Latex Allergy: Could Tire Dust be a Cause?

Latex Allergy Cause

Searching for a cause: allergy to latex has increased dramatically in the last 20 years, a serious public health problem seemingly emerging from nowhere.

Ironically focused among healthcare workers, being allergic to natural rubber is a disabling disease.

Allergic reactions run from mild contact dermatitis (skin irritation), to asthma, or even anaphylaxis (a dangerous system-wide response).

Sensitivity may lead to chronic illness and disability.

Allergy to latex is a true allergy; in technical jargon, it is mediated by IgE antibodies to proteins that are present in the natural rubber.

Over 3 million people in the United States have allergic reactions to natural rubber products.

The conventional wisdom says "there is no cure for allergies to these proteins."

Asthma has also increased during the past 20 years, especially among children.

What could cause this allergy growth in recent years?

The medical industry has searched for causes of this explosive allergy increase. Insertion of catheters and surgical internal exposure to latex is often blamed, partly because of the widespread latex sensitivity among spina bifida patients after their frequent surgeries.

Surgical gloves, worn everywhere since AIDS was introduced, are also implicated.

These theories, in my humble opinion, address only the tip of the latex allergen iceberg.

Latex surgical gloves were introduced in 1890.

Researchers in Japan hypothesize that constant cutting and tapping of plantation raised rubber plants causes them to produce more natural allergenic defense proteins.

At least 40,000 products, including internally used condoms and diaphragms, contain latex.

Whoa! Did you just say "allergic to love making"?

Yep, and that isn't the worst.

But there is another wide-spread source for internal latex exposure.

I believe a significant cause of latex allergy is rubber tire fragments, released massively world-wide by car and truck tire wear.

Ambient Freeway Dust: Latex Snow

When a hot truck tire, bearing over 6,000 pounds of weight, slides across the road surface, tiny particles grind off and become airborne.

If you stand near the entrance to a busy truck stop on a warm, still day, you can see the fine powder coming off the rear wheels as trucks turn. It looks like powder snow, but it's not white.

When a recapped truck tire casing explodes, a huge cloud of latex dust is raised. As the driver nurses his rig to a safe spot on the shoulder, more rubber disintegrates,

Four-wheeler rubber is also scrubbed, especially by aggressive driving. Sports cars use softer rubber to enhance performance, often destroying a tire in as little as 6,000 miles.

Scientists examining ambient urban dust under microscopes generally see dark specks interspersed with pollen grains, mold spores and particles of soot and sand.

It was assumed these were soot particles. But under a powerful microscope, irregular shapes became increasingly noticeable.

Evidence built, with mass spectroscopy suggesting that these ubiquitous specks are fragments of rubber from tires. Experiments showed that these same fragments could in fact provoke latex allergy symptoms just like those from the latex glove.

Any truck driver could have told the scientific community that tires are a major cause of black dust along our highways.

"I see a line of cars and they're all painted black"

Measurement of air near roadways found over 3000 latex fragments per cubic meter of air. This is roughly 5% of the ambient airborne particulate.

60% of latex dust particles are small enough to penetrate deeply into human lungs.

Around one fifth of these dust particles are sub-micron sized, the kind Air-Purifier-Power harps incessantly about. They can penetrate the lung and enter the bloodstream.

Mow that's what I call chronic internal exposure. Could this black snow be a causative factor in latex allergy?

Inefficient room air purifiers will miss or bypass many of these, and little cigarette lighter plug-in car ionizers do not capture any particles.

Radial Tire Revolution

Since the 1970's, as asthma and latex allergy rates have been rising, radials have supplanted bias plies as the automotive standard tire design.

By 1989, radials represented 94 percent of sales. These shed a finer size dust than bias plies did.

Little bias ply rubber runs on vehicles today.

Is it just a coincidence that allergic reaction to latex was discovered in 1979?

Tire production is the largest user of synthetic and natural rubber, and at 70% of production, dwarfs the glove as a source of fine particulate rubber.

I'd like to see a study of hospital personnels' allergies based on ambient air quality and proximity of the institution to major freeways.

I think airborne ambient latex dust is the primary cause, and latex glove powder the secondary cause.

This is a hush-hush topic in "scientific" medicine, not likely to be explored further.

Paint it Black

Part of my thirteen years as a trucker was spent training new drivers.

A big part of learning to drive a big truck is visualizing the space it needs in all dimensions.

I used an analogy to acquaint new guys with the task: "reading sign."

The rookie was told to imagine himself an old west scout, tracking rustlers.

Trucks are restricted to certain streets, often without adequate signs.

New drivers often stray into forbidden territory, where police, low wires, or tree branches await.

Everywhere 18-wheelers go, they leave "sign."

Some of the signs are broken curbs and splintered telephone poles, but many are dark tell-tales of toxins.

Streets well traveled by diesel trucks are a darker color, drivers can tell where to turn by following the darker path. This path comes from leaking oil, but also from the rubber/latex against the road, which stains the asphalt and makes a fine black snow.

In the photo the blue arrow indicates oil, the red arrows point to latex dust along the shoulder and in the drain ditch.

In commercial vehicle road rubber, the percentage of natural rubber increases with the weight class. Really fast trucks wear tires at accelerated rates, so quickly drivers can actually see the erosion of tread depth.

That’s tons of allergy causing latex in every city, every day.

Future shock: Recycling

Allergenic latex is everywhere.

Direct latex recycling is not practical: new tires need to be made from virgin materials.

Truck casings can be retreaded once, but old ones pile up, causing problems.

Increasingly, recycled allergy causing black dust makes its way into every aspect of life.

Tire shredding is seen as the solution to waste latex disposal.

Finely ground recycled rubber (crumb rubber) is used as landscaping mulch. Crumb rubber is also used as ground cover in playgrounds.

Rubber mixed with urethane is used in athletic track surfaces.

Ground rubber is even mixed right into soils to reduce compaction, improve drainage and reduce watering, fertilizer and pesticide use.

Rubber modified asphalt is recycled or reclaimed rubber, up to 25 percent by weight, used to reinforce asphalt.

Many buildings are roofed with recycled latex asphalt.

Fragments are deployed as fill for embankments and retaining walls.

Leaching beds of residential septic systems are often built of latex chips.

Some weather broadcasters give latex fragment counts to complement daily allergy mold spore and pollen counts. Latex particle levels are elevated during rush-hour traffic, and slacken on weekends.

This is not a polemic against the tire or trucking industry, these are just facts of life for sufferers of allergy. Allergy causing black dust can be seen anytime a trucker blows his nose.

I'm not waiting for the scientific and medical community to notice this stuff is causing latex allergies, I'm getting an air purifier for my car.

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