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My belief is that the primary cause is environmental chemicals, specifically Phthalates and BPA (and related chemicals). The science on this is fairly conclusi

My belief is that the primary cause is environmental chemicals, specifically Phthalates and BPA (and related chemicals). The science on this is fairly conclusive. We can show that these chemicals bind to estrogen receptors, that they're present in everyone's body, and that if you're acutely exposed to a higher dose, your testosterone goes down. In my opinion, these chemicals are having social and cultural effects beyond sperm counts. As individuals, there are some things you can do, but some studies have shown that about the best you can do with personal actions is a 50% reduction. The most effective things are to try not to handle store receipts on thermal paper, and wash your hands after you do, and avoid anything that has been microwaved in plastic. Generally reducing heavily processed and fast food is next, because you can't know about things like ingredients flowing through PVC tubing that leaches Phthalates. Ultimately we are in dire need of regulation of these substances, especially where there is food contact. I'm not very optimistic under trump. Someone clever though might be able to come up with a campaign about chemicals stealing your manhood that might resonate with conservative voters.

dekhn 9y ago
The linkage between consumption of these chemicals, and their exact nature of harm, is not well established- it's not "fairly conclusive" at all. What we have is a bunch of in vitro and in vivo studies, but not actual epidemiological evidence of the quality required to make rational policy decisions. If you believe otherwise, I'm happy to ready any high quality studies you can find. Pleaes don't just cherry pick a few studies, be careful in doing your review.
- kindadumb 9y ago
  "be careful in doing your review." Says the lazy poster who just made a bunch of claims himself and didn't cite anything!
  - xiaoma 9y ago
    Welcome to HN. As someone who's been here for over a decade (and had this account nearly that long), I can assure you this is normal behavior for the forum.
    - azeirah 9y ago
      The site doesn't encourage citing or critical thinking, although it does attract people who're interested in that. If you wish for a community like this, open a new thread and try discussing communities that do succeed at promoting critical and well-cited discussions like Reddit's /r/askhistorians.
      - dekhn 9y ago
        I'm not sure if you're criticizing me for my reply above in which I ask the poster to provide data to support their claim. I'm a critical thinker, and when writing papers or making claims, can back up my claims with strong evidence. In this case, I am saying I have been unable to find a single paper that is high quality and supports the assertion that there is a detectable health effect in the population (excluding people who receive massive dosages, far beyond the dosages a regular person is going to get from eating food). I have seen many low quality papers purporting this, but in each case, I found either an invalidating error (failure to use bonferroni correction is most common, but there are many), or it was clear the author was being selective with their data reporting, or made an error in their procedure. That's pretty common, especially in the human health and nutrition sector, unfortunately.
      - xiaoma 9y ago
        It looks like you may have mistakenly replied to the wrong comment I didn't say anything about my wishes. I just welcomed a new(ish) user.
  - nate_meurer 9y ago
    What? What exactly do you expect dekhn to cite? You expect them to prove a negative? How do you propose they do that? GP asserted that some scary chemicals cause problems (no sarcasm intended; I find phthalates and bisphenols a bit scary myself), but provided no supporting evidence. dehkn asked for evidence. Pretty simple right?
    - cryoshon 9y ago
      >You expect them to prove a negative? How do you propose they do that? they do this all the time in the pharma space. just arrange experiments on mice where they're subjected to higher and higher levels of whatever chemical until they're subjected to a level several orders of magnitude beyond any realistic hypothetical human exposure. then you cut up all the mice and see if they're different from unexposed mice.
      - KekDemaga 9y ago
        I've had 6 pet rats in my life and each one had tumors at the end. I wonder if that effect is properly controlled for as well.
        zaphods-towel 9y ago
        ...yes, it is controlled for. Read the comment above you again. They compare exposed rats to unexposed rats. That accounts for your concern.
  - theptip 9y ago
    The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. (It's tedious to post supporting studies on every post, so there's nothing nefarious about claims being initially unsupported.) I do agree that the "be careful..." comment is perhaps open to being interpreted as snarky, though it's always hard to infer the intent in a forum such as this.
