurse, December 1993

The Canadian Nurse, the official journal of the Canadian Nurses Association, has a long history of exploring issues of importance to their profession. In December 1993, Editor-in-chief Heather Broughton recognized the importance of Gavin Hamilton's research into the digoxin fallacy poisoning and not only included his 6-page article as the cover story, but also devoted her editorial page completely to highlighting the importance of this work to the nursing profession.

Controversy Over Ionic And Nonionic Radiopaque Contrast Media

Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, 1994, Vol. 15: 539-540

A large Japanese study (Katayama Radiology 1990), reported that a new nonionic (low osmolar) iodinated arteriographic contrast agent had significantly fewer serious side effects than  the much cheaper ionics in use around the world, resulting in a large  annual increase in healthcare costs in a safety-related shift to the expensive nonionics. However, the Katayama study was fatally flawed because Japan, uniquely in the world, used an inert synthetic rubber for disposable syringe plunger-seals and for all pharmaceutical ampoule seals (including nonionic ampoules). The older, much cheaper ionics were sealed with natural rubber, known to contaminate ionics with MBT (mercapto-benzothiazole), a rubber-manufacturing catalyst, which binds to plasma proteins, creating a foreign protein  allergen, capable of producing potentially lethal IgE-mediated anaphylaxis. Lasser (Radiology 1997) used FDA statistics that showed that, after 1990 (when the USA had converted to inert MBT-free synthetic rubber for syringe and ampoule seals), serious reactions to ionic and the expensive nonionics were similar. 

Control of Medical Journal Content

Chapter 8: The Nurses are Innocent – The Digoxin Poisoning Fallacy, Dundurn Press, 2011

The pharmaceutical industry, through its financial power and vigorous lobbying, exerts control over academic medical specialists, university professors, and the reviewers, and editors  of medical journals. They can thus control medical journal content.  The pharmaceutical industry is alerted to the content of journal articles at the time of submission, allowing it to block publication if the articles have content unfavourable to drug marketing.  Articles describing adverse effects of pharmaceuticals are difficult – even impossible at times – to get published; this is a factor allowing the known hazard of MBT in medical rubber of syringes, ampoule seals and IV injection sets to persist for over thirty years (WHO’s Drug Monitoring Centre, Uppsala Reports, April 2013).

An Expensive New X-ray Dye, Shown by Statistics to Reduce Serious Side Effects

Chapter 9: The Nurses are Innocent – The Digoxin Poisoning Fallacy, Dundurn Press, 2011

This describes in detail how a biased study (Katayama, Radiology 1997) falsely showed a new urographic-angiographic class of non-ionic radiopaque contrast agents was much safer than the older much less expensive ionic contrast agents. This resulted in a worldwide shift to new expensive non-ionics, adding much cost to world healthcare costs. However, the injected ionics were in contact with natural rubber, whereas non-ionics were not. MBT leaching from natural rubber parts of X-ray dye syringes and ampoules are a known cause of IgE anaphylaxis. FDA statistics showed that, after 1990, ionics and non-ionics had similar incidences of severe reactions.

OTHER ARTICLES ON MBT CONTAMINATION FROM MEDICAL RUBBER

The Lucia de Berk Miscarriage of Justice in The Netherlands

2011

"After the 2011 book, "The Nurses are Innocent” went to press, a similar miscarriage of justice, regarding murder by digoxin poisoning (based on autopsy blood digoxin readings, bad statistical analysis and purely circumstantial evidence), was uncovered in the Netherlands.  Nurse Lucia de Berk had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. I informed a group of academic Dutch citizens, who had fought vigorously to have the conviction overturned, that the arguments cited in ”The Nurses are Innocent” would apply to the false digoxin poisoning in the de Berk case.  Lucia de Berk was released after spending six years in prison – and after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke and paralysis after her sentence was pronounced by the judge."

