7 ms·
Toxic fluorinated compounds found in drinking water of 33 states
- esun 10y agoThe article refers to compounds found in, for example, firefighting foam and not to the fluoride added for preventing tooth decay.
- hughes 10y agoNevertheless, this study will be added to the arsenal of those seeking to end municipal fluoridation.
- bykovich 10y agono... no....... say it ain't so.
- throwaway91111 10y agoMouthwash seems like a better option than drinking fluoride to improve teeth.
- djsumdog 10y agoVery true. I've been to some of the anti-fluoride talks and read a lot on both sides. From what I gather, there simply isn't enough fluoride added to water to really make a difference. Add enough and you start getting dental floursis. The people against municipal fluoride use a lot of the same bad maths to link fluoride to a plethora of ailments. Their evidence doesn't really add up either. Overall it looks like it's a wash. I err on the side of it not being in water. It doesn't really help teeth unless applied topically in high concentrations, so we're better off spending money to give kids free toothpaste/brushes/education. There's the question as to whether or not it can lead to things like osteoporosis, and honestly that question can't be answered easily. Long term toxicity buildup over 30~40+ years in humans is very difficult to test and control for. You can't put humans in a cage and have one group only drink water with fluoride and the other not. Our primate counterparts simply don't live long enough. People move around too much and drink too many different types of drinks to accurately survey exposure. Of course this article is not about fluoride in water, so this is kinda a rabbit trail comment anyway.
- yuhong 10y agoIt would be even better to decrease the consumption of sugar I think.
- Diederich 10y agoYou said 'seems', which seems to leave the topic open to discussion in your mind. (: What's the downside to adding appropriate amounts of fluoride to municipal water sources? EDIT: after I posted this, I did some quick Googling, and man this is an all over the map topic. There APPEARS to be reasonable evidence on both sides of the debate, but honestly, I'm not personally vested in this enough to dig any more.
- throwaway91111 10y agoYea; that's pretty much where I lie too. I'm not skilled at picking apart this kind of evidence.
- Nition 10y agoFloride in water is really meant for the people who aren't going to use mouthwash, or floss, or brush their teeth as much as they should anyway. It brings up the dental health of the group with the worst dental health.
- astrodust 10y agoWho cares? The same people are arguing the government should stop geo-engineering with HAARP and chemtrails. They're detached from reality. They'll use a study on sock production volumes in Honduras causing earthquakes in India.
- some-guy 10y ago> Who cares? They vote, so I care.
- mwfunk 10y agoAnd they vote in shockingly large numbers, for example enough to get anti-vaxxers (who I think of as having a lot of overlap with fluoride conspiracy people) seriously considered for cabinet-level positions in the US.
- infectoid 10y agoIndeed. The time for apathy is over. When people have bad arguments and bad evidence, you need to say something.
- astrodust 10y agoThere's nothing you can do on a logical level. Your only hope is an emotional appeal that resonates.
- thenewwazoo 10y agoI care because those people succeed at defeating fluoridation efforts; for example, the 2013 effort in Portland, OR[1] [1] http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/05/portland_fluoride_for_the_four.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/05/portlan...
- astrodust 10y agoThey'll succeed at banning WiFi and other things if we don't obstruct this nonsense. Hell, they'll succeed at banning refrigeration if they have their way.
- seattle_spring 10y agoThat won't stop the conspiracy theorists from having a field day on this one.
- cmelbye 10y agoI would too, if I theorized that there were toxic compounds in my water, and then found a study that proves that to be correct.
- woofyman 10y ago"A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works." - Dr Strangelove
- correnos 10y agoExcuse you, that was General Ripper. As for fixing this: it will not be difficult, mein fuhrer!
- overcast 10y agoWhile drinking water is generally extremely safe in the US, especially compared to many other countries of the world. I still install three stage, under the counter filtration systems for any kitchen tap water. Minimal costs, and at the very least prevents the water from tasting like a pool.
- Reason077 10y agoExactly! Everyone's always so worried about fluoride in drinking water, with little justification and without giving a thought to all the chlorine which is often present in far greater concentrations and, in certain conditions, can react with other organic and inorganic compounds to form all sorts of nasties. Get a good filter for your drinking water and most of these concerns vanish. Plus you'll save a fortune on bottled water.
- thegabez 10y agoRecommendations?
- ggcdn 10y agoIf you're worried about chlorine, you don't even need a filter. Put the water in a jug in the fridge for an hour or so.
- Reason077 10y agoFree chlorine will indeed break down over time, but an hour in the fridge probably won't be sufficient - the half life of free chlorine in water is much longer than an hour! (In sunlight or UV, however, it'll break down much faster). Secondly, Chloramine is now often used instead (or in addition to) free chlorine. Chloramine is more stable and won't break down by putting it in the fridge. And the potential health issue isn't so much with chlorine itself anyway, but with other chemical products that can be formed by reactions with chlorine, possibly before the water even reaches your tap.