    - naravara 9y ago
      >The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. When public health issues are concerned, the burden of proof is on the ones saying exposure does not present any risks worth worrying about. The FDA doesn't usually come in with the approach that we should just try everything out and see how it goes.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - EliRivers 9y ago
        It's low frequency radio waves from submarines. No, wait, it's copies of Jane Austen novels, that's what causing the problem. Hang on; it's headphones being worn by people near you. That's what doing it. Wait one; it's the after-effects of that landfill of ET game cartridges. If you disagree, have you got any proof that these aren't the causes? Otherwise I guess it's start removing Jane Austen novels from the libraries.
        naravara 9y ago
        Since you’re so comfortable with it, just go ahead and dose yourself with everything you can get your hands on. Here in the real world people express some hesitation before shoveling suspicious new products down their gullets.
        mmmpop 9y ago
        Ever since I switched my entire diet to Soylent my diarrhea has never been better!
  - dekhn 9y ago
    I'm not being lazy. I am saying there is no evidence showing what the person claims. Do you want me to cite a non-existent paper?
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  That sounds like an excellent reason to throw a lot of money at doing epidemiological studies then, doesn't it? I must say I'm very tired of naysayers with no positive proposals of their own who invoke the scientific method as a way of waving away problematics rather than engaging with their evaluation or mitigation.
  - dekhn 9y ago
    Good epidemiology is a great investment. I wouldn't use the term "throw a lot of money"- we want a few good studies with unambiguous conclusions.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      Quality costs.
      - dekhn 9y ago
        Yes, but unfortunately, cost is not a reliable correlate of quality. And you can get quality for low cost (typically through sweat equity or engineering)
- abledon 9y ago
  And remember 50% of published scientific studies can't be successfully reproduced! 100% confidence.
  - dekhn 9y ago
    50% of studies can't be reproduced, and 90% are outright false (which makes you wonder about the percent that can be reproduced, but are false) :-)
    - kazinator 9y ago
      "can be reproduced" means true. If you can reproduce the experiment, so that approximately the same data comes out, but the paper turns out false, that can only be because the paper makes a flawed interpretation of the data. But that has nothing to do with reproducibility; you can tell that a flawed conclusion is made from some data without reproducing the process which produces the data. If the analysis is correct and the empirical results can be reproduced, then the research is true. Or something like that.
      - sheepmullet 9y ago
        > "can be reproduced" means true. Not really. I know what you mean but that's not the same as what you are saying. You mean consistently and reliably over a large number of studies.
- jakelarkin 9y ago
  The burden of proof should obviously be reversed! Complex, synthetic chemicals in our water, food, packaging, or furniture should be assumed harmful and disallowed until it there is sufficient evidence that they are safe. Escalating trials basically. This is what we do for pharmaceutical drugs that we ingest or contact, why don't take this approach with other man-made chemicals we are adding to our immediate ecosystem and bodies. the history of flame retardants is instructive https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/11/21/its-official-toxic-flame-retardants-no-longer-required-in-furniture/ https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/11/21/its-official-toxic-f... if industry/government had been required to prove these things safe beforehand we would have never exposed the population them in the first place.
  - kazinator 9y ago
    I completely agree with you, but since we have all these materials used in a myriad ways, and it's not practical to just stop using all of them cold turkey, it would really be useful to figure out exactly which stuff is doing what harm and how.
  - highd 9y ago
    Our diet is full of fruits and vegetables containing thousands of complex chemicals, indistinguishable from "synthetic" chemicals, that have entered our diet far too short a time ago to have had evolutionary impact. If one wanted they could surely distill many chemicals in isolation from these naturally occurring fruits and vegetables that in concentration would have many concerning health effects. The fact that many don't worry about this is largely because this research program has not been attempted. Point being, there is no reason to hold any of these chemicals to a standard higher than that of a strawberry - that is, we can give people a bunch of strawberries and say any negative effect is below some acceptable level. And, in fact, we have found many "natural" foods containing absurdly high levels of arsenic and other dangerous compounds, and that has affected their preparation for consumption. The scientific process has in this way even outperformed the naturalism heuristic.
    - cryoshon 9y ago
      >Point being, there is no reason to hold any of these chemicals to a standard higher than that of a strawberry - that is, we can give people a bunch of strawberries and say any negative effect is below some acceptable level. ah yes, the logic that brought us Silent Spring and the children happily playing and breathing in clouds of "safe" DDT gas. if it's from a plant or animal, it can still be plenty harmful, but at least there's a history of use without major effects. not the case with industrial chemicals...
