With all good things, there are some bad as well, and for Sharpies it’s their effect on humans health if they are not used properly. Since Sharpies do contain chemicals they could be used for other things then their intended purpose, like inhaling or applying them to skin. Misusing Sharpies can lead to minor health issues like nausea, or more serious like organ damage. According to the Sharpie website, all Sharpies have a ACMI seal which means it’s been through “extensive toxicological evaluation” to clear Sharpies as a safe, non-toxic marker to be used for arts and crafts, but the ACMI seal does not mean that Sharpies are safe to be used for the human body.
“Sharpie markers contain xylene”
-Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
“Xylene is a powerful chemical compound that is found in many household and industrial items...Exposure to xylene in any fashion whether it be inhaled, ingested, skin contact or eye contact can cause some harmful health effects.”
-Robert Shifko
These two quotes are explaining that Sharpies have xylene in them, and the effects that xylene can have on the body. Xylene can cause many harmful effects to the body in different ways of contact and different amounts of exposure, this can be especially harmful to humans if people who use Sharpies are abusing them, or don’t know that they are being effected by using Sharpies. Not all chemicals are bad, in fact the air we breathe is a chemical but some chemicals can be dangerous to the human body, like xylene, because of it’s chemical composition that makes it toxic. This relates back to my thesis by proving that Sharpies do contain chemicals that are dangerous to humans.
When humans inhale xylene, a chemical found in Sharpies, it can cause health problems to a person’s nervous system, like headaches, nausea, and vomiting. The chart above shows how much a person can inhale and the possible side effects that it could cause to their nervous system. The chart uses a unit ppm, or part per million, what this means is that in one million units of water there would be one unit of a chemical, in this case xylene. This chart clearly shows how xylene can harm humans as the amount of inhalation goes up and could possible lead to death. This evidence supports the thesis by showing the known effects of how inhaling Sharpie chemicals can affect the human body.
“We express caution and do not suggest using Sharpie markers on skin”
-Sharpie Website
Sharpies can be dangerous to use on skin because of the risk that the chemicals in the ink, butanol, propanol, and diacetone acid, could enter the body through broken skin or penetrating through. Drawing on skin with Sharpies will only affect the top layers of skin, but in some rare cases that chemicals could enter the body. Chemicals entering the body may cause loss of red blood cells, chest pain, and shortness of breath. This connects back to the thesis by proving how drawing on skin with Sharpies could have an effect on human’s health.