Troubling chemicals found in wide range of fast-food wrappers • Hacker News Board

Re: Troubling chemicals found in wide range of fast-food wrappers

#71

Post by dekhn » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #66

dekhn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the desire to eliminate all health hazards, but that is not economically feasible. Does it not seem reasonable to state that if you cannot find any death or illnes in a chemical, when used for a specific purpose, that is it not reasonable to simply eliminate the chemical? This isn't really abotu advancing chemistry or biology, either. We have a pretty good understanding that these contaminants need to be…

Sure it is economically feasible to leave the PFOA related chemicals out of fast food wrappers, the big consequence is that the wrappers will be greasier (I guess this might bug people that eat their fries with a fork). I'm not proposing that the safety of all chemicals be proven before they are used, I realize that it is logically impossible. I'm saying that spraying tons of stuff that is chemically similar to known…

What do you mean by "chemically similar"? I am not aware of this having a meaningful definition when working with toxins, and ... well, I have a PhD in the field.

Re: Troubling chemicals found in wide range of fast-food wrappers

#72

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #71

maxerickson wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is economically feasible to leave the PFOA related chemicals out of fast food wrappers, the big consequence is that the wrappers will be greasier (I guess this might bug people that eat their fries with a fork). I'm not proposing that the safety of all chemicals be proven before they are used, I realize that it is logically impossible. I'm saying that spraying tons of stuff that is chemically similar to known…

What do you mean by "chemically similar"? I am not aware of this having a meaningful definition when working with toxins, and ... well, I have a PhD in the field.

Stuff like having functional groups in common, participating in similar reactions.

Re: Troubling chemicals found in wide range of fast-food wrappers

#73

Post by dekhn » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 5:00 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #72

dekhn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "chemically similar"? I am not aware of this having a meaningful definition when working with toxins, and ... well, I have a PhD in the field.

Stuff like having functional groups in common, participating in similar reactions.

Why do you think that matters? Many things have common functional groups, and in many cases, there are no similar molecules. Functionality doesn't transfer that way (it's a highly non-linear process).

As for similar reactions- well, that's nice, but again, just seeing that a molecule participates in some chemistry has little to no predictive ability for health outcomes.