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FDA denies petition against use of phthalates in food packaging

fda.gov

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

#151

Post by llamaimperative »

ryandrake wrote: post #144
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fascinating thought. Our digital footprints are becoming more telling of our real lives, as more of our lives are mirrored digitally. And in many ways that’s great - not only is booking a flight easier but my eating habits when combined with millions of others can reveal what epidemiology of yesteryear could only dream of But I think this is where the privacy debate falls down - privacy is not real (secrecy…

This is why we need real ownership and control of data about ourselves. It should be totally unacceptable for a bank to pull what OP described. Banks and loan underwriters should not have access to this kind of data about us in the first place, let alone use it to discriminate for/against people. Insurance companies should not have access to this kind of data either. We should be able to control access to these data…

This is a legal problem and not at all a technical one.

It can be achieved today with current tech under the right legal framework, and it will never be achieved regardless of what tech exists without that legal framework.

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

#152

Post by aidenn0 »

akira2501 wrote: post #141
lolinder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second paragraph is a very good argument against requiring that everything used in food packaging be shown to be safe before it can be used. Can we reasonably run such a study to prove that wax paper is safe? What about plain paper? Do we just require all food producers to use no packaging at all until these controlled longitudinal studies are completed? If we allow them to use packaging, how do we define in a p…

> Can we reasonably run such a study to prove that wax paper is safe? We don't need to. We have a "Generally Recognized as Safe" standard that is well known and widely applied. > widely used in some significant (think 5%) portion of the industry then we allow it How about we just label things so consumers know whether or not the packaging contains phthalates? That way the market can decide if they want it in their pa…

Labeling isn't bad, but it doesn't scale. It works for e.g. allergens because people who are allergic are aware of the rather rapid harm done if/when they consume allergens.

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

#153

Post by riialist »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #149
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fascinating thought. Our digital footprints are becoming more telling of our real lives, as more of our lives are mirrored digitally. And in many ways that’s great - not only is booking a flight easier but my eating habits when combined with millions of others can reveal what epidemiology of yesteryear could only dream of But I think this is where the privacy debate falls down - privacy is not real (secrecy…

> what do others do with our information - and I think the best answer is the medical ethics answer - nothing unless it is in the individual’s best interests. How is saving money not in an individual’s best interest? You have person A who chooses to consume known carcinogens and excess carbohydrate, and person B who abstains from them and exercises control for their diet. Why is it ethical for person B to have to sub…

In plenty of countries, there is already a tax system to punish "bad consuming choices": e.g. tobacco, alcohol, and in some places even products with excess sugar are taxed more than other products. In Europe, we call it "soda tax" or something. If you want to get academish, you can call it a Pigouvian tax.

I think it's perfectly OK. Peeping on someones digital data is not OK.

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

#154

Post by Tade0 »

kragen wrote: post #148
Tade0 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it does - plastics used in packaging scratch easily. That's enough to produce microplastics. Additionally polypropylene degrades under sunlight, becoming brittle. The process takes several months.

oh, sure, they can produce microplastics after you take the food out. but you aren't going to get plastic dust in your lettuce the most common plastics used in packaging are pet, polypropylene, and polyethylene, which have exceptional elongation at break. when you scratch them, you don't produce microplastics; you produce a burr on the surface

You're gonna get it in your yoghurt and food packed in tupperware though, as metal utensils can and will scrape some of the plastic off.

Anyway, they're already present in tap water, so your lettuce is also already infused with microplastics.

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

#155

Post by mightyham »

kragen wrote: post #131
mightyham wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

that's like saying 'the obvious reason she died was that my hammer hit her in the head, not that i swung my hammer at her head' i'm not sure what you mean by 'modern liberal attitudes' but in any case i think it's irrelevant

By "modern liberal attitudes", I mean exactly that. Liberal beliefs held by the general public that came about in the modern era (post enlightenment), which is simply a more rigorous description for what you seem to be referring to when you say that the world took a break from conservatism "during the 19th and 20th centuries". All that to say, it's extremely relevant to the discussion.

If, as you claim, conservatism was the main reason for low life expectancy, then at any point in time people could have just stopped being conversative (I don't even really know what you mean by this, but according to you it happened in the 19th century), and their standard of living would have gone up as a result. I'll say it again, this is ridiculous on its face. The industrial revolution, which lead to today's human prosperity was driven almost entirely by SPECIFIC environmental, economic, and cultural conditions. It was not driven by some shift in public attitude about being generally more accepting of change.