- refurb 10y agohad at least one water sample that measured at or above the EPA safety limit of 70 parts per trillion (ng/L) Just for reference, here are the EPA safety limits for other chemicals....[1] Cyanide - 200,000 ng/L Lead - 15,000 ng/L Mercury - 2,000 ng/L Benzene - 5,000 ng/L Glyphosate - 700,000 ng/L PCBs - 500 ng/L [1]https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/table-regulated-drinking-water-contaminants https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/table-re...
- sndean 10y agoNot really related, but even as a scientist I really don't understand how ng/L == parts-per-trillion. I know that's a correct conversion, but it doesn't doesn't make much sense. I guess that's why part-per notation are called pseudo-units. A more substantive comment: Some of these are particularly scary, especially if you have a job where you're potentially exposed. For example, for benzene has a pretty strong odor, but 5000 ng/L is supposedly 1000 times below what you're able to smell. And it's a carcinogen...
- sageikosa 10y agoSome materials are reported in mass, some in volume. I used to do groundwater plume maps for superfund sites, and the data units varied by compound.
- maxerickson 10y agoIt's because the liter was originally defined as 1 kilogram of water. For the various concentrations, the volume and mass of the displaced water is ~0.
- infogulch 10y agoThis is because water has a nice correlation of units in SI. 1g water = 1 cubic cm = 1 mL, and takes 1 calorie of heat to raise by 1 degree Celsius. (all at atmospheric pressure). See: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=one+trillionth+of+a+liter+of+water+in+grams http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=one+trillionth+of+a+lit...
- 10y ago
- herbps10 10y agoI work with one of the authors of the Hu et al. paper that this article is based on. I'm happy to relay any questions people have to her.
- lawpoop 10y agoI'm not in any way advocating for toxins in the water supply, but do you worry that news like this will embolden anti-flouride people?
- bykovich 10y agoHeaven forbid accurate reporting embolden undesirable elements.
- lawpoop 10y agoLooking at you, anti-vaxxers
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoIf I understand correctly, I'd rather have cavities than cancer. That is: Flouride is supposed to help prevent tooth decay. This stuff, on the other hand, "has been linked to" cancer (how strongly, I'm not sure). But if warning about a cancer-causer kills flouridation as collateral damage, well, I prefer that to the other way around (not doing anything about the cancer-causer to protect people's teeth).
- loblollyboy 10y agoThis is extremely non-scientific, but I am an american living outside of the us - and I often wonder 'what's wrong with us' when I meet Americans. Maybe we just have it too easy, maybe we don't have to open up our minds to other cultures (we are the dominant one). But I've met enough people that just make me think c'mon man! That said, we're the dominant culture for a reason - we have some super talented people. At the end of the day, 'flouride' probably isn't the root-cause of our 'unique'-ness.
- the_gastropod 10y agoLuckily this will all be fixed by Scott Pruitt, by getting rid of silly safety limits (read: business killing regulations) all together! </s>
- becarefulyo 10y agoAnd by cutting 2/3 of the EPA workforce https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/30/trump-transition-leaders-goal-is-two-thirds-cut-in-epa-employees/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/30/... And by removing two regulations for every new regulation :(
- astrodust 10y agoFlint Water® for everyone!
- general_ai 10y agoYour comment would hold a lot more weight if EPA or some other massive government agency found it possible to help people in Flint, MI, which did not have drinkable water for years now, and still don't have it.
- throwaway91111 10y agoI'm not sure how anyone is better off with reduced regulations. Except possibly developers.
- general_ai 10y agoJust goes to show that "regulations" isn't all that needs to happen. We've known for years there are problems in various areas, some of the most drastic of which have been widely publicized due to Flint. What's also been publicized by Flint is that the US government can't find $60M in their multi trillion dollar budget (EPA budget alone is $8.1 _billion_) to fix the situation, yet there's $210M to send abroad at the last minute as Obama is heading out the door, none of which, I might add has any chance of reaching the people who need it there either. Regulations are not enough. Someone needs to actually go in and fix the shit that doesn't meet the regulations. For that to happen, someone needs to make it a priority to actually fix things right here in this country, rather than just tell us regulations aren't met, and writing up new ones all the time.
- wnevets 10y agoThey're not toxic, they're just alternatively healthy.
- philipkglass 10y agoThis article is about heavily fluorinated organic compounds -- molecules with a carbon skeleton and all or most of the hydrogen atoms replaced by fluorine. These are not the ionic fluorine compounds that protect teeth against decay (and that cause acute toxicity in case of over-consumption). Why are these compounds hazardous? - Harmful biological effects in the human body, like hormone-mimic activity. - Low molecular polarity leads to bio-magnification in fats and oils up through the food chain, and persistence in human fat. - The high strength of the carbon-fluorine bonds greatly reduces the rate at which typical environmental degradation mechanisms (hydrolysis, photolysis, atmospheric oxidation, enzymatic breakdown in cells...) act on these compounds, compared to their hydrocarbon counterparts. Why are these compounds used? The same properties that make them hazards once dispersed -- strong carbon-fluorine bonds that resist breakdown, low polarity -- make them desirable in applications where people want water-repellant surfaces or materials that resist high temperatures and/or chemical attack. Why weren't the risks better known before? It's a lot easier to test for acute hazards than for chronic ones. By acute toxicity metrics, like feeding a bunch of rats these compounds until the dose is high enough to kill half, these materials are generally less toxic than substances like potassium fluoride. It turns out that for low level chronic exposure, perfluorinated compounds are more hazardous than simple ionic fluorides due to persistence and accumulation. The link between stability and persistence makes up a recurring theme in environmental toxicology: materials with lower acute hazards are often worse hazards in the long term. The very lack of reactivity that makes molecules less acutely hazardous in case of e.g. a fire or a worker accidentally splashing some on skin makes them more likely to be long term problems, because the same basic properties impair how quickly environmental sinks can break them down. Pure methanol ignites more easily than diesel fuel and has worse acute toxicity risks if a worker gets drenched in a spill. But diesel contamination from a leaking storage tank is more persistent.
