They recently banned the sale of MEK here in the United States (it's used mainly as a paint stripper), arguably due to its inhalation danger. It was extremely volatile, and in an enclosed space (indoors), it could cause someone to die.

Which it did, of course.

I'm pretty sure it was far fewer deaths than this over a period of 30-40 years, yet for some reason, it was deemed to be highly dangerous and pulled from the market (IIRC, you can still get it for industrial uses - consumer use has been banned).

Just to be clear, I'm saying the same thing I believe you are; that statistically the numbers are insignificant. I find it ludicrous that in the case of MEK, it was used as an excuse to pull the product (to be replaced by far inferior other products on the market) - though I tend to wonder if that was the only reason (I tend to wonder if it didn't have to so with our "war on some drugs", as such a fluid could be used for the making of meth, I imagine).

I doubt any laws will be enacted in the case of "selfie deaths", though - even though if you compared the numbers with the "death from MEK inhalation", you'd see that people are far more likely to die from a selfie than from stripping paint with MEK.

The annoying thing is that laws don't even have to be passed directly against you to still impact you.

As far as I can tell, there's no law requiring "air duster" manufacturers to add bitterant to their products to prevent inhalant abuse. But despite that, it is in pretty much all of their products. It has become nearly impossible to purchase uncontaminated dusters.

Out of curiosity, what are the drawbacks of the "contaminated" dusters? I've never noticed the bitterant in normal use.

If you use a lot of it, it will get into the air and you will taste it. If you use it to clean a keyboard or mouse, the bitterant transfers to your fingers, and then on to your lunch.

It's a kind of disgusting example of how diseases get transferred, now that I think about it...

Lastly, you should NOT use it to clean flour out of the crevices of your kitchen mixer.

Anything to sell a story, right?

It’s not even necessary in this case. A selfie-induced death is interesting enough without a manufactured tale of an “epidemic.”

> statistically insignificant as a cause of death

To be sure, I think it should be compared to the number of deaths in the same situations.

> in the same situations.

But without the risks "added by taking selfies", as it's the point of the article.

> statistically insignificant as a cause of death

What does this even mean?