Ethidium Bromide

Hello kelly,

as you know, ethidium bromide is a fluorescent dye that intercalates into dna (that is why you are able to use ethidium bromide to visualize dna). Ethidium bromide is mutagenic in bacteria, and possibly animal cells.

There have been many cases of people accidentally being exposed to ethidium bromide without dire consequenses. The thing is, if your friend was to go and see a doctor right away then maybe they would have given him something at the time, but in terms of going now to check if he has cancer I do not know if that will be productive. Cancers have a long latency period and often require more than one hit to develop. It is likely that your friend will walk away unscathed, but please be careful in the future!

Why did your friend ingest ethidium bromide!?! Was he/she eating in the lab, did he/she run a gel and then have lunch without washing their hands? What sort of a quantity are we talking about?

Please take care.

Kash

I am worried I might have ingested a trace amount of ethidium bromide. I am always really careful around it but I touched my lab book and the printouts from the scanner with the same gloes I'd been using for the gel, forgot, and took them back to my desk to interpret while I ate lunch. Its really easily done.

my handswere contaminated with etbr& ma eyes also was touched withthat, nw im really afraid & i feel pain in ma eye

Don't panic, you'll be ok. Wash your hands carefully without scrubbing and call the designated first aider, they will know what to do.

consider contacting Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S). don't know how much poison control knows but maybe you could try them too.

Hi your blog is strangely relevant to a concern Ive been having. I used to work in a lab that used ethidium bromide. And ever since I heard about its carcinogenic properties I just really didn't want to go anywhere near it even though some other people in my lab used it. (to help justify my paranoia a family member of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer soo)

I mean how toxic is it? I have not and probably will not handle it because it is not in my field, but I'm just afraid of exposure because lets say someone wearing a glove that has ethidium bromide on it touched my clothes or just like being around it in lab in general. I mean even the amount on the clothes is probably trace, but then stuff touches stuff bladibla, are like trace of trace amounts of it dangerous?? if its a one time occurance its fine right?

My friend also ate etbr. Till now she is fine. It may be carcinogenic for humans.