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FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

reuters.com

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Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#111

Post by mattkrause »

markdown wrote: post #61
openasocket wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the sentiment, keep in mind it's a little more complicated than that. People who work on some category of regulations can only find relevant work in the government or in that sector of industry. Making it impossible to move from the government to an industry job effectively traps people for life in their one job unless they change careers. As a concrete example, my fiance is a lawyer working in env…

> Making it impossible to move from the government to an industry job effectively traps people for life in their one job unless they change careers. And?

And it’ll be necessary to either a) pay exorbitant salaries for these jobs to compensate for what is effectively an incredibly broad non-compete or b) hire idiots that can’t get jobs anywhere else.

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#112

Post by mikestew »

rootusrootus wrote: post #91
mikestew wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baby powder is fine, given that I don't know that one can even buy talc powder anymore. It's all made with corn starch now. Go right ahead and bread those nuts (verifying that it's non-talc breading, just to be safe).

Talc is still very much commonplace. What is actually somewhat hard to find is pure talc with no fragrance at all. Not everyone wants to smell like baby powder.

Thanks for a different POV. Here in Redmond, WA I’m either not looking (which is quite possible), or corn starch dominates the shelves.

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#113

Post by mr_toad »

gwern wrote: post #44
ksec wrote: post #42

So are those Johnson and Johnson Baby powder actually safe? I remember reading J&J said only a batch in some years contains ultra small amount of some substance and less than certain % of it is safe.

One has to wonder about a lengthy article which refuses to cite any numbers and instead repeats endlessly that 'no level is known to be safe', which is irrelevant.

What’s to wonder? Cancer stories get clicks. Facts are optional.

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#114

Post by ctrl-j »

Invictus0 wrote: post #40
vkou wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not so simple as good and crooked. How can you even traceback which politician gave which authority to what regulator, It doesn't matter who gave authority to the regulator, what matters is whether or not they are currently responsible for that regulator, and are doing a good job of it. There's a congressional committee on pretty much every department under the sun. Follow the chain of command. > and how can y…

"Steve is our best salesman but he keeps burning popcorn in the microwave. Joe Janitor just put in his resume: I don't know if he's better with the popcorn but let's fire Steve anyway."

"Steve is our best salesman, but he keeps sexually harassing the interns and crashing the company car. Joe janitor just put in his resume..."

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#115

Post by m463 »

chmaynard wrote: post #80

Someday, scholars will write the long, sordid history of how industrial chemicals have been virtually unregulated for many decades. Thousands of novel compounds have been introduced into the environment in enormous quantities without any serious clinical studies of their long-term effects on human health and the health of the natural world.

This has been happening for centuries.

I think of the mercury used in gold mining in the 1800's as well as this book from the 1960's:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

I also read when the USSR came apart the world started to find out the scope of hidden environmental problems.

"Heavy metal pollution near Norilsk is so severe that it has now become economically feasible to mine surface soil, as the soil has acquired such high concentrations of platinum and palladium."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Pollution

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#116

Post by ppmanik »

"J&J, the world’s largest producer of talc powders, said in a statement that it recalled the 33,000 bottles of Baby Powder out of an “abundance of caution.” Eleven days later, the company announced that tests by labs it hired had determined that there was no asbestos–other than some contamination it said came from an air conditioner – in samples from the one bottle tested by the FDA and the batch it came from.

Wow just wow

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#117

Post by Ericson2314 »

guelo wrote: post #96
davidhyde wrote: post #2

So if you are a small cosmetics company the FDA will prevent you from selling your product without thorough testing but if you are a large cosmetic company you can simply tell the FDA that everything is OK. This benefits the larger companies and therefore, monopolies. Strikingly similar to how the FAA seems to operate with Boeing and look how that turned out.

The solution to this type of problem is not to weaken or get rid of these cops. We should give them more resources, more power, more independence to resist political pressures, more ethics rules and internal affairs, more respect and leeway to the career professionals to attract the best and the brightest. This is a frustration to me because neither the left or the right seem to fight for better government, more just…

I was with you until you blamed the government unions. That is emphatically not where regulatory happens, even though those unions themselves (in comparison to their beleguared private sector counterparts) are arguably an instance of regulatory capture.

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#119

Post by w1nst0nsm1th »

Invictus0 wrote: post #30
loudmax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely vote out the politicians responsible for for giving authority to these regulators. In fact, it's your duty to vote out crooked politicians. Even when both candidates for an office are crooked, they won't be equally crooked. Figure out which will do the least damage and support that candidate despite their flaws. And don't give up hope. Crooked interests are absolutely counting on voters' cynicism t…

It's not so simple as good and crooked. How can you even traceback which politician gave which authority to what regulator, and how can you possibly know that the opposing candidate would do a better job? Fringe issues like this are completely out of scope for voters and will not even show up on the politician's platform. If you care deeply about a fringe issue, you need to either hire a lobbyist or become a politici…

I'm belgian, living in Belgium and I know which american political party take regulation more seriously, which is more obviously corrupt and which is more socially irresponsible...

Just google "climate change republican party" and you will have a good summary about who should get your vote for the sake of your grand children.

Re: FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc

#120

Post by Cougher »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #104
davidhyde wrote: post #2

So if you are a small cosmetics company the FDA will prevent you from selling your product without thorough testing but if you are a large cosmetic company you can simply tell the FDA that everything is OK. This benefits the larger companies and therefore, monopolies. Strikingly similar to how the FAA seems to operate with Boeing and look how that turned out.

The list of untested yet still "approved" chemicals / additives is endless. The ability to pin point the guilt of causing a disease on any one of them is nearly impossible.

Very true. Companies are trusted to perform their own testing which is, at best, only testing for superficial, short-term effects. And substances are tested singly, despite the fact that we know that their effects are often multiplied by orders of magnitude. Look at the "inert ingredients" in pesticides for example.
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