- 300bps 9y ago
  I would think unlimited access to high definition porn in any variety for completely free would be more responsible for lowered sperm count than chemical exposure.
- cameldrv 9y ago
  I don't know what would convince you that at minimum, these chemicals should be taken out of food contact applications or heated up and volatilized in thermal printers, and then handed to a customer. Just picking articles at random, I don't have time for a full literature review for Hacker News, but the evidence taken in totality is overwhelming: 1. BPA (and related chemicals) activate estrogen receptors, causal study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28407500 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28407500 This has been repeatedly demonstrated. 2. Direct human effects, correlational study: Working in a factory with BPA makes you impotent: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/dep381.pdf http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/dep381.pdf 3. Direct human effects, correlational study: BPA exposure by parents, especially mothers leads to reduced anogenital distance in children: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987463 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987463 4. Direct human effects, correlational: BPA and other EDCs are associated with penile defects: http://www.acmt.net/_Library/PEHSU_Webinars/Is_Hypospadias_Associated_with_Prenatal_Exposure_to_Endocrine_Disruptors.pdf http://www.acmt.net/_Library/PEHSU_Webinars/Is_Hypospadias_A... 5. Human ingestion routes, correlational: Blood BPA levels are highest occupationally among cashiers (thermal receipts), and people who eat a lot of canned vegetables (plastic can liners): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21205581 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21205581 There are loads more where that came from. You've got a very direct mechanism of action, clear effects in animal models, and correlational studies showing people who are exposed to larger quantities show clear medical problems. You have clear, understandable routes of ingestion, and correlational data that shows that people who are exposed more to those routes of ingestion have more in their blood. I suppose you can complain that the human studies are correlational, but you can't legally perform a blinded study on this, because we know that BPA is harmful, and you won't get it past an IRB. Maybe you formed your opinion on this in the nineties or 2000s when only the hippies were trading out their nalgene bottles, but the science has come a long way, and the hippies were right. Phthalates are a very similar story.
wonderwonder 9y ago
Want an interesting read? Go to your city water providers website and read up on all the pollutants they are over recommended levels on. Then look at the pollutants they are over the legal limit on. We assume that the water in our taps is safe to drink but there are often a myriad of tests that our utility companies are failing. For example, I live in a relatively well to do suburb and my utility is over the recommended limit on 2 carcinogens, and chlorate which damages the thyroid. In addition they have been over the legal limit for Trihalomethanes, another carcinogen since 2014
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  Even worst is all the extra female hormones coming from birth control pills and livestock (mostly milk cows) that are not getting filtered out of by water providers.
  - nate_meurer 9y ago
    If I may pick a nit: there are no pills in sewage streams. We're talking drugs in solution or suspension (the term "dissolved solids" is used in the water treatment industry). Drugs can very difficult to remove, and water treatment facilities are only able to remove roughly half [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-half-of-drugs-removed-by-sewage-treatment/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-half-of-drug...].
    - jxramos 9y ago
      I thought a lot of pharmaceuticals wind up in water supplies because when we take pills only part of the mass is used in the body, the rest stays in the blood stream, passes the kidneys, and is removed fairly intact into the urine thereby entering our water supply at the next voiding of the bladder.
      - 13of40 9y ago
        I think the parent was pointing out that you can't just run the resulting urine through a sieve to filter it.
diogenescynic 9y ago
And all the flame retardants and anti-stick coatings on practically every surface we touch and interact with all day, every day. These are all hormone disrupters.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Not everyone does and there would be much higher variance if so. (Different building codes, food handling practices etc.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
> Someone clever though might be able to come up with a campaign about chemicals stealing your manhood that might resonate with conservative voters. Have you heard Alex Jones? He is telling his listeners that the government puts chemicals in the water that are turning the Frogs gay. It is funny, but ultimately might make them more receptive to real environmental cleanup legislation.
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  That was a typical embellishment by Alex Jones. The actual story was that the males of a certain species of frog became transsexual when exposed to Atrazine weedkiller. There was also a story going around some years ago about the same thing happening to a species of fish, but I don't recall the details. The point is that some of the chemicals we use have an effect on biology and we need to pay more attention to what is going on. Alex Jones might be hyperbolic, but he's touching on an important topic that many supposedly more kosher news outlets barely discuss.
