John Cleese and Michael Palin of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in the “Dead Parrot Sketch”, first aired in December 1969.What is a dead microbe and why might we care?

I today’s post, I’m returning to a topic I first discussed in 2019 (https://biodeterioration-control.com/2019/07/). In the Monty Python’s Flying Circus “Dead Parrot Sketch”, John Cleese plays the role of an unhappy customer who believes that he has just purchased a dead parrot. Michael Palin – playing the…

Electron microscopy image of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
 

COVID-19 Infection Statistics

Although anti-COVD vaccines are rolling out and people are being immunized, as of early late December 2020, the rate at which daily, newly reported COVID-19 cases has continued to rise (Figure 1). In my 29 June 2020 What’s New article I discuss some of the limitations of such global statistics. In that post, I argued that the statistics would be more meaningful if the U.S. Centers for Disease…

Meme from the 1986 movie, Heartbreak Ridge (Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway – Clint Eastwood – is providing sensitivity training to his Marines).

The Confusion

Over the past several months, I have received questions about the impact of test method sensitivity on control limits. In this post, I will do my best to explain why test method sensitivity and control limits are only indirectly related.

Definitions (all quotes are from ASTM’s online…

On 29 July 2020, Drs. Neil Canter, John Howell, and I, and Mr. Bill Woods presented an STLE webinar panel discussion about reducing COVID-19 risk in the metalworking workplace environment. You can access the webinar at: https://www.stle.org/files/TLTArchives/2020/10_October/Webinars.aspx?WebsiteKey=a70334df-8659-42fd-a3bd-be406b5b83e5.
Last week Ms. Vicky Villena-Denton, Editor-in-Chief at F & L Asia, Ltd., interviewed me as episode six of the F + L Webcast series. During the interview,…

Quo Vadis – or Déjà vu All Over Again, or are metalworking fluid compounders, managers, and end-users once again being thrown to the lions?

The Short Version

A decade ago, the U.S. EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) issued their Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) on the most commonly used formaldehyde-condensate microbicide – triazine. In the triazine RED, the EPA limited the maximum permissible active ingredient concentration in end-use diluted metalworking…