[DYSPHAGIA] blue dye causing deaths?

[eripley@yahoo.com (Irene Campbell-Taylor)]

<RN2D@hscmail.mcc.virginia.edu> wrote:
> Is this risk associated with blue dye limited to
> certain brands?

I don't believe that has been established.
 We
> currently use a generic looking brand of blue food
> coloring for bedside blue
> dye tests and I'm wondering if we should switch to
> something else. 
I think the blue dye referred to is solely Evans blue,
quite different from food coloring. My reasons for
using red instead of blue are simply that the red food
coloring produces a color that is unmistakeable for
anything else whereas the blue can be confusing. I
used to get very tired of arguments that went along
the lines of, "It's sputum" , "No, it's green pus",
"No, it's not", "So's yer mother".... 
Can I
> assume the red dye is not associated with the same
> (fatal) risks as the
> blue?
The red is just food coloring, available in any
grocery. Nowadays, we don't have the red food
color/hair color etc. that was proven to cause cancer
- red#9 I think it was. This is just what you'd put in
icing, for example, basically a vegetal dye.
Irene.
>
____________________________________________________________________________
> _____________________
> Rebecca R. Neubert, M.A. CCC-SLP		RN2D@virginia.edu
> Speech-Language Pathology Dept.		
> University of Virginia Medical Center
> pager: (804) 982-3500  ID# 2462
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:	Irene Campbell-Taylor
> [SMTP:eripley@yahoo.com]
> > Sent:	Thursday, October 05, 2000 12:32 PM
> > To:	Bonnie Heintskill
> > Cc:	dysphagia@medonline.com
> > Subject:	Re: [DYSPHAGIA] blue dye causing deaths?
> > 
> > Thank you for passing this on, Bonnie. There are
> other
> > reasons for avoiding Evans blue, among them
> allergy
> > and mistakes re ocult blood in stool. That's why
> the
> > usual recommendation for coloring enteral feeds is
> to
> > add red food coloring - no, it doesn't look
> anything
> > like blood or any other bodily excreta you can
> think
> > of, unlike blue dye that can turn greenish and be
> > confused with infected sputum, pus etc. Try it.
> Put
> > some red food coloring into some Ensure and watch
> it
> > turn to something like Pepto Bismol or strawberry
> > pudding, depending on how much you add. There's no
> > mistaking it, in my experience. Anyone use it
> > regularly?
> > Irene.
> > 
> > 
> > =====
> > Irene Campbell-Taylor, PhD
> > Clinical Neuroscientist
> > 
> > If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or
> later, to be found out.
> > Oscar Wilde.
> > 
> > __________________________________________________
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=====
Irene Campbell-Taylor, PhD
Clinical Neuroscientist

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
Oscar Wilde.

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