  - emmelaich 9y ago
    Some reputable links. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070521-sex-fish.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070521-sex-f... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/estrogen-in-waterways/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/estrogen-in-water... http://www.newsweek.com/female-frogs-estrogen-hermaphrodites-suburban-waste-369553 http://www.newsweek.com/female-frogs-estrogen-hermaphrodites...
foldr 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM
- WalterGR 9y ago
  I don't have access to YouTube at work. What is the video you're linking to? What are you trying to say by linking to that particular video?
  - foldr 9y ago
    General Jack D. Ripper talking about water fluoridation and the purity of our bodily essences in Dr. Strangelove.
bitL 9y ago
Alright, so what should we do? Should we daily take DHEA/GABA/Zinc etc. to compensate effect of these chemicals? Eat only food we grow/kill ourselves? Move to mountains shielded from airborne pollution?
- abledon 9y ago
  Ruthlessly eat healthy whole foods , limit junk media, daily muscle/tendon/bone strengthening exercise regime on a 'religious' level of importance. Develop a level of body intelligence to combat the dullness learnt from sitting in front of screens for most our developing and adult lives. Learn to feel the inside of your body, the tensions in your head/cranial sacral nerves, inside your tendons, feel the bone marrow at the core of your bones (this last one comes only after decades of practice( if you don't have genetic boost from athletic/physically gifted bloodline) but apparently it's worth it in terms of willful relaxation and awareness of where the days stress has deposited itself). Fast regime in springtime to give liver a chance to rest and clean out system instead of being overloaded with digestive tasks. When everyone worked on the farm years ago, t'was slim pickings come spring, and you didn't get a lot to eat , sugar was a godsend , everyone was poor and you were more 'forced' to eat healthy and pure during springtime. Now it's more of a hard mode hallenree to enter into fasting phase, but usually a HN-reader has the intensity required..' Being socially isolated or lacking a network/community is as bad if not worse than smoking, so, hard as it is in our modern life, seek out a social group to hang out with, esp. important for men as they let these skills diminish as they grow older , letting their wives take up the burden of connecting outwards and setting up social events. You can drink alcohol but don't let alcohol drink you. Get out into nature more on the weekends, shinrin yoku, trees and plants release stress reducing chemicals for us -- if that's too hard to do -- put a plant in your bedroom.
  - astrange 9y ago
    Can we have an executive summary?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sliverstorm 9y ago
Why do you rate that above being overweight and not exercising, both of which are known to depress testosterone and are known to be reaching epidemic levels in our population? Would like to hear your thoughts.
- paulcole 9y ago
  It is fine to super size your value meal as long as you don't touch the receipt.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
aaron695 9y ago
I'm personally disappointed on HN that this comment would receive more upvotes than downvotes. This is a typical anti-vaxxer style of argument. It even mentions trump (sic). Which on top of that irrelevance, seriously this is the level of maturity we are at, not capitalising his name? There 'might' be some interesting science here but point blank this comment is wrong. Like all good scaremongering there are some things worth investigating but this is leaps and bounds beyond current reality.
Jabanga 9y ago
>Ultimately we are in dire need of regulation of these substances, especially where there is food contact. We don't need regulation. We need consumer education (and in this gov funded programs can help) and entrepreneurship to provide the market with what it demands.
- DomreiRoam 9y ago
  I think you need good regulation and that is difficult to achieve. Seriously you can ask the consumer to be a little knowledgeable but you can't ask all consumer to have the equivalence of master in Biology, Chemistry, Material science ... and conduct testing on their food, water, car ... when you have sophisticate actor with huge budget and can make profit by tricking consumer.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    Consumers don't need to be experts to discover organizations that use experts to create standards for safe food, and only buy products certified by said organization. Regulation is about controlling what other people buy, which I find to be absolutely unjustifiable. If you don't want unsafe food, you should deliberately avoid it. The problem is no government or private company provides any kind of certification on this.
