I would say the extra risk is not quantifiable, at least within the confines of a Usenet group. Anyone interested, here are the FDA regs for med oxygen. The only thing that really stood out initially is the requirement to double purge, and some bookkeeping stuff.
It is, by federal regulation. How much of the difference is paperwork and how much is real... well it IS a federal regulation.
Other than the insurance company won't pay for it?
At least at the level of expertise shown on this NG, you are definitely taking on a risk of not knowing exactly if there is a difference.
You are guaranteed you are getting a different product, medical oxygen as opposed to non-medical oxygen. You are guaranteed that extra steps were taken in the production of the medical oxygen that are required to get that designation. Now whether that is real or not, I guess is open to discussion.
I, for one, would bet a dollar to a donut hole that billions of cubic feet of industrial oxygen has been sold as medical oxygen, and charged for accordingly. Particularly among the PC crowd.
Steve
My guess is that there is actually a miniscule amount of difference, but one would have to use sophisticated equipment to discern the difference. And I believe that the miniscule amount of "contaminants", or things other than O2 molecules would not be dangerous to anyone's health unless they were cyanide or plutonium or something equally harmful. Not enough difference to make a difference, basically.
But I would be curious to hear from a test lab. BTW, that was an awesome document. What did it say?
Steve
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I've been using low cholesterol gasoline in my van.
TDD
Its probably safe to assume anyone on O2 has health issues, so why add extra health risks to anyone who is already ill?????
I don't think anyone is saying the O2 is any different, just the possibility of contamination in handling. As I stated, I've handled medical grade, but not welding grade so I'm not going to speculate on the probability. I do know that things like that can (and do) happen even with medical grade as there is a human factor.
"Some Guy" wrote
I said I don't know if there is a difference. You seem to have a difficult time comprehending that. Once you do, you will realize there is no reason to discus this any further. Feel free to assume I mean things I've never said though, as long as you have fun.
I already replied to that. See the line above. I'm working with facts, you are working with speculation and hypothetical speaking.
You are welcome to your opinion. It may or may not be correct. Find out for sure and be at ease with your speculation.
You are not working with facts. You are working with pieces of paper.
It's ridiculous to say that two tanks that are handled identically behind the scenes are nonetheless different because of a piece of paper.
Since you claim to have actually filled commercial medical O2 tanks, tell me what analytical testing you did to insure that their purity was
99.95%. What lab equipment did you use to determine the purity of the O2 in those tanks?
That piece of paper makes a big difference in the end use. It is not medical oxygen without it, no matter your opinion. I suggest you take it up with the FDA and have them change their ways. They make the rules, not me.
I read the piece of paper that came from the O2 supplier. He does the analysis and certifies it, then we fill patient tanks from the bulk tanks. That complies with regulations. If we did that with welding grade and distributed it for patient use, we'd be subject to all sorts of fines and liability.
I bought two tanks last year or two, and one was manufactured by a company now out of business for twenty years. The tank had 800# pressure in it. It was out of hydro.
I took it to one place, and they told me to unload it on to their dock, that they were confiscating it, thank you very much. I said, not as long as it was in back of my truck they weren't. I asked the man what they would do. He said they would take the tank and give me nothing. He said they would not trade it for another tank, or make one dollar worth of adjustment in the price.
I went it to place two. The guy said, yeah, they still see them every once in a while, and they are considered a find that is worth $150 that can be had for free if they can get it from you. They told me to take it home, and grind all the rust and grunge and letters off around the collar, and bring it back, and for $12 for hydro and the price of the fill, they would swap it for another.
I told him that I had used it for cutting, and that I did believe that it was oxygen. He gave me an OXYGEN sticker he said to slap on the bottle. He said he was only doing it because it had 800# pressure in it. He said if it came into the loading dock without a sticker, and with no pressure, it would be treated as an unknown quantity, and would have to be tested, purged, and possibly the tank would have to be rolled.
I asked him why he would do this, and the other company wouldn't. He said, "I can't answer that, you will have to." Well, for me, it is a decent enough solution. I was not grinding off the letters on a company that was currently in business and that I knew owned the bottle. When the lease goes out on one bottle I currently have with that company, I am going to return it with a letter to corporate explaining why I will not be doing ANY business with them. I had done nearly $5,000 worth of business with them the year of this incident.
I think those little stickers (pieces of paper with glue on one side) are also available in MEDICAL OXYGEN and would not be hard to locate and reliable cylinders.
Look! It's official. It has a piece of paper on it. It HAS to be MEDICAL OXYGEN.
Unless one has the really spendy test equipment, you don't know what you have. Oxygen to me would tend to be more likely to be pure, as mixing contaminants would produce an explosive situation, and I really don't think that most people would take the chance.
I'm still interested in seeing the answer to Ed's question on what test equipment that guy uses to make sure they have medical oxygen. Maybe they just look at that paper sticker for quality control.
Steve
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A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
If there is a difference between welding oxygen and medical Oxygen, can anyone prove to me the difference, if it's just a tag, that is not proof, Talk is not proof, Just answer the question if you know for sure....
I doubt it. If it doesn't seem to help the person's condition after 3 or 4 minutes, I'd stop, at least for a while.
I think much more effort is put into purity, but the impurities in welding oxygen wouldn't be so bad in an emergency.
basshammer5x4x3x2x @ gmail.com replied:
Um, did you notice that you're replying to a post that I made almost 4 years ago?
Do you think I still need to know the answer today?
So now I get to ask you a question.
Now that you've seen how stupid it makes you appear, why do you insist on experiencing usenet through the absolutely lame and broken google-groups interface?
Mansfield Ohio?
Or Cleveland?
You think someone got answer, since the question was four years ago?
I used to work for a propane company and we delivered the K oxygen welding tanks to medical cust., they used a medical regulator and a medical humidifier. Of course that was in the early 60's.
Perhaps, but probably not the accurate one. The reality is that the purity standard for welding O2 is tighter than that for medical O2. Ultimately, except for the "analytical grade" all of them come from the exact same cryo tank of O2 at the filling station.
In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Oren belched:
yet he wants to know how stupid it makes basshammer look, yet he's the stupid mofo that has to morph daily to avoid killfiles. Hey home boi, how stupid and *desperate* does that make you?
Hi, I am not an expert on this matter. There are 4 types Oxygen, aviation, welding, medical, research. As far as I know welding Oxygen is purer than medical one, and stored pressure is higher.
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