Q: My dad refinishes old furniture and is complaining about headaches. He's using a furniture stripper with a very strong odor. Can this be safe?
GG: The chemical stripping of furniture involves strong solvents to loosen and dissolve the old finish and get down to raw wood. The main solvents used are methylene chloride and N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP). These can both induce headache, dizziness, drowsiness, and other forms of damage to the nervous system and internal organs, including cancer in the case of methylene chloride, from long-term repeated use. Several unfortunate accidents have resulted in death from the stripping of bathtubs with methylene chloride where the worker was overcome by the solvent fumes and collapsed into the bathtub. Recognizing the immediate safety issues as well as chronic risks USEPA has proposed rules to limit the uses and availability of these strippers and require stronger labeling. However, those rules are only proposed and have yet to take effect.
Getting back to your dad, his headaches may or may not be from this activity, which you may be able to discern by asking more specifically when and where they occur. Regardless, he would be better off using less toxic stripping methods as alterative "greener" paint strippers exist which may take longer to work but have lower health risks. Whatever stripper is used its critical to take measures to decrease exposure such as adequate ventilation and wearing gloves.
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Dr. Gary Ginsberg is a public health toxicologist in Connecticut and a lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health (Department of Environmental Health Sciences). He has written a book geared toward the general public, "What's Toxic, What's Not," and also has a website, whatstoxic.com, to answer questions about chemicals found in consumer products and in our homes.
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The Yale School of Public Health invites you to submit questions for Dr. Ginsberg as part of this recurring series. Contact us through Facebook or by e-mailing Michael Greenwood at michael.greenwood@yale.edu