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Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

nature.com

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Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#21

Post by nonethewiser »

photochemsyn wrote: post #19

Body burning screening for toxic chemical accumulation should be a regular part of every American's yearly physical checkup with their doctor - which itself is an increasingly rare phenomenon, many people only go to doctors and hospitals after getting very sick as they can't afford to have a regular doctor or preventative health program. A body burden program would lead to the identification of the most problematic i…

> Body burning screening for toxic chemical accumulation should be a regular part of every American's yearly physical checkup with their doctor

Is it just me or are yearly physicals and primary care doctors nearly worthless in practice (not in theory)? For adults, not kids.

Anything truly urgent is better served by urgent care or emergency room. They are useful for referrals for specialists when you actually have a serious issue. The screening you suggest seems like a good idea yet so far beyond the type of care they actually offer.

Its like they are the 1st tier tech support who cant really do anything and exist as a filter.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#22

Post by chabes »

chasebank wrote: post #14
voakbasda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic may not be much better, as many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse. So, yes, regulation has failed. Good luck holding anyone accountable.

A friend of mine owns / operates a few hundred acre certified organic Avocado ranch in Carpinteria, CA. He explained to me it's mostly just paperwork and the organic pesticides / fertilizers are just as, if not more, gnarly than the non-organic ones. He said it just makes people feel good and there is virtually zero difference. Obviously a single source but one I hold very credible.

Sounds like your buddy is just using the organic title for marketing purposes. That is unfortunate, but not uncommon.

Here’s a source that doesn’t fit your buddy’s description…

Along the central coast of California, conventional strawberry growers apply chemicals like methyl bromide, an internationally banned substance that is no longer being manufactured, but is stockpiled for exemptions to the ban, which these growers exploit. Alternatively they have been experimenting with methyl iodide and other hardcore synthetic chemicals. They hire undocumented laborers to apply them.

Organic strawberry growers, on the other hand, use crop rotation of a brassica crop as a bio-fumigant, and they grow rows of alfalfa as a trap crop where pest infestations can be literally vacuumed up with a tractor implement.

In this case, there is a huge difference.

It is true that the National Organic Program is a joke, since they let the board get taken over by corporate big ag long ago. That doesn’t mean “it just makes people feel good and there is virtually zero difference”. In some cases it does, but to paint the whole thing as such is denying the larger reality.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#23

Post by jxramos »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #11
tekla wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat, you get to have the fun organic chemicals inside you, the ones that are probably worse because they are "organic"

Why are they probably worse?

presumably because they more readily transfer across membranes and various barriers in the body? That's an interesting point, is something organically derived more easily integrated into biological tissues than something of synthetic origin? I'm not sure that logic is sound but it's an intriguing thought.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#24

Post by jaggederest »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6
rtkwe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next hundred years is probably going to be grappling with how many toxic chemicals we allowed at 'safe' levels because it was inconvenient to industry to ban them the same way we're floored by the casual irradiation of the early 20th century.

Think of the shareholder value though. /s People are going to scream about the cost of remediating all of this (hundreds of billions, if not trillions), but it was just shareholders through limited liability corporations stealing from taxpayers (who will end up with the remediation bill through taxes) by way of the market and government, with enormous aggregate harm a second order effect. So long, and thanks for all…

Same as with the fossil fuel industry - the chloralkali industry as a whole is going to end up net negative all time, with the cost of cleanup exceeding all the total profits of that entire chemical company subcategory. We've already seen it with asbestos, it's going to be playing out similarly for a number of industries.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#26

Post by chabes »

voakbasda wrote: post #7
NegativeLatency wrote: post #3

Well this is making me think about switching to organic only grains. Feels like a bit of a regulatory failure.

Organic may not be much better, as many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse. So, yes, regulation has failed. Good luck holding anyone accountable.

> many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse

Could you name even one organic implement that is “worse” than the conventional alternative?

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#27

Post by giantg2 »

chasebank wrote: post #14
voakbasda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic may not be much better, as many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse. So, yes, regulation has failed. Good luck holding anyone accountable.

A friend of mine owns / operates a few hundred acre certified organic Avocado ranch in Carpinteria, CA. He explained to me it's mostly just paperwork and the organic pesticides / fertilizers are just as, if not more, gnarly than the non-organic ones. He said it just makes people feel good and there is virtually zero difference. Obviously a single source but one I hold very credible.

The general difference with organic pesticides and herbicides is they tend to be less persistent in the environment (lower half life, less off-target impact, etc). Organic farming was never supposed to be about human health, it was supposed to be about environmental health. The program was also suppose dto use chemicals as a last resort, instead relying on different agricultural techniques from the typical mass monoculture farm. Instead it has been mostly hijacked by people just doing the paperwork and switching which chemicals they're spraying.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#28

Post by s1gnp0st »

rtkwe wrote: post #5
NegativeLatency wrote: post #3

Well this is making me think about switching to organic only grains. Feels like a bit of a regulatory failure.

The next hundred years is probably going to be grappling with how many toxic chemicals we allowed at 'safe' levels because it was inconvenient to industry to ban them the same way we're floored by the casual irradiation of the early 20th century.

Yep, and how do we even begin to model the interactions between these?

The burden of proof is upon those introducing novel substances into my food.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#29

Post by Saris »

chasebank wrote: post #14
voakbasda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic may not be much better, as many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse. So, yes, regulation has failed. Good luck holding anyone accountable.

A friend of mine owns / operates a few hundred acre certified organic Avocado ranch in Carpinteria, CA. He explained to me it's mostly just paperwork and the organic pesticides / fertilizers are just as, if not more, gnarly than the non-organic ones. He said it just makes people feel good and there is virtually zero difference. Obviously a single source but one I hold very credible.

It depends. I suspect large organic brands are more likely to be like that.

But locally I've visited some of the small farms we buy produce from, and they use very minimal sprays, or none at all and instead plant companion plants that attract the pests to them instead of the main crop.

Re: Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023

#30

Post by candiddevmike »

chabes wrote: post #26
voakbasda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic may not be much better, as many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse. So, yes, regulation has failed. Good luck holding anyone accountable.

> many of the chemicals approved for organic crops are even worse Could you name even one organic implement that is “worse” than the conventional alternative?

It's hard to say "worse", but for a lot of organic alternatives the problem is "more"--it requires significantly more applications/frequencies than synthetic alternatives. This can contribute to run off and groundwater contamination.
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