To some chemists it drives them up the wall, it's a cause celebre that may induce some to rant in poorly controlled anger and others to stew in silence. To others it's simply a pet peeve that deserves a softer touch. To many it's something in between. I'm pretty low key about it, but I think it's important to discuss it and it can be a real learning experience to think about it. But all chemists are aware of it. What is 'it'?
Best to explain by example. Very recently 20 or so sailors and civilians died aboard a Russian submarine when a fire suppression system activated accidentally and suffocated the aforementioned individuals with what was reported to be (and likely was) a gas called freon. This at least, is the information that the major networks are reporting. I think we tend to suspect that causes of Russian sub accidents are rarely accurately identified to the outside press, but this one has the ring of truth so I'll run with it.
Yahoo had the reasonable headline:"Accident on Russian nuclear sub suffocates 20.". Sure, they're playing the 'nuclear' card in this headline to draw you in, but they include the crucial piece of information on suffocation, namely that this had nothing to do with the nuclear reactor inside the sub.
CNN on the other hand, went with a number of headlines. The one that I wanted to call out here interestingly no longer exists, but read "Chemicals kill 20 aboard Russian sub". This article spells out CNN's recent reporting on it which is still highly misguided.
With lively phrases like "chemicals spewed out" and "poisoning from freon gas", the CNN article is engaging in the practice that tweaks the sensibilities of chemists everywhere: villainizing 'chemicals' not to mention drastically stretching the truth (a.k.a. lying - we'll get to that). You and I are all made of chemicals. We eat, drink and excrete chemicals. Everything we touch is a chemical. The plants we grow, harvest and eat are all chemicals. Everything is a chemical. But we sometimes see in the presses instances like this that engage in the villainizing of the word 'chemical'. Yes, it's very upsetting when chemicals like DDT or thalidomide come along and ruin lives. But chemicals like aspirin, penicillin and lipitor(TM) to name a few also work modern marvels for the human condition. The word chemical should simply be a neutrally connotative word IMHO.
To see how CNN's article reads in the eyes of this chemist, one would have to report that every victim of drowning was "killed by chemicals" and "poisoned by water". In drowning, the victim suffers a loss of oxygen and everybody knows and understands this. So what about freon? Freon (like water) is not highly reactive. That makes it desirable as a fire suppressor since (like water) it will be somewhat unreactive at the higher temperatures. It is also significantly denser than air so that (like water) it displaces air very effectively. In a sub, they could flood any compartment that was on fire with water and do a great job putting out the fire. But this doesn't sound like a good idea in a sub... Importantly, freon has negligible toxicity (like water) according to the MSDS (material safety data sheet). So that by any reasonable layperson's definition, the allegation of "poisoning" is incorrect since the tragedy was due to a loss of oxygen, which would have happened whether water or freon filled the compartment.
CNN's reporting is regrettable, but I don't want to villainize them. They made a good effort to present freon in a lively way that would engage their readers (aside: and CNN was extremely cautious on election reporting which I admired) and even though it ended up perpetuating misperceptions about the word 'chemical', we can now talk about it and think about it and learn from it. So, to the great void out there, what does the word 'chemical' mean to you?