Bug spray dissolved my door panel.

I remember using the REI jungle juice in scouts. It was the plain white bottle (because the DEET dissolved the green label after the first use).

 

Yup, that's where I started using it as well. Put it in a ziplock inside a second ziplock because if it leaked in your pack half your gear would melt.......

Stuff worked wonders as a accelerant when trying to get a fire started in the rain as well.

 

DEET excerpt from published MSDS:
Prolonged or repeated exposure may cause adverse reproductive effects. Laboratory experiments have resulted in mutagenic effects. Chronic overexposure may produce erythremia, bullous eruptions, contact urticaria, muscle cramping, slurred speech, tremors, seizures, or coma.

 

There are MSDS sheets for everything. My wife is a CIH and has had to write them as well as uses them daily for her job. They're essentially a worst case scenario. No one here is bathing in deet, ingesting it, etc.

Tons of links to studies here: https://www.consumerreports.org/ins...-is-deet-insect-repellent-safety-a4952100929/

1. The overall incidence of deet poisoning is very low. In 1998 the Environmental Protection Agency conducted a definitive assessment of the chemical. The agency turned up 46 seizures and four deaths that were potentially linked to deet exposure. It estimated that since 1960, the incidence of seizures with a potential link to deet exposure was one per 100 million uses.

2. Most of those reported cases involved a misuse of deet products. Ingestion or “dermal application not consistent with label instructions” was the most common source of potential deet toxicity, according to the EPA report. The agency concluded that when consumers followed product-label instructions and took reasonable precautions, the health risks of deet essentially vanished.

3. A vast majority of cases of deet toxicity are mild. In another seminal analysis, researchers looked at more than 9,000 calls made to poison control centers between 1985 and 1989. They found that nearly 90 percent of the injuries were treated at home, and that of those people referred to health centers, 80 percent were discharged after an examination. A second analysis of more than 20,000 calls made between 1993 and 1997 found similar results.

4. There is no reliable evidence that deet causes cancer. Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs has classified deet as a carcinogen. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, animal studies have not found an increase in tumors in research subjects who were given oral deet tablets or who had liquid deet applied to their skin. A Swedish study did find that men who used insect repellent for 115 days or longer faced an increased risk of developing testicular cancer. (A majority of repellents contained deet at the time of the study.) But the CDC says that the study was flawed and that the results were not conclusive.

 

This whole things sounds like a statement from someone paid by anything containing DEET. Just sayin...

Then again, we ingest enough plastic so YOLO

 

It's Consumer Reports and they're pretty trustworthy.

 

Bugs and human skin aren’t made of plastic.

My hunting buddie’s dad had some bottles of DEET that were super high test, it can really screw up binoculars and rifle stocks.

 

Our uniforms were pre-treated with permathin. I turned out ok :/

 

Ahh yes...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK231561/

When the government says workers who inhale the stuff are less likely to have adverse effects than those wearing it for "18 hour days, 7 days a week, up to 10 years"... then you know it's totally safe.

Like burn pits.



I sure wish I had those uniforms when I was deployed... Pretty sure the amount of sweat, dirt and grime from not being able to do laundry for months on end to make your uniforms stand straight up by themselves would also have no adverse effect to the chemically impregnated clothing.

Also pretty sure OP is thoroughly entertained with this thread at least.

 

Something something agent orange. I spray permathrin on my gear (tent, pack...) But not on my clothing that contacts my skin. It is a synthetic version of the chrysanthemum flower though, so probably fairly safe.

I just don't automatically trust chemicals that the government tests on our troops.

 

LOL. I remember when camo dipped shotguns started populating duck blinds en mass. Deet guys were going apeshit because their new camo'd $1800 SBE's & Berettas were smudging and melting like crazy, completely destroying finishes. I was happy I had the black synthetic version at the time.

 

Saw it happen a couple of times. Luckily I had already learned that lesson by the time I had mine dipped.

 

There are many naturally occurring substances that are toxic to humans. I’m not implying that that this one in particular is toxic. I’m just reacting to the implied suggestion that “natural” things are safe.

 

don’t forget Lymes from the ticks. I’ll stick with the deet & permethrin.

 

Either way, natural or man made, some things take time to show their effects. If you live even moderately long your skin will take a beating.

 

yeah man i had deet dissolve the numbers off a compass that i used for work…that’s when i stopped using deet and switched to picardin/lemon-eucalyptus
Good luck with the truck

 

That is true but remember that DEET has been around since 1946 (Army) and 1957 (general population). If it was as bad as some of the hyperbole about it we'd see a lot more issues after 65 years of civilian use.

 

How would you know what to attribute to it and what not to? Who’s gonna know whether it was deet or paba or some other skin product, bath wash surfactant, pit spray, whatever? We do see more skin issues, we just don’t know exactly why since impossible to separate all the possibilities since everyone uses multiple products. It’s probably a good idea to avoid things that can penetrate the skin, it’s their as our protective layer. The stuff certainly feels & smells toxic and dissolving complex carbon compounds isn’t reassuring.

 

Everything in moderation is my motto........

Plenty of reading to start with in this link: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/bug-spray-dissolved-my-door-panel.757111/page-2#post-26983949