Talk:Methyl carbamate

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[edit] Regulation in alcoholic beverages

I think levels of this chemical are regulated in alcoholic beverages but information is hard to find. Any editors who are familiar with this, could you please add information about this? Many thanks, Badagnani 07:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Where does is say that methyl carbamate is found in wine etcetera? There are references for N-methyl carbamates (which is are breakdown products of carbamate insecticides). Dr Zak 12:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Carcinogenic or not

According to the rules for California it is carcinogenic, it is important to understand that califonia has its own rules which are stricter than the rest of the US. Also the compound gave a negative result in the Ames test.Cadmium

Its close relative urethane is genuinely mutagenic, so one ought to exaercise caution. Dr Zak 12:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

True Dr Zak, it is best to be prudent when making the choice as to expose or not expose one's self. I have some grave misgivings about the chemical scorecard web site, it looks rather like a NGO rather than a definiative source of data. I have noticed that other web sites consider the title compound not to be a carcinogen in man.

I think that if we are not careful about the use of the label carcinogen then it will lose its meaning, the term should be applied to substances where a clear link is known either in animals or man. Examples would include BeO, soot, benzene, 2-aminonapthalene and cisplatin. I know that ethanol is over consumed by a human can increase the chance of some cancers but ethanol is not a carcinogen.Cadmium

I couldn't agree more about there being different degrees of carcinogenity. What is worse is that lists like the California P65 lists don't distinguish between the really serious carcinogens and the merely suspected ones.

But that wasn't what I had in mind at all, instead I was thinking about the mutagenic potential of methyl carbamate. Apparently ethyl carbamate has been shown to be a mutagen in the Ames test while methyl carbamate tested negative. I can't think why they should react different, so maybe under certain conditions methyl carbamate is mutagenic, too.

(Hopefully my mast edit to the article page makes clear that this is not a proven carcinogen but a weekly suspected one). Dr Zak 16:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)