Yew chopping boards???

[delabodge]

:lol:no wonder I`m off it for january,,lol:lol:

[woodyguy]

Several dogs have died from chewing Yew wood. The lethal dose for a small dog is about 4g of wood. Not a risk I'd take with my kids.

[Ian Leach]

Can you show me please where is says a dog has died from chewing yew wood not berries or foliage, as I'm genuinely interested as I do work with the stuff and been drinking out of a goblet/cup for years with no effects.

Like I've said before as far as I know no human has died from boards, bowls , goblets, wood .

 

I know a few dogs that have died from chewing wood only to find out it was splinters and pieces of wood that pierced various things.

 

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[Ian Leach]

Plus they only use the bark and the needles for the cancer drug, otherwise all these people what have yew timber at there yards would be flogging it and retired by now

 

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[woodyguy]

Glad to see you're interested. Not aware of humans dying, although poisoning making someone feel ill might go undetected. I've listed the references below. All parts of the tree including the wood are equally poisonous except the red berry. The yew we grow isn't the best source for the anti-cancer drug and clipping are harvested to extract it from tropical yews. So no chance to make money there.

1. Burrows GE, Tyrl RJ. Taxaceae. In: Toxic plants of North America. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2001;1149-1157.

 

2. Wilson CR, Sauer J, Hooser SB. Taxines: a review of the mechanism and toxicity of yew (Taxus spp.) alkaloids. Toxicon 2001;39:175-185.

[Rob D]

Rob, take your point that many woods have toxins within them. There is just a huge difference between tannins (ie tea) in oak and specific toxins in Yew that are so powerful they are one of the mainstays for killing breast cancers. Not all toxins are equal. Plenty of farm animals have been killed from eating Yew but can't remember too many from Oak.

 

I wonder where you'd stand if someone was injured from a bowl or chopping board you sold?

 

 

 

I looked at the references or at least put them into google but seems to mainly talk about toxicity of berrys and leaves...

 

Ref if someone was injured - how about a splinter from a board? What if someone dropped it on themselves and they said it was because handholds were not correctly placed? Would you be liable then?

 

 

There's risk with everything but is the risk with dry yew wood a real and dangerous one?

 

 

All said and done it's prob just not worth the risk but a shame as said before it makes an attractive board.

[Rob D]

Another good blog here which is interesting but nothing concrete again!

 

 

Is Yew wood toxic… | woodturning blog

[Daniël Bos]

Glad to see you're interested. Not aware of humans dying, although poisoning making someone feel ill might go undetected. I've listed the references below. All parts of the tree including the wood are equally poisonous except the red berry. The yew we grow isn't the best source for the anti-cancer drug and clipping are harvested to extract it from tropical yews. So no chance to make money there.

1. Burrows GE, Tyrl RJ. Taxaceae. In: Toxic plants of North America. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 2001;1149-1157.

 

2. Wilson CR, Sauer J, Hooser SB. Taxines: a review of the mechanism and toxicity of yew (Taxus spp.) alkaloids. Toxicon 2001;39:175-185.

 

Ehm, not quite.

In my Home Country, the Netherlands and also Belgium there are several annual collection schemes where people take their hedge clippings to a collection point for the production of medicine, many thousands of tonnes of material are collected thus each year.

 

Furthermore, I know of at least 150Ha of taxus baccata growing near my parents' farm, grown exclusively for medicinal use.

 

The useful stuff used to be extracted from the bark of the pacific yew, but a much easier and simpler process has been developed to process the stuff from fresh clippings.

[agg221]

Ehm, not quite.

In my Home Country, the Netherlands and also Belgium there are several annual collection schemes where people take their hedge clippings to a collection point for the production of medicine, many thousands of tonnes of material are collected thus each year.

 

Furthermore, I know of at least 150Ha of taxus baccata growing near my parents' farm, grown exclusively for medicinal use.

 

The useful stuff used to be extracted from the bark of the pacific yew, but a much easier and simpler process has been developed to process the stuff from fresh clippings.

 

Yes - they do it in the UK too. There's someone near me whose yew hedge is clipped annually for free in exchange for the clippings.

 

Alec

[woodyguy]

That's interesting. I hadn't realised they'd moved closer to home. Might have to bag up my clippings!