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

#156

Post by cynicalpeace »

allturtles wrote: post #88
cynicalpeace wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't require overintellectualizing, the exceptions are really obvious, like lead pipes. Generally speaking public health knowledge was extremely low in the pre-industrial era, compared to what we have now, so I don't know why we would use this as a standard. I wouldn't use pre-industrial standards for dealing with sewage or prepping for surgery, either.

Overintellectualizing

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

#157

Post by e44858 »

kragen wrote: post #95
throwway120385 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would probably resin coat my floor instead of using urethane, but I would agree there. Even concrete floor contains silicates. I also wonder what kind of microparticles scuff off of a tile floor. Shellac or traditional varnish are probably the only things you could put on your floor that aren't produced with an industrial process. Shellac in particular is the harvested secretions of a beetle that have been cleaned…

polyurethane is a resin tung oil is pretty toxic. boiled linseed oil has heavy metal salts in it to make it polymerize, though typically nowadays these are cobalt, iron, and manganese rather than lead; calcium and zinc are basically nontoxic alternatives shellac is not water-soluble; it's alcohol-soluble and thermoplastic the plantation sizes necessary to coat everyone's floor with tung oil or shellac are fairly mode…

"Boiled" linseed oil is not actually boiled, to save costs they just add metal salts to catalyze the polymerization. You can get linseed oil without the heavy metals, that is actually boiled: https://www.triedandtruewoodfinish.com/products/danish-oil/

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

#158

Post by lifeisstillgood »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #149
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a fascinating thought. Our digital footprints are becoming more telling of our real lives, as more of our lives are mirrored digitally. And in many ways that’s great - not only is booking a flight easier but my eating habits when combined with millions of others can reveal what epidemiology of yesteryear could only dream of But I think this is where the privacy debate falls down - privacy is not real (secrecy…

> what do others do with our information - and I think the best answer is the medical ethics answer - nothing unless it is in the individual’s best interests. How is saving money not in an individual’s best interest? You have person A who chooses to consume known carcinogens and excess carbohydrate, and person B who abstains from them and exercises control for their diet. Why is it ethical for person B to have to sub…

None of us are perfect.

But we have this perfect expectation of how we should and could be in our heads - thinner, fitter, more sensible with money, happier with friends. But we all fail. We just tend to fail in different ways.

Some of us are luckier, their satiety levels are lower, their kidney disease markers are low, no bowel cancer, no mental illness.

Those people won’t need high insurance premiums. But the point of insurance is not to reward the lucky ones, the whole point of insurance is that the lucky ones do subsidise the unlucky.

And please do not think “that person pays into a well researched health plan because they are more intelligent,more handsome, more like me”

If paying into a good health plan is important then simply make everyone do it.

The term is social insurance.

After staring at it for a while it’s the only thing that makes sense.

And then you can use that social pressure for useful things

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

#159

Post by lifeisstillgood »

llamaimperative wrote: post #151
ryandrake wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we need real ownership and control of data about ourselves. It should be totally unacceptable for a bank to pull what OP described. Banks and loan underwriters should not have access to this kind of data about us in the first place, let alone use it to discriminate for/against people. Insurance companies should not have access to this kind of data either. We should be able to control access to these data…

This is a legal problem and not at all a technical one. It can be achieved today with current tech under the right legal framework, and it will never be achieved regardless of what tech exists without that legal framework.

As the OP I think I agree with you - the privacy problem (and the surveillance opportunity) is a legal problem - the right framework we get enormous benefits, evenly distributed and minimised downsides. The wrong framework and the benefits are concentrated in the wealthiest and the rest of us get the predatory downsides.

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

#160

Post by kragen »

e44858 wrote: post #157
kragen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

polyurethane is a resin tung oil is pretty toxic. boiled linseed oil has heavy metal salts in it to make it polymerize, though typically nowadays these are cobalt, iron, and manganese rather than lead; calcium and zinc are basically nontoxic alternatives shellac is not water-soluble; it's alcohol-soluble and thermoplastic the plantation sizes necessary to coat everyone's floor with tung oil or shellac are fairly mode…

"Boiled" linseed oil is not actually boiled, to save costs they just add metal salts to catalyze the polymerization. You can get linseed oil without the heavy metals, that is actually boiled: https://www.triedandtruewoodfinish.com/products/danish-oil/

danish oil has heavy metal salts in it, specifically salts of cobalt and zirconium: https://www.coo-var.co.uk/files/ww/safety/308-Q271%20-%20DAN...

ionic cobalt and ionic zirconium are both of fairly moderate toxicity; they aren't in the same ballpark as things like lead and mercury, but they also aren't as relatively harmless as calcium or zinc

i think that normal 'boiled' linseed oil does have stand oil in it, as well as the siccatives we're talking about here and other additives like antiskinning agents

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