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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

#171

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #143
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we exist. Admittedly, "healthy enough to procreate" is not a high bar, but it's pretty good in comparison with no bar at all. Yeah, there are cases where they were unaware of the harm--like lead. We should absolutely be finding better ways to identify and mitigate harms of that sort. But in the absence of reliable information from such efforts, natural==safe is a viable heuristic. And I'd say that our scienti…

I think natural==safe is a terrible heuristic for the exact reason you said. Healthy enough to procreate is a low bar, and many natural things provide a benefit in terms of procreation but detrimental to health. Almost everything in nature is a trade-off between how much it'll harm you and how much it'll help you procreate. This reminds me of how whales get the Bends from diving despite 50 million years of evolution.…

> many natural things provide a benefit in terms of procreation but detrimental to health

Maybe... but many more either kill you or they don't. Lets take your whales-getting-the-bends example. That gives us a dimension: pressure. Suppose you're whale.

- Let x be a randomly chosen pressure

- Let y be a pressure that your parents lived through

You have to spend a few minutes at x or y, which pressure do you chose? y would be a safer choice.

The same goes for potentially hazardous chemicals: the safer bet is to pick the one that comes with evidence that things like you can survive contact with it, and that'll be the one that was in your environment when you were born. Otherwise you wouldn't have been born there.

If somebody wants to sell us something that our parents never came in contact with, the evidence that it is safe should be stronger than the effect described above. I'm not a statistician, so I can't quantify that effect, but it exists, and the naturalistic fallacy distracts from it.

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

#172

Post by Dig1t »

krunck wrote: post #133
hermannj314 wrote: post #2

This is dated from July 2023. What is making this trend today?

Maybe this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40637089

Yeah that was my comment at the bottom of that thread.

But generally this was kind of a big deal and it mostly flew under the radar. I don’t think most people who care about endocrine disruptors knew that the FDA did this, and 2023 is not very long ago IMO.

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

#173

Post by aidenn0 »

akira2501 wrote: post #162
aidenn0 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but it doesn't scale. Why not? You don't even necessarily need to put all disclaimers directly on the package. Just put some kind of reference number on there, like an MSDS number, and let users go look up all the packaging information online if necessary. The manufacturer has this information. They must in order to produce the product. The requirement would be they just have to publish it now when used to wrap foo…

It doesn't scale in the sense of "How can I determine which of the 27 things on the label are likely to be bad for me?"

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

#174

Post by ok_computer »

ActionHank wrote: post #74
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…

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.

Those prior ones are binary lifestyle classifications whereas your exposure to microplastics is ubiquitous and the results are probably dose-dependent.

I personally use stainless lunchware and cotton clothing but if we’re to run an analysis of variance on my ingestion the effect is likely nil compared to walking on office carpet or drinking from aluminum cans or brushing my teeth.

Like refinery operators and gas station workers are exposed to benzene at different levels. But what about people who buy or lease new cars every two years.

There’s too much noise vs signal for insidious risks like these not well understood factors.

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

#175

Post by Dig1t »

spandrew wrote: post #29

I think it's pretty clear the microplastics fear-mongering doesn't have a lot of credible evidence to back it. Of course no one wants tiny plastic particles floating around the environment. But the claim here is... does it harm you? Is it toxic? How dense are the particulates per millilitre? Very little to suggest anything substantial. Just a reminder that the holistic and wellness industry that sells you detoxes for…

What’s the metric for harm?

It’s a fact that these chemicals behave similarly to, and bind to the same receptors as, sex hormones.

It’s a proven fact that exposure to these chemicals increases sexual dysfunction during development in animal models and in humans.

It’s also proven that these chemicals have made their way into every single food item and most cosmetic products we buy at the store.

If you just Google for papers on phthalates and endocrine disruption, there are decades of research papers supporting it.

Here’s an example of one such study in frogs and rabbits:

https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/di...

Conclusions for almost all papers like this are the same.

