151–160 of 237 posts
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> We co-evolved with natural chemicals which means that they're usually not too harmful to us There are plenty of counter examples to this (and also pretty unclear what is meant by "natural") Lead is natural. Mercury is natural.
Jesus this is a stupid argument. "Don’t dump chemicals in water or on land" is a perfectly logical and defensible statement.
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Those tests exist already, but no ethical tests can determine the full truth. Also, tests where minute traces of anything, like coffee, are purified to extreme amounts and injected into animals to cause cancer only add confusion, especially when California considers adding cancer warnings to coffee.
> Those tests exist already Do you actually know which tests the EPA runs and if so could you cite your source? > no ethical tests can determine the full truth. That's an all-or-nothing fallacy. Also you didn't respond to the core of my remark, which is about increasing the financial incentives by an order of magnitude. Lastly I take your complaint about coffee as support my argument that the current testing mechanis…
No. Ethical tests cannot determine the full truth - that is just a simple fact.
How can anything be tested on on enough humans ethically? We can use animal models to detect some negatives. But if animal tests show a substance is "safe", doubt would still remain until tested on humans. It is normal that humanity creates new technology without knowing the future impact. Some people think that we shouldn't introduce new technology since we can't afford the risks. But technology has ethically positive outcomes - not only negative risk. Doing nothing has risks too.
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This is the inevitable process of humanity's understanding of technology.
I don't think it's remotely inevitable. I think that's an outrageous mindset. Think of it like an engineer. We try to test products before deploying them to production (e.g. make all of humanity ingest it). If our tests are wrong some significant portion of the time, or if being wrong is much more damaging than we realized, then absolutely it's time to start the conversation of "How do we get better test coverage?" I…
There is neither lack of effort nor lack of incentive for human-analog testing ( which would lead to curing cancer, weightloss, hairloss, vaccines, etc. etc. etc.). You can't just write unit tests for the real world. Please do some reading before you try and hand-wave away a whole field as trivial.
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> We co-evolved with natural chemicals which means that they're usually not too harmful to us There are plenty of counter examples to this (and also pretty unclear what is meant by "natural") Lead is natural. Mercury is natural.
Jesus this is a stupid argument. "Don’t dump chemicals in water or on land" is a perfectly logical and defensible statement.
Okay, no more fertilizer on the crops then. Enjoy the famine.
PFAS seem like they could be the asbestos of our time, but perhaps much worse, since there is much more exposure. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if it will be shown that they have severe detrimental effects on the human body, in particular on the endocrine system.
Conversely, after so many studies, I would be particularly surprised if we discover severe detrimental effects of PFAS as a category. So far, most of the science has revolved around the fact we can find them all over the place. They are relatively pervasive. For most of these compounds (and there are many under the umbrella PFAS) health effects at expected exposure levels have been much more difficult to prove. In fa…
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> A lot of care goes into their disposal or recycle. Are you aware of the usage of PFAS in textiles, food packaging, and waterproof-treated goods? I'm a little confused what you mean by care goes into their disposal. PFAS treatments on textiles for example are disposed of by pouring down a washing machine drain into municipal sewers and from there into natural waterways. Because of the "forever", small amounts add up…
> Are you aware of the usage of PFAS in textiles, food packaging, and waterproof-treated goods? No, because that's not true. Teflon (the substance used widely in waterproof goods and food packaging) is not the same thing as PFAS [1] (which is actually not one thing, but a whole class of things). Teflon is PTFE [2], which is different. The terminology being casually flung around this issue is misleading. Certain PFAS…
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/dan...
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Gortex and similar waterproof/fireproof gear are loaded with pfas/pfoa cocktails.
No, they aren't. PFAS (and specifically PFOA) has a carboxyl group, making it much more polar than PTFE (it is an acid). PFOA is soluble in water. PFTE is not. Even if there were lingering PFOA in Teflon, it would be quickly washed away. Some people try to confuse the issue by grouping together anything with a poly-CF2 chain as "PFAS", but this is wrong.
There is no “away”. “away” is our waterways and soil.
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I dunno man lead was pretty great at a bunch of stuff so by your logic we should use it again, just like asbestos
I said cost be benefits - it’s now clear that the costs of many usages of lead and asbestos outweighed the benefits. I’m suggesting we look at both sides before we make a decision. Doesn’t seem like an extreme position.
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Gortex and similar waterproof/fireproof gear are loaded with pfas/pfoa cocktails.
No, they aren't. PFAS (and specifically PFOA) has a carboxyl group, making it much more polar than PTFE (it is an acid). PFOA is soluble in water. PFTE is not. Even if there were lingering PFOA in Teflon, it would be quickly washed away. Some people try to confuse the issue by grouping together anything with a poly-CF2 chain as "PFAS", but this is wrong.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/01/wear-and-tear-...
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Conversely, after so many studies, I would be particularly surprised if we discover severe detrimental effects of PFAS as a category. So far, most of the science has revolved around the fact we can find them all over the place. They are relatively pervasive. For most of these compounds (and there are many under the umbrella PFAS) health effects at expected exposure levels have been much more difficult to prove. In fa…
Yeah, and we've seen some pervasive changes about people in the past decade. Just because people made those changes to their bodies their identity, doesn't mean that those changes haven't happened.