This conversation is going nowhere because you insist on dragging it everywhere. For example
Bisphenol A has nothing to do with mineral spirits. Bisphenol A also has reactive sites that can be utilized in a chemical manner. Mineral spirits, especially odorless ones, have few if any chemical compounds that get involved in much chemistry whether that is in the body or outside of it. Odorless mineral spirits are hydrocarbons that unreactive under most conditions and particularly unreactive under conditions that humans would experience. You can make them react with catalysts and at very high temperatures (200°C or higher).
At to autism, if you have some special information about a connection between autism and odorless mineral spirits, by all means share it. But I doubt you'll get much traction since there has to be at least
some evidence of causality. Autism is a childhood disorder. It doesn't present in older individuals. Are you saying that all mothers of autistic children were breathing in vast quantities of mineral spirits or exposing their children to mineral spirits? What's the mechanism of how odorless mineral spirits causing autism? You brought it up so back up your claims with some evidence.
That article you linked to shows that someone is investigating mineral spirits. It's a review article which, in the parlance of science, means that the authors went out and looked at all the literature on the subject, reviewed the findings and reported on them. The money shot of the abstract is this
That says that the findings of a
number of studies is that Type I Class A mineral spirits...which is the one with the highest aromatic content...won't kill you immediately and probably won't kill you slowly. We scientists use "probably" a lot because we want to leave ourselves some wiggle room but, for the most part, you won't find any "gotchas" on mineral spirits studies in the future. You
may be a visionary who has discovered an unknown link between minerals spirits and autism but I rather doubt it.
Evidence? Study? A paper on the how many painters per year are killed by mineral spirits? Even a solid number? Like the Liberace thing and autism thing, you are making stuff up again.
I agree that bicycles don't need strong solvents. Mineral spirits isn't a "strong" solvent. It's pretty mild.
As for what the chain manufacturers say, if they say
something like what KMC does, you can dismiss most of it out of hand. Some of what they say is true but other comments are so far off the mark as to be comical. For example
Partly true. More importantly neither acidic nor alkali based detergents have much effect on the grease. I kind of doubt they will cause the chain to break.
Um. No. Just no. An "aggressive" degreaser ....whatever that is...isn't going to "cause cracks". Assuming that they mean a hydrocarbon degreaser as an "aggressive" degreaser, of course. It will have no effect on the steel. You can crack a chain if you soak it in salt water or in a water based degreaser with salt present, however.
INSTANTLY ruin your chain?
(Now I have coffee on my screen!). I would suggest people avoid using chain washing machines since they are messy and mostly ineffective...but mostly just messy. They won't "ruin" your chain. A chain isn't that delicate.
People do all kinds of things manufacturers say you "shouldn't" do to a bike. This is just CYA. Wait a minute....
Some guy on these forums said "The "correct" way to wax a chain: Clean entire drivetrain with multiple solvents". That same guy says to follow the manufacturer's instructions and "not to use solvents on their products". Something doesn't add up.