"Just who's calling the shots" comment, London Free Press

January 31, 2012

Immunizations, using disposable unit-dose syringes and /or ampoules with natural rubber seals, leach MBT, a rubber manufacturing catalyst that risks deadly IgE allergic reactions. Health protection agencies have known of the MBT-contamination danger for 30 years (WHO’s Uppsala Reports April 2013) but, because of drug company lobbying, refuse to ban pharmaceutical uses of MBT-rubber (Google “Latex in vaccine packaging, FDA”; MBT is present whenever latex is present). Japan’s syringes and ampoule seals had been free from MBT since 1985 (by using synthetic rubber).  Somehow, in 2011, Sanofi-Pasteur ActHIB vaccine was imported, resulting in 4 baby vaccination deaths (from “a contaminant”); Sinofi-Pasteur ActHIB vaccine was on the FDA  list of vaccines with MBT-rubber (“latex”) packaging.

LawNow.org "Letter to the Editor"

March 1, 2013

A new analysis of the 1980-81 epidemic of baby deaths at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children proved that there was no murder by digoxin poisoning, as was generally believed. “The Nurses are Innocent – The Digoxin Poisoning Fallacy” (Dundurn 2011), revealed that a natural rubber contaminant of injections, MBT, from rubber parts of syringes, drug ampoules and IV administration sets, was allergenic, and a cumulative toxin, to which children were particularly susceptible. MBT compounds reached “potentially toxic” levels in 91 Hammersmith Hospital babies  at the time of the Toronto baby deaths. MBT was being falsely measured as digoxin by the two Toronto Hospital for Sick Children digoxin testing methods – the RIA and the highly-touted HPLC test. Since there was no digoxin poisoning, there were no murders. Rubber’s MBT was the baby killer (McLeans Magazine 2011).

Medical Rubber Anaphylaxis II

January 26, 2016 - Submitted to The Lancet

This article was to inform Lancet readers about the  worldwide continued use of natural rubber seals in syringes and drug ampoules, despite the 1990 Lancet warning that it caused IgE-mediated MBT allergic reactions and deaths; this scenario also involved IgE allergic reactions to local anesthetics, immunization vaccines, insulin and any injection with natural rubber contact. Despite this new information of a continuing worldwide potentially lethal medical hazard, the Lancet failed to publish it, a 30-year problem with articles on MBT contamination of injections (WHO’s Uppsala Reports, April 2013).

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

EARLY ARTICLE ON ULTRASONIC ARTERIAL STANDING WAVES

Echogenic blood during slow flow

Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, 1994, Vol. 45: 487

This short publication is very significant because it shows a direct link between transverse resonating megaHertz diagnostic ultrasound standing waves, that are entrapped and are propagated longitudinally in an artery and the exactly similar flow-induced arteriographic standing waves.

The high reflectivity of ultrasound in a megaHz diagnostic ultrasound beam causes disc-shaped erythrocytes to flip to become perpendicular to the sound beam, thus making slow blood flow visible on real-time ultrasound. The reflectivity creates standing waves often and causes transverse entrapment of ultrasound in arteries, with transverse standing waves with wavelengths of twice the diameter. Longitudinal focussing of the entrapped standing waves creates simple harmonic sonographic arterial standing waves, identical in appearance and in physics to arteriographic standing waves. This evidence and reasoning fortifies the theory that resonating transverse sound energy is the cause of the phenomenon of transition to turbulence in cylinders, as discussed in “Revolution in Candy Cane Spin – Turbulent Transverse Flows in Tubes.”

A simple method of producing diagnostic copies from over-exposed radiographs

Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, Volume 42, number 3, June 1991; 216-218. 

Diagnostic film images are created from very over-exposed radiographic images by sandwiching the over-exposed radiograph between a totally black film and an unexposed film and placing them in a cassette. With a low radiation dose, the blackened film masks one fluorescent screen while the other screen transfers the over-exposed radiograph's image onto the unexposed film.

Zero-Added-Dose Gastrointestinal Film Studies

Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, 1989, Vol. 40: 203-205

This is an important article because it reveals  how the use of a medium format camera (Rolleiflex initially, then, later, Mamiya) to create diagnostic-quality hard copy negative transparencies (standard black-and-white 120 film) of the fluoroscopic image on a high-resolution video monitor, avoided the use of radiographs (the universal custom, with far higher x-ray doses). I used this analog technique for a decade. Currently, fluoroscopic imaging and radiographic imaging go one step further along this line by using computerized digital imaging for fluoroscopy and radiography. The medium format camera technique recorded my diagnostic ultrasound images as transparencies.

