To Mask or Not to Mask, that is the (blah blah blah)

Tiffany stones are not all that dangerous. They are a mix of various minerals, up to 16, predominated by fluorite. Some of the ore does contain a tiny trace of bertrandite, which is a beryllium ore found in multiple locations around the world. The amount in Tiffany stones is so tiny though that it is not even present in the majority of the ore. Analysis of the Utah Tiffany stone from Brush-Wellman shown only around 0.04-0.07% of bertrandite. Be pretty hard to get beryllium poisoning from that.

A lot of these rock lists such as dangerous stones to work with, or ones not compatible with water are generally full of incorrect and misleading information.

Most toxic metals are not readily absorbed and often have very short half lives in the body.

One reason for this is that the foods we consume often have natural chelation agents such as phytates, algins and pectins that bind these metals preventing absorption.  That would be what we would obtain orally. Inhalation is a different story, but again they are overlooking facts there as well. For example, most rocks we deal with contain silica and therefore according to these lists almost all rocks we cab would be a major danger from silicosis. It is not as big of an issue as they are making it out to be though. Silicosis requires the inhalation of larger amounts of silica over a very extended period of time. Why? Because out lungs have hair-like projections called cilia that facilitate the removal of foreign particles and mucus that helps trap these particles for removal. This is why not everyone has silicosis from inhaling all the silica dust naturally in the air all the time. Instead, we see silicosis in people who are exposed to large amounts of silica being inhaled such as some miners, sandblasters not wearing proper protection. some military personnel on carriers who have the job of stripping old paint off the carrier decks, etc.

Another reason goes back to chemistry. There is a thing called the electromotive series of metals. In short, this is a list of metal reactivity. Metals higher on the list are more reactive and therefore displace metals of lower reactivity in solution. For example, this principle is used in medicine for the treatment of bipolar depression. Bipolar is a result of the sodium shift in the brain neurons so they need something more reactive than the sodium to displace it. Both potassium and lithium are more reactive than the sodium, but too much potassium can stop the heart, which makes it particularly dangerous to some individuals such as those on potassium sparing diuretics, with cancer undergoing therapy, with kidney disease, etc. So, instead they use lithium, which is actually more reactive than potassium anyway, and only destroys the liver. Yes, that is sarcasm.  Many metals essential to the body are much more reactive than toxic metals. For instance, at the top of the series it includes in order of reactivity potassium, sodium, and calcium. Therefore, many toxic metals are readily displaced and can be removed the body in short order. Very few, such as a few radioactive isotopes can lodge in the body and stay there for extended periods of time.  This is likely because they lodge in the bones, which does not have a major blood supply and thus makes it harder to displace the metals.

One of the metals I have seen listed as supposedly being so toxic to the body is copper, which is very misleading. Copper is actually essential to the body. It is needed for the formation o red blood cells, melanin, collagen and elastin as well as the antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and immune stimulatory enzyme copper-superoxide dismutase (CuSOD). There have been people overseas that work with Congo malachite making carvings and such that have been poisoned by grinding large amounts of the stone. Not from copper though. I was talking to a local importer and he said the poisonings were actually due to the arsenic content of the Congo malachite.  Arsenic is a cumulative poison, but it is also easily displaced from the body, so it takes a fair amount over generally a long period of time to even show symptoms.  I knew someone many years ago who was being deliberately poisoned with arsenic so I learned a lot about this toxin. Symptoms of poisoning mimic a number of other things, so diagnosing can be difficult. In fact, it took 6 months before I figured out she was being poisoned when she finally told me she kept getting a weird taste in her mouth. I said "is it garlicky" and she said "yes, how did you know"? That is when I got a urine sample and tested it for arsenic, which is a very simple test.  Acidity the urine, add some stannous chloride, heat the test tube to bring the solution to a boil and let cool. If arsenic is present then a black precipitate will form. She was loaded with arsenic.  It is a very long and super bizarre story, but in short the things she was being treated for based on her history and symptoms was displacing the arsenic. So the people poising her kept upping the arsenic dose to kill her before Halloween. Didn't work.  Good example though of how even with something like arsenic that is a cumulative poison, it is not that easy to due from slow exposure.  In fact, apples we get in the grocery store are preserved using arsenic, and arsenic is found in the bran of brown rice. Yet we do not hear of poisonings from these sources because these sources get bound and not absorbed in to the bloodstream. In apples, the arsenic gets bound by the pectins, and in the rice by the phytates in the bran.

The other thing to keep in mind is the form metals are in. Some forms are less toxic than others. For example, ethyl mercury is less toxic that methyl mercury, although ethyl mercury can be converted by Candida in the gut in to methyl mercury. Yet cinnabar, which is also on the list of dangerous minerals despite its being used to this day in Chinese medicine. Even though cinnabar contains mercury, it is very poorly absorbed.

The bertrandite of Tiffany stones is a beryllium silicate, not the toxic beryllium metal.  If you look at the chemistry as well, there are only 4 beryllium atoms and 13 other atoms between silicon, oxygen and hydrogen. This means that while the amount of bertrandite in the ore is only 0.04-0.07%, of that only a tiny fraction of that is actual beryllium, and the bertrandite would have to dissociate in to elemental beryllium to even be toxic anyway. There is a possibility of dissociation if ingested due to the reaction of the hydroxyl group with stomach acid, but this is highly unlikely with inhalation. Bottom line is that I feel it is virtually impossible to get a toxic level of elemental beryllium from Tiffany stones even if you were cabbing 100 pounds a day of the material since bertrandite is not even present in the majority of the ore to begin with.