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

#176

Post by lazide »

kragen wrote: post #84
lazide wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how can anyone prove safety here? On anything? I’m unaware of any substance which isn’t dangerous or harmful in some context. Even sand! What is the actual bar?

especially sand; crystalline silica is a known carcinogen (iarc group 1, the most severe classification) (when inhaled)

Generally only when in a very fine powdered crystalline form, though, and only when exposed persistently at a moderate level.

High short term exposure apparently isn’t a cancer risk (but is a ‘you’ll be miserable and have a hard time breathing’ risk), and low grade exposure below a threshold is also apparently fine.

And just sand itself (except for certain specific rare types) is also apparently fine.

Weird eh?

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

#177

Post by kragen »

lazide wrote: post #176
kragen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

especially sand; crystalline silica is a known carcinogen (iarc group 1, the most severe classification) (when inhaled)

Generally only when in a very fine powdered crystalline form, though, and only when exposed persistently at a moderate level. High short term exposure apparently isn’t a cancer risk (but is a ‘you’ll be miserable and have a hard time breathing’ risk), and low grade exposure below a threshold is also apparently fine. And just sand itself (except for certain specific rare types) is also apparently fine. Weird eh?

well, it depends on what you do with the sand; things like sandblasting or desert sandstorms liberate plenty of the very fine powdered crystalline form that is the concern

your points about high short-term exposure and long-term low-grade exposure are well taken, and may also apply to phthalates, since humans evolved in an environment with many sources of phthalates, such as coconuts, poppy seeds, grapes, and kidney beans. see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8310026/ and https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Phthalic-acid#sect...

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

#178

Post by gamblor956 »

kragen wrote: post #165
red_trumpet wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article also contains the phrase > As of 2020, there is insufficient clinical evidence to determine that phytoestrogens have effects in humans.

yes, and that's also true of phthalates at normal exposure levels, which is why hospitals still use vinyl tubing; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor#Phthalates for more detail also, though i didn't realize this, natural sources of phthalates include coconuts, poppy seeds, grapes, and kidney beans. see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8310026/ and https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compoun…

Humans have been consuming flax and soy-based products for thousands of years.

At this point, the burden of proof is on those claiming that they have hidden harmful effects that have someone escaped thousands of years of human consumption.

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

#179

Post by kragen »

gamblor956 wrote: post #178
kragen wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, and that's also true of phthalates at normal exposure levels, which is why hospitals still use vinyl tubing; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor#Phthalates for more detail also, though i didn't realize this, natural sources of phthalates include coconuts, poppy seeds, grapes, and kidney beans. see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8310026/ and https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compoun…

Humans have been consuming flax and soy-based products for thousands of years. At this point, the burden of proof is on those claiming that they have hidden harmful effects that have someone escaped thousands of years of human consumption.

yes, although that burden of proof may indeed eventually be met for either phthalates in general or some specific phthalate; as with soybeans, there's strongly suggestive evidence that doesn't yet rise to the level of proof

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

#180

Post by OutOfHere »

nrenegar wrote: post #81
kogus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only would you be putting your own health at risk, but that of any family members and/or pets too. I think his point is that the FDA finds that there is no evidence to support this claim. What evidence do you have that this claim is true?

A couple friends and I reviewed hundreds of pubmed studies on this. We have a summary at: https://shaperhealth.substack.com/p/life-in-plastic-its-not-... There have been a number of papers from China showing that phthalate exposure from household dust is a real concern (e.g., https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35508265/ ). Phthalate exposure overall has been shown to have an adverse impact on reproductive health and inf…

The FDA is corrupt. It works for enriching the pharma industry. Working for the taxpayer is just a pretense.

Do you see the drugs they approved for AD? These drugs all cause deadly brain bleeds by removing beta amyloid which is not even the cause of AD. There is no way that these drugs fix AD. Yet, they will make the drug makers pretty rich.

The FDA seems to have an internal mandate that no fixes are to be instituted if someone is not making continuously making a load from it, at least until the first few generations of patents have expired.

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