ABSTRACT: A technique is described to produce diagnostic quality 70 mm x 60 mm films of upper GI fluoroscopy of the video-displayed image on a “slave” monitor, obtained at a dose of 0.01 milligray (1 millirad) for a 20 cm water equivalent phantom. Because the photograph is the same image already being observed, the films require no added dose over that needed for an adequate fluoroscopic examination. Diagnostic films may be made from the replay of a video-cassette recorder. With exposure times of 1/30th of a second, movement blur is easily prevented.

Hypotension During Urography in Patients Taking Beta Blockers

Canadian Medical Association Journal Vol. 133, November 1985

In a three month period, two patients who were taking beta-adrenergic blocking agents suffered severe anaphylactic reactions following intravenous X-ray contrast agent injections. Research revealed that beta blockers should predispose to anaphylaxis, so I reported this in the CMAJ. Two letters criticized my reasoning, allowing me to respond in the CMAJ with even stronger arguments for physiological causes for this effect.  This second publication is cited in William’s Textbook of Endocrinology under a discussion on anaphylaxis. Beta blockers continue to be in common use worldwide. 

Book review: Pattern in Fluid Flow Paradoxes. Variations on a Theme.

By H. Richard Hooper, Ph.D.
Journal of The Canadian Association of Radiologists, Volume 33, March 1982; 56-57

Dr. Hamilton’s explanations of the arteriographic standing waves phenomenon, as well as a number of "everyday and not-so-everyday phenomena” such as, natural water (shear) wave formation, epidermal standing waves along the bodies of dolphins swimming at high speed, and the flaring (transition to turbulence) of laboratory burner gas jets, are reviewed by Dr. (PhD) Hooper, who noted that the terminology and reasoning are easily understood, also emphasizing that, unlike discussions of these topics in fluid dynamics, there is no use of mathematics.

The vascular nephrogram phase of intravenous urography and its implications

Radiology, Vol. 102, No. 1, 37-40, January 1972.

After a rapid injection of an iodinated radiopaque contrast agent, a film taken 6-10 seconds after the patient experiences a hot oropharyngeal sensation reveals a dense vascular nephrogram phase of intravenous aortography. A horseshoe kidney, a small renal tumour (hypernephroma) exemplify the technique’s significance.

Unilateral decrease in renal vascularity on the excretory urogram

CMAJ; Vol. 105: 1151-1154, December 4, 1971.

A new technique describes how a rapidly injected standard IVP examination can produce a timed dense vascular nephrogram phase that can identify causes of unilateral decrease in renal vascularity – curable causes of renin-based hypertension. Unilateral renovascular disease (smaller kidney with reduced vascularity) and ureteral obstruction (swollen kidney with reduced renal vascularity) are examples of the significance of the fleeting vascular nephrogram phase. The decreased vascularity, occurring with ureteral obstruction, reveals a renin-mediated cause for the sudden onset of hypertension in patients with acute ureteral obstruction.

OTHER ARTICLES

Molecular Motion in Fluids

March 29, 2017 - with postscript added August 25, 2019

Because a Brownian particle's motion cannot be caused by collisions with water molecules one trillionth of its mass, one might consider alternative explanations for molecular kinetics. Vibrational oscillation of molecules could cause diffusion through inter-molecular collisions in fluids, consistent with Einstein’s "random walk” mechanism. Alternatively, SH elastic omni-planar oscillation of atoms would result in secondary molecular oscillation. If so, elastic oscillation of atoms might be at a specific frequency for each element, perhaps explaining the signature photon emission flux that characterizes each element on the periodic table, when heated to incandescence. By these arguments, laminar flow might exist at ultramicroscopic dimensions along boundaries where transition to turbulence originates.

The Rising Menace of Toxic Enterocolitis of Clostridium Difficile et al

2007

In defiance of Alexander Fleming’s 1945 warning in his Nobel Laureate acceptance speech, “Penicillin,” since the mid-1950s, massive amounts of sub-therapeutic doses of broad spectrum antibiotics have been fed to livestock (cattle, poultry, fish) in North American factory farms as “growth promoters.”  Bacterial pathogens remaining alive in the manure must be antibiotic resistant!  With rainfall, manure runoff contaminates streams and lakes.  Antibiotic resistant genes cross over from one bacterial species to unrelated species by “gene-jumping – in the manure pile, in contaminated water and in the throats and colons of patients and nurses in infectious disease wards in hospitals, creating the multi-antibiotic resistant “superbugs” that increasingly menace our world, just as Fleming predicted.

