When I was a chemical
engineering student back at Brigham Young University, the safety
instructions I received from a chemistry professor made a deep
impression on me. We learned that allowing even a small amount of
some substances to enter your body or contact your skin can be
dangerous. Later, while working in an R&D group for a large
corporation, I would learn that a chemistry professor died when a
small drop or two of a mercury compound landed on her latex gloves,
which she believed would provide adequate protection for the
experiments she was conducting.
Details of that story
are now told in Wikipedia’s article on Karen
Wetterhahn, a professor of chemistry at Dartmouth
College. She was a specialist in toxic metal compounds and understood
the dangers, or so she thought. She was following the accepted safety
procedures for the compounds she was handling: she wore latex gloves
to protect her skin, conducted the experiments in a fume hood to keep
vapors away, and followed standard safety procedures. Yet a few drops
of a colorless mercury compound, dimethylmercury, fell on her latex
glove. She thought nothing of it, but months later began showing
signs of mercury poisoning, and then it was too late to do anything,
though strident steps were taken over the coming weeks to battle the
poisoning. It was an awful and tragic death.
Scientists were shocked
by this poisoning and investigated the cause, finding that
dimethylmercury can quickly penetrate latex gloves, contrary to the
accepted wisdom of the day. Once the poison diffused through the
glove, a process that took only a few seconds, it then swiftly
entered the body through the skin. Scientists then realized that
their generally accepted safety procedures—the world’s
best wisdom at the time—was flawed and that latex was
inadequate protection for a compound that proved to be far more
dangerous than scientists had known.
Like dimethylmercury,
there are some things that we simply should not touch.
Dr. Wetterhahn’s
story came to mind after hearing another story involving chemical
substances and skin. This one comes from the October 2012 General
Conference, when Bishop Gary E. Stevenson, Presiding Bishop, spoke to
young men in the Priesthood Session. Here is an excerpt from his
talk, “Be
Valiant in Courage, Strength, and Activity”:
Some
years ago, John was accepted at a prestigious Japanese university. He
would be part of the international student program with many other
top students from around the world. Some enrolled with a hope to
deepen their understanding of the culture and language, others viewed
it as a stepping-stone to an eventual profession and employment in
Japan, but all had left home to study in a foreign country.
Soon
after John’s arrival, word of a party to be held on the rooftop
of a private residence spread among the foreign student population.
That evening, John and two friends made their way to the advertised
address.
Following
an elevator ride to the top floor of the building, John and his
friends navigated the single narrow stairway leading to the rooftop
and began mingling with the others. As the night wore on, the
atmosphere changed. The noise, music volume, and alcohol amplified,
as did John’s uneasiness. Then suddenly someone began
organizing the students into a large circle with the intent of
sharing marijuana cigarettes. John grimaced and quickly informed his
two friends that it was time to leave. Almost in ridicule, one of
them replied, “John, this is easy—we’ll just stand
in the circle, and when it is our turn, we’ll just pass it
along rather than smoke it. That way we won’t have to embarrass
ourselves in front of everyone by leaving.” This sounded easy
to John, but it did not sound right. He knew he had to announce his
intention and act. In a moment he mustered his courage and told them
that they could do as they wished, but he was leaving. One friend
decided to stay and joined the circle; the other reluctantly followed
John down the stairs to board the elevator. Much to their surprise,
when the elevator doors opened, Japanese police officers poured out
and hurried to ascend the stairs to the rooftop. John and his friend
boarded the elevator and departed.
When
the police appeared at the top of the stairs, the students quickly
threw the illegal drugs off the roof so they wouldn’t be
caught. After securing the stairway, however, the officers lined up
everyone on the roof and asked each student to extend both hands. The
officers then walked down the line, carefully smelling each student’s
thumbs and index fingers. All who had held the marijuana, whether
they had smoked it or not, were presumed guilty, and there were huge
consequences. Almost without exception, the students who had remained
on the rooftop were expelled from their respective universities, and
those convicted of a crime were likely deported from Japan. Dreams of
an education, years of preparation, and the possibility of future
employment in Japan were dashed in a moment.
Now
let me tell you what happened to these three friends. The friend who
stayed on the roof was expelled from the university in Japan to which
he had worked so hard to be accepted and was required to return home.
The friend who left the party that night with John finished school in
Japan and went on to earn degrees from two top-tier universities in
the United States. His career took him back to Asia, where he has
enjoyed immense professional success. He remains grateful to this day
for John’s courageous example. As for John, the consequences in
his life have been immeasurable. His time in Japan that year led him
to a happy marriage and the subsequent birth of two sons. He has been
a very successful businessman and recently became a professor at a
Japanese university. Imagine how different his life would have been
had he not had the courage to leave the party on that important
evening in Japan.
There is much to glean
from this story, told to Bishop Stevenson by John. There are insights
on listening to the Spirit, acting on impressions, living with faith,
and having the courage to maintain standards. Yet I was especially
struck by the importance of not even touching that which was unclean
and improper. John could have appeared to maintain his standards by
remaining at the party but not inhaling, just passing the cigarette
on. Only later would he understand that merely touching the cigarette
would bring ruin. The danger was not in prolonged inhalation, but in
the slightest contact, even a momentary touch on nothing but the very
tips of his fingers. He was in a setting where there was only one
safe option: flee. Fortunately, he listened to the warnings of the
Spirit, with wisdom far beyond his own and that of the world, and
fled.
Bishop Stevenson, in
his compassion for the young people of the Church, goes on to draw
the analogy to Church standards on morality and the dangers of
pornography. I applaud the Church for its outspoken stance against
this toxin in our society and for the wise counsel that we should
flee from it and not touch it, not touch it at all. The widely
accepted and standard safety procedures taught by the wise ones of
this world inform people that they can view pornography in perfect
safety and, in fact, that pretty much anything goes when it comes to
our sexuality as long as one uses a little latex at times. The
standards are grossly flawed and continue to bring ruin and pain into
the lives of those who accept them. There is a much higher standard
required for us to be protected, and it is found in the standards
taught vigorously by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We are not alone, and can be grateful for other good people of other
faiths seeking to bless the lives of mankind through inspired moral
principles, but collectively our numbers are still few, and the need
for clear and effective teaching by word and by example grows
stronger each year.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.