Pacific poison oak biological warfare (enough urushiol to infect everybody on the planet)
Here you see a typical pacific poison oak vine (Toxicodendron diversilobum), about 3 inches in diameter, just after being cut today by my 18" chain saw, oozing enough clear urushiol oil in a couple of hours to poison every person on the planet (according to this reference (which also says the oil stays infective for over 100 years!). http://online.sfsu.edu/bholzman/courses/Fall01%20projects/poisonoakfinalwebsite.htm This article says 1 nanogram can cause a rash (you clearly see many grams here, oozing out in the first two minutes). http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/fastfacts.html Nobody is immune to cell mediated immunity, and I'm no different, having cut human-sized tunnesl 500 feet long through dense impenetrable poison oak vines. My biggest worry is systemic poisoning - which can kill you, so I try not to breath it in. I often get chips in my eyes, so I'm surprised the eyes don't get it - but any skin that is exposed will turn into a blotchy red set of yellow-crusted blisters within a few days (wish me luck since I cut about a thousand vines just today!). What I do is cover my wrists with free bentonite clay from a well driller, which is cheaper than Ivy Block (only firemen who work for the government can afford to cover themselves head to toe in Ivy Block), and I wear high-wristed thick tig welding gloves, which become covered in the black oxidized urushiol. Nobody can shower every 15 minutes (which is how long it takes for the oil to be absorbed into the skin and then further oxidized into the reactive quinol which your body's immune system reacts to) so - what I do is wear a thick cotton sweatshirt (cotton absorbs the oil) and normal jeans (which, after the washing process oxidizes the urushiol, turns into black streaked pants, as if the kids took a marker to them). The hardest part is you can't wipe the sweat away, because even if you had a handkerchief, soon it is covered in urushiol too. After a few hours of chain sawing through the impenetrable jungle of vines, I head to the shower for my Dawn rub. Again, only firemen on the public payroll who get Technu for free ($40 an ounce!) can afford to use that expensive spermacide-laced polyethylene-studded surfactant to pull the quinone out of your skin ... no ... I just use 20 cent/ounce Dawn. I don't spare the stuff! I cover every inch of my body in the shower. Head to toe. Wash. Rinse. Wash again. And again while the toxic clothes get a separate wash in the washing machine using a normal cycle before they are reused. That gets most of the urushiol off my body. Wish me luck. See the thread on alt.home.repair for scores of pictures of the poison oak eradication task which I'm still performing. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/alt.home.repair/jwLrdiR0Fs4 Note that toxic sap stays potent in the wild for 5 (wet) to 10 years (dry climate)!
Here you see a typical pacific poison oak vine (Toxicodendron diversilobum), about 3 inches in diameter, just after being cut today by my 18" chain saw, oozing enough clear urushiol oil in a couple of hours to poison every person on the planet (according to this reference (which also says the oil stays infective for over 100 years!). http://online.sfsu.edu/bholzman/courses/Fall01%20projects/poisonoakfinalwebsite.htm This article says 1 nanogram can cause a rash (you clearly see many grams here, oozing out in the first two minutes). http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/fastfacts.html Nobody is immune to cell mediated immunity, and I'm no different, having cut human-sized tunnesl 500 feet long through dense impenetrable poison oak vines. My biggest worry is systemic poisoning - which can kill you, so I try not to breath it in. I often get chips in my eyes, so I'm surprised the eyes don't get it - but any skin that is exposed will turn into a blotchy red set of yellow-crusted blisters within a few days (wish me luck since I cut about a thousand vines just today!). What I do is cover my wrists with free bentonite clay from a well driller, which is cheaper than Ivy Block (only firemen who work for the government can afford to cover themselves head to toe in Ivy Block), and I wear high-wristed thick tig welding gloves, which become covered in the black oxidized urushiol. Nobody can shower every 15 minutes (which is how long it takes for the oil to be absorbed into the skin and then further oxidized into the reactive quinol which your body's immune system reacts to) so - what I do is wear a thick cotton sweatshirt (cotton absorbs the oil) and normal jeans (which, after the washing process oxidizes the urushiol, turns into black streaked pants, as if the kids took a marker to them). The hardest part is you can't wipe the sweat away, because even if you had a handkerchief, soon it is covered in urushiol too. After a few hours of chain sawing through the impenetrable jungle of vines, I head to the shower for my Dawn rub. Again, only firemen on the public payroll who get Technu for free ($40 an ounce!) can afford to use that expensive spermacide-laced polyethylene-studded surfactant to pull the quinone out of your skin ... no ... I just use 20 cent/ounce Dawn. I don't spare the stuff! I cover every inch of my body in the shower. Head to toe. Wash. Rinse. Wash again. And again while the toxic clothes get a separate wash in the washing machine using a normal cycle before they are reused. That gets most of the urushiol off my body. Wish me luck. See the thread on alt.home.repair for scores of pictures of the poison oak eradication task which I'm still performing. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/alt.home.repair/jwLrdiR0Fs4 Note that toxic sap stays potent in the wild for 5 (wet) to 10 years (dry climate)!