Thalidomide Globe and Mail Letter

November 29, 2014

A casual remark by a pharmaceutical representative saved my family practice obstetrical patients from exposure to the adverse fetal-anomaly effects of in utero exposure to the anti-nauseant drug, thalidomide in the 1960s. The drug “rep” stated that computerized processing of data on adverse effects gave results in six months that otherwise would take years. I refused to prescribe thalidomide because six months was far too short, since a pregnancy takes ten lunar months and even two years would be too short to assess any new drug’s adverse effects.  By very vigorous lobbying, the pharmaceutical industry persists in persuading ledislators to fast-track their new drugs, setting the stage for many repeats of the thalidomide catastrophe.

Reversing global warming by the miracle of photosynthesis

May 27, 2019

Leaf photosynthesis extracts atmospheric CO2 and absorbs the sun’s radiant energy to create the wood in trees worldwide. Shaded soil under trees and on the forest floor cool the air. Man’s 400 years of increasing deforestation can cause rising CO2 and atmospheric temperature. Burning wood or fossil fuels releases the stored CO2 and sequestered solar radiant energy. 

“Be Prepared,” with a “super-Heimlich”

December 5, 2014

Modifying a vintage Boy Scouts St. John’s Ambulance First Aid technique offers a simple method of suddenly increasing tracheal air pressure (“pop gun” physics) to dislodge a food bolus.

Puns and the subconscious mind

August 3, 2017 - Dundurn Press Blog for Dundurn Press authors

The subconscious mind teases us, by selecting from its stored vocabulary, words with double meanings to amuse, not just the audience, but also the speaker, who recognizes the uttered pun a few seconds before the listener(s).

Newton’s laws in Brownian motion

July 21, 2017, Submitted to Nature Communications

Because a Brownian particle can be about one trillion times the mass of a water molecule, it is untenable that it can be visibly displaced by multidirectional collisions, on all surfaces, with innumerable randomly moving water molecules.The impacts of wavefronts of innumerable water molecules conducting the many frequencies, multiple directions and varying volumes of environmental sound could cause random knee-jerk motion in Brownian particles.

Brownian Movement

October 25, 2018

It is impossible that the immense mass of a Brownian particle can be visibly (microscopically) moved by innumerable random  collisions on all surfaces by intrinsic rectilinear motion of water molecules.

The Matter of Light in the Universe

June 14, 2017

Logic suggests that Newton’s concept of light as particles (that might be propagated in particle waves, like sound waves) is correct. Particulate photons make photometer vanes move, and are deflected by the grav-ity of massive stars. It explains how particulate  photons might be susceptible to polarization.

Oscillations and Undulations in Shear Flows

May 11, 2017

A lamina displaying simple harmonic (SH) oscillations creates transverse SH sound just as an oscillation of any mass would do. Benjamin’s experiment using water flow over a wavy boundary (1959) exemplifies how laminae travel along identical paths at varying velocities in SH laminar shear waves of transition as laminar flutter waves. The wavy paths slide along at  slower speeds than the rate of flow.

A Brownian motion parable: The Zigzagging Ball in Blind Pollywog Lake

April 10, 2017

This allegory proves that the currently held concept of Brownian movement is impossible.

The Philosophy of Sound‐Induced Transition to Turbulence

September 26, 2016

The SST Sound Cone Cloud Disc

May 16, 2016

Light as Dark Matter

October 20, 2015

Similar Tyndall-Nikuradse-Hof Transverse Turbulent

Flow Patterns in Tubes

September 25, 2015

The Four Shear Waves of Transition

August 10, 2015

Rifled Rotation in Turbulent Cylinder Flow

November 20, 2013 - "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley," Robert Burns

Standing Waves (Fluid and Sound) of Transition

August 23, 2013

Active and Passive Components of the Dolphin's Hydrodynamic Advantage

April 29, 2013

National Post "Letter to the Editor"

March 21, 2013

Patterns of Fluid Flow - Royal College Submission

September 1, 1974