- 08-15 10y ago> Why are these compounds hazardous? > - Harmful biological effects in the human body, like hormone-mimic activity. Can you provide some evidence for that claim? I know that perfluoro compounds degrade very slowly and accumulate in fatty tissue, but I haven't seen a supported claim about harmful effects. From the misleading links in the article, I suspect more than a few people confuse PFAS and PCBs.
- egopulsus 10y agoreading this right after drinking oats w/tap water...
- sageikosa 10y agoThe study found that PFASs were detectable at the minimum reporting levels required by the EPA in 194 out of 4,864 water supplies in 33 states across the United States. So, about 4% of water supplies had something at the minimum reporting levels; which must be above the detection limits, but may not be at action levels. I'd probably be more worried about heavy metals and organics in some of those locations than fire-fighting foam, but I drink groundwater, not surface-based treatment plant water.
- maxerickson 10y agoWells near contamination sources may also be contaminated (they just get less monitoring than municipal supplies).
- digler999 10y agodont forget unmetabolized antidepressants and other prescription drugs
- The_ed17 10y agoDoes anyone have a better map? Would like to see if I'm in the highlighted range or not - I'm pretty close to one.
- atarian 10y agoYour city/county might provide a water quality report on their official website which may include a more specific map.
- 08-15 10y agoNice, an article that links to sources in the prrimary scientific literature! Let's see, the link text says "potent immunotoxicants", that's probably a study about the effects of PFAS on the immune system. But no, it's actually some meaningless bullshit about evolution and doesn't even mention the word "fluor" once. Given that, the term "toxic" is unjustified (it appears that if PFOA is toxic, then so are fatty acids), and so is the claim of "unsafe levels". This is sensationalist bullshit.
- matt4077 10y agoYour misunderstanding starts where you're considering the linked article a "primary source". Even though it's at harvard.edu, it's not a peer-reviewed "primary source". Given that the absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence, the conclusion and causation you imply with "given that" is wrong. You're also awfully quick to call stuff you don't understand "bullshit".
- 08-15 10y agoWhat, are you saying they didn't link to a scientific source at all?! I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you! The point was that this is bullshit precisely because it pretends to link to a scientific source, but doesn't. Sure, it's still possible that every single word in the article is correct even in the absence of actual research---but is it likely?
- beebeebush 10y agoAlex Jones is talking this long time ago. I'm sure this was not suprise ? I hope Mr.Trump will fix this, because state officials or health professionals seems not to.
- latimer 10y agoPrevious discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12265762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12265762 Top comment has instructions for finding the results for your ZIP code.
- anu7df 10y agohere is a better interactive map. http://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2015-teflon-chemical-harmful-at-smallest-doses-lower-48.php http://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2015-teflon-chemical-har...
- cialowicz 10y agoThis is pretty interesting, thanks. I'm not really strong in stats, but it seems like many of the non-contaminated counties have very low sample sizes that may not be statistically significant. Example: in Marin County, 0 of 11 samples were found to be contaminated. In Alameda, 2 of 73 samples were contaminated. Maybe someone else can comment?
- tibbon 10y agoWhy isn't the state of our water supply a national emergency? In the long term this will affect far more people than whatever terrorist scare Trump is currently worried about.
- e40 10y agoThe short answer: Republicans. They want less regulation and have been trying for decades to gut the EPA. They will finally get their chance.
- stefantalpalaru 10y agoIt wasn't an emergency in the last 8 years either. Disregard for the environment is bipartisan.
- costcopizza 10y agoSo what supplement should I buy and take to hedge against this risk?
- stefantalpalaru 10y agoCleanWater™
- chmaynard 10y agoMy father was a Ph.D. organic chemist who worked for DuPont at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, DE. We admired and even loved DuPont while I was growing up there in the 1950's and 60's (the "Better Living Through Chemistry" era). Now I am learning the sad truth about DuPont (and many other industrial chemical manufacturers). Despite the many great achievements of their employees, DuPont was a diabolically evil company. The history of their GM partnership and their promotion of tetraethyl lead in gasoline alone is justification for this statement.
- juvinious 10y ago"They are making the freaking frogs gay!" --- Alex Jones
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]