How Dangerous Is Your Couch? • Hacker News Board

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#81

Post by dfc » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:07 PM UTC

newbie12 wrote: post #41

huhtenberg wrote: post #17

Reminds me of the situation around one of theories that tries to explain SIDS - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. If you had a kid, you know what it is - a newborn dying in his sleep for no apparent reason. You put a healthy baby to sleep in his bed only to find him dead in the morning. Fun stuff. There are no exact explanation for the syndrome, but there are preventive measures (such as always let newborn fall asleep on…

SIDs, while still too common, has dropped 70% in the U.S. since the "back-to-sleep" effort and the general awareness of the situation. Children under 6 months don't have a reflex to carbon dioxide poisoning, and their respiratory systems aren't fully developed, so it is easier for them to suffocate on their own breath pooling in too-soft mattresses or cribs with polyester blankets or bumpers. Risk factors for SIDs de…

Winter? That is surprising. Do you know why a season is a risk factor?

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#82

Post by Tichy » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #63

Tichy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide a TL;DR of your expose? Thanks!

Really? Fire is dangerous, and we know it kills a bunch of people. Fire retardants may be dangerous, they may harm a bunch of people, but we're not sure how many, nor how they are harmed. Research is sometimes conducted poorly, or good research is interpreted poorly by reporters. We need to balance risk and cost. People dying in fires is bad. People getting a bunch of diseases is also bad. We need to find out which i…

So in summary, no content? See, that was easier to see from your TL;DR than from the long comment.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#83

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:10 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #70

lignuist wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics don't count in medicine if you are the one who gets the disease.

They don't count if you die in a fire, either. The reality is with this kind of thing we're really off into rounding errors. To the extent you can affect your odds of getting cancer, the extent to which you do the things your mother told you to do (don't smoke, don't drink, eat your vegetables, and don't get too fat) swamps your cancer risk from environmental sources.

Your environmental risk of cancer is probably not dominated by scary industrial chemicals, either; aflatoxins are probably much more carcinogenic than chlorinated trisphosphates used in flame retardants, and mother nature does just fine producing those on her own, often in our houses, and often in our pantries.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#84

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:12 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #82

DanBC wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Fire is dangerous, and we know it kills a bunch of people. Fire retardants may be dangerous, they may harm a bunch of people, but we're not sure how many, nor how they are harmed. Research is sometimes conducted poorly, or good research is interpreted poorly by reporters. We need to balance risk and cost. People dying in fires is bad. People getting a bunch of diseases is also bad. We need to find out which i…

So in summary, no content? See, that was easier to see from your TL;DR than from the long comment.

To ask for a "tl;dr", receive it, and then assail the author of the condensed summary for lacking details is an especially clever kind of troll.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#85

Post by lignuist » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:13 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #79

DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> emit highly toxic mercury Do you have a source for energy efficient CFLs "emitting mercury"?

DanBC, take a look at the packaging for any CFL. They describe in great detail the procedure for cleaning up a broken bulb.

"They describe in great detail the procedure for cleaning up a broken bulb."

Are you talking about packaging in the US? The packaging in the EU, I saw so far, don't even mention the mercury, not to mention cleaning instructions.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#86

Post by DanBC » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:15 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #79

DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> emit highly toxic mercury Do you have a source for energy efficient CFLs "emitting mercury"?

DanBC, take a look at the packaging for any CFL. They describe in great detail the procedure for cleaning up a broken bulb.

Sure, a broken bulb will release an amount of the 5 mg of mercury that a CFL contains. But it's not harmful unless you breath it, which is why you ventilate the room.

Lignuist's comment made me think they were talking about intact lamps.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#87

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

srl wrote: post #22

001sky wrote: post #5

Of the 84,000 industrial chemicals registered for use in the United States, only about 200 have been evaluated for human safety by the Environmental Protection Agency --Wait, what? What is the EPA doing, then for 42 years? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Pro...

The next sentence: That’s because industrial chemicals are presumed safe unless proved otherwise, under the 1976 federal Toxic Substances Control Act. In other words, the EPA isn't _allowed_ to investigate products unless evidence that they are unsafe is brought before it. Makers get the benefit of the doubt.

The EPA is not the primary investigator or regulator of industrial chemicals!

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#88

Post by dfc » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

lignuist wrote: post #85

dfc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DanBC, take a look at the packaging for any CFL. They describe in great detail the procedure for cleaning up a broken bulb.

"They describe in great detail the procedure for cleaning up a broken bulb." Are you talking about packaging in the US? The packaging in the EU, I saw so far, don't even mention the mercury, not to mention cleaning instructions.

Packaging in New York state to be specific. (I think a lot of these consumer warnings are mandated at the state level. )

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#89

Post by DanBC » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #81

newbie12 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SIDs, while still too common, has dropped 70% in the U.S. since the "back-to-sleep" effort and the general awareness of the situation. Children under 6 months don't have a reflex to carbon dioxide poisoning, and their respiratory systems aren't fully developed, so it is easier for them to suffocate on their own breath pooling in too-soft mattresses or cribs with polyester blankets or bumpers. Risk factors for SIDs de…

Winter? That is surprising. Do you know why a season is a risk factor?

Keeping an infant too hot is a risk factor. In winter people may use extra bedding, or thicker sleeping bags, or extra clothing, or reduced ventilation, or increased heating.

(http://fsid.org.uk/page.aspx?pid=424)

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#90

Post by 001sky » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:25 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #73

newbie12 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The environmental movement in America is worthless. They spent all of their time on lifestyle issues like battery cars, recycling, and global warming (issues that also line the pockets of their large donors) when there are real, profound issues like this. Even if the EPA can't act, how come only one crazy lady is working on building the case?

I wouldn't blame the movement itself. There's always a buzz around lifestyle issues because there's continual evolution. Every day millions of individuals make millions of choices, so every day the culture is changing in little ways. There's a certain portion of the population that is an easy target for the kind of education and advocacy that scientists are good at. Politics is a lot harder. It's harder to make peopl…

When it comes to people who aren't as well educated or who aren't members of the reality-based community,

Please. This is america. We don't need to talk down to people like this.

200/84000 = 0.24%. EPA doesn't have a clue about 99.76% of the registered chemicals for sale? Experts?

It doesn't take a rocket scientis or a member of the tea party to figure out something is odd-ball with that?

It would seem more politically feasible to say, here is some tax money. Lets test this stuff.

Because it looks like the original CA regs. requiring these chemicals was also written to "protect" the public? who's protecting the people from the protectors?

Ya know? its just kind of weird all around.