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FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

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Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#121

Post by pasc1878 »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #71
abeppu wrote: post #49

A bunch of comments here are roughly "there's not great evidence that these are harmful" -- but is that the right standard? Or should there be an obligation to provide evidence that something is "safe" in order to use it in some consumer applications (like food packaging)? It's tempting to say that we should conclusively establish that something isn't harmful before we use it absolutely everywhere ... but what standa…

For me, the standard is: if the material was used pre-industrial age, it's far more likely to be "safe". Any person could overintellectualize this point and find exceptions. But it's just common sense.

So why was the expected age of death lower in the pre-industrial age than it is now if the materials used then are safer than modern ones?

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#122

Post by _DeadFred_ »

kragen wrote: post #96
kjkjadksj wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d worry less about silicates than anything. We evolved along sandy coastlines not polyurethane or pvc.

crystalline silica is an iarc group 1 carcinogen, the highest-concern category, and occupational illnesses due to crystalline silica exposure have been well known for thousands of years

When I built my home I used concrete floors that I then kept waxed. It seemed like the best solution I could find. But then we had to cover the floors with wool rugs because the acoustics were painful.

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#123

Post by sqeaky »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #120
ActionHank wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies already track whether you smoke, drink, or do recreational drugs. I wonder how long until they start to ask questions that indicate your risk based on chemical \ microplastic consumption.

This data would only be useful if it was accurate and predictive. I dont see it getting there on either front.

Yeah, microplastics seem to be systemic. I don't know that we actually have good data on this, but many sources claim that most microplastics are from polyester (a plastic) clothing and industrial nylon fishing nets. If true then wearing and washing a tacky shirt could be more hazardous that drinking from tons of plastic bottles and that would make such questions hard to ask in a predictive manner.

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#124

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

abeppu wrote: post #49

A bunch of comments here are roughly "there's not great evidence that these are harmful" -- but is that the right standard? Or should there be an obligation to provide evidence that something is "safe" in order to use it in some consumer applications (like food packaging)? It's tempting to say that we should conclusively establish that something isn't harmful before we use it absolutely everywhere ... but what standa…

>is that the right standard? Or should there be an obligation to provide evidence that something is "safe" in order to use it

I agree but the FDA might not have the legal authority to ban chemicals that are already in use that haven't been proven to be harmful. That is the case with the EPA IIRC. Although I think there actually is a lot of evidence pointing towards phthalates being harmful especially in utero.

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#125

Post by vel0city »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #71
abeppu wrote: post #49

A bunch of comments here are roughly "there's not great evidence that these are harmful" -- but is that the right standard? Or should there be an obligation to provide evidence that something is "safe" in order to use it in some consumer applications (like food packaging)? It's tempting to say that we should conclusively establish that something isn't harmful before we use it absolutely everywhere ... but what standa…

For me, the standard is: if the material was used pre-industrial age, it's far more likely to be "safe". Any person could overintellectualize this point and find exceptions. But it's just common sense.

> if the material was used pre-industrial age, it's far more likely to be "safe"

So much lead and mercury was used in the pre-industrial age.

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#126

Post by mightyham »

kragen wrote: post #78
stouset wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence-based decisions matter, but so does extreme caution when considering the scale and widespread impact. There was no evidence against leaded gasoline… right up until there was, and by then everyone had been breathing exponentially-increasing amounts of lead. So maybe let's be conservative when considering compounds that live permanently in the environment, are damn near impossible to remove, and are spreading…

there was excellent evidence against leaded gasoline even before it was commercialized. lead had been known to be toxic for two thousand years, many of the workers in the pilot tetraethyl lead plant died, and midgley (the inventor) gradually became paralyzed, probably as a result of his exposure. people used leaded gasoline to kill insects, and accidental human deaths from ingestion were fairly common there are in fa…

>conservatism like yours was the default stance for thousands of years, which is why human life was impoverished and short during that time.

The ridiculousness of this claim is basically self-evident. The obvious reason for impoverished and short life spans was a low level of technological development, not conversative social attitudes. It begs the question, how exactly could modern liberal attitudes even exist in an era that lacked the technology required to have a modern liberal society?

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#127

Post by dfxm12 »

drjasonharrison wrote: post #83
ActionHank wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies already track whether you smoke, drink, or do recreational drugs. I wonder how long until they start to ask questions that indicate your risk based on chemical \ microplastic consumption.

Perhaps the blood tests will/already do include this analysis. Asking people about their behaviours/habits/diets is usually a very poor data source. Not only do people have poor memories, but they are motivated to recall only positive behaviours, etc. Many studies on health interventions (diet, exercise, sleep) have had to handle these problems and usually have to resort to much more controlled studies to demonstrate…

In this specific case, I doubt a significant number of people would have any idea what would be "positive" in the context of risk related to phthalates...

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#128

Post by oriel »

Aurornis wrote: post #47

I was surprised to learn that some of the highest concentrations of phthalates can be found in alcoholic beverages in glass bottles (Table 3: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7460375/ ) This occurs due to the plastics used in producing the alcoholic beverages combined with ethanol (alcohol) acting as a solvent to liberate the phthalates I was equally surprised to learn that the food industry was already m…

> I was equally surprised to learn that the food industry was already moving toward using fewer phthalate plasticizers already. More recent sampling efforts have actually found fewer or sometimes no phthalates at all in tubing, whereas decades ago it was ubiquitous.

IMO this is one of the more valuable comments here. Can you find any sources to cite on this?

I'd love to see more comments on the progress industries make via self-awareness rather than yet-another-villain-in-the-shadows.

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#129

Post by kragen »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #122
kragen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

crystalline silica is an iarc group 1 carcinogen, the highest-concern category, and occupational illnesses due to crystalline silica exposure have been well known for thousands of years

When I built my home I used concrete floors that I then kept waxed. It seemed like the best solution I could find. But then we had to cover the floors with wool rugs because the acoustics were painful.

wool is pretty great; the worst you can say about it is that it's a mild allergen and kind of expensive

just to disambiguate, though, the risk of silica exposure from walking around on a concrete floor, or even sweeping it, is not worth worrying about. i wouldn't clean it with a leaf blower though

Re: FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

#130

Post by s1artibartfast »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #71
abeppu wrote: post #49

A bunch of comments here are roughly "there's not great evidence that these are harmful" -- but is that the right standard? Or should there be an obligation to provide evidence that something is "safe" in order to use it in some consumer applications (like food packaging)? It's tempting to say that we should conclusively establish that something isn't harmful before we use it absolutely everywhere ... but what standa…

For me, the standard is: if the material was used pre-industrial age, it's far more likely to be "safe". Any person could overintellectualize this point and find exceptions. But it's just common sense.

Why do you think it is common sense? I'm genuinely curious why you think the pre-industrial environment was safe or safer.
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