It didn't seem to be mentioned in the article, but have these covers always been unsafe to handle, or has the problem got worse as the books get older and maybe the chemicals are more likely to leech out or be released as dust etc?
If they've always been toxic, I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't noticed at the time. And presumably, there was a point when we stopped using these dyes. Was that because we knew the risks they posed, in which case why did we lose that knowledge, or was it just that we switched to cheaper processes that just happened to be safer?
If they've always been toxic, I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't noticed at the time. And presumably, there was a point when we stopped using these dyes. Was that because we knew the risks they posed, in which case why did we lose that knowledge, or was it just that we switched to cheaper processes that just happened to be safer?