    - DomreiRoam 9y ago
      We have already plenty of certification companies that take your money in exchange for a nice logo/label on the packaging. You still need an expert to tells if they do it right. I think the difficulty is to find a source of 'Authority' that can control the controller. I don't believe that the State is always doing the right think (Flint water ...) but the private sector has already been caught doing very nasty thing (Asbestos, Cigarette ...). I believe the democratic can provide a last resort authority most of the time. In fact the Courts are sometime used in this capacity. Also we need to take in account that you cant only take in account the consumer point of view. Other aspect like geopolitics or pollution or security need to be addressed: Japan still try to support agriculture because they don't want to have starvation in case of a maritime blockade. We still have states secure maritime transport and fight piracy. The difficulty, is to see what need to be regulated and what can be let to the market force. And there is no definitive answer because the market react to regulation and regulation are adapted according to market behavior. But ideology and culture background are determinant to define what proportion you want. It is clearly the opposition between collectivism and individualism. I think both to the extreme are wrong.
emmelaich 9y ago
Not only those chemicals but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen and endocrine disruptors generally. Palm Oil and Triclosan are everywhere.
justadeveloper2 9y ago
Before you jump to there, you might consider taking a look at the methodology of the study itself. On the face of it, it seems like too broad of a claim. There's been nothing wrong with my sperm counts, for example. So maybe painting with such a broad brush isn't a good idea here. Besides that, "the west" doesn't contain the majority of the world's population and yet there were breathless articles in the press predicting "the end of the human race." Uh, what? Not that toxic load isn't an interesting subject. But you "Trump's fault" comment is juvenile. A lot of the status quo in DC is why we have all these problems--government not working for the people. I stand with anyone who wants to reform that bad system where a corporation can spend a bunch of money lobbying so that the government turns a blind eye to their pollution or "socializes" that cost while privatizing their profits.
Pica_soO 9y ago
Im imagine this as quite a nice service, especially in the US where food safety and ingredients are basically non- or only half-existant. You stick some sample of air/ or a product into a vial, stick that vial into a drone, and that drone flies it to a fully automated labratory, providing with time wise close to consumption information on what your produce contains.

dekhn 9y ago

The linkage between consumption of these chemicals, and their exact nature of harm, is not well established- it's not "fairly conclusive" at all. What we have is a bunch of in vitro and in vivo studies, but not actual epidemiological evidence of the quality required to make rational policy decisions. If you believe otherwise, I'm happy to ready any high quality studies you can find. Pleaes don't just cherry pick a few studies, be careful in doing your review.

kindadumb 9y ago
"be careful in doing your review." Says the lazy poster who just made a bunch of claims himself and didn't cite anything!
- xiaoma 9y ago
  Welcome to HN. As someone who's been here for over a decade (and had this account nearly that long), I can assure you this is normal behavior for the forum.
  - azeirah 9y ago
    The site doesn't encourage citing or critical thinking, although it does attract people who're interested in that. If you wish for a community like this, open a new thread and try discussing communities that do succeed at promoting critical and well-cited discussions like Reddit's /r/askhistorians.
    - dekhn 9y ago
      I'm not sure if you're criticizing me for my reply above in which I ask the poster to provide data to support their claim. I'm a critical thinker, and when writing papers or making claims, can back up my claims with strong evidence. In this case, I am saying I have been unable to find a single paper that is high quality and supports the assertion that there is a detectable health effect in the population (excluding people who receive massive dosages, far beyond the dosages a regular person is going to get from eating food). I have seen many low quality papers purporting this, but in each case, I found either an invalidating error (failure to use bonferroni correction is most common, but there are many), or it was clear the author was being selective with their data reporting, or made an error in their procedure. That's pretty common, especially in the human health and nutrition sector, unfortunately.
    - xiaoma 9y ago
      It looks like you may have mistakenly replied to the wrong comment I didn't say anything about my wishes. I just welcomed a new(ish) user.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  What? What exactly do you expect dekhn to cite? You expect them to prove a negative? How do you propose they do that? GP asserted that some scary chemicals cause problems (no sarcasm intended; I find phthalates and bisphenols a bit scary myself), but provided no supporting evidence. dehkn asked for evidence. Pretty simple right?
  - cryoshon 9y ago
    >You expect them to prove a negative? How do you propose they do that? they do this all the time in the pharma space. just arrange experiments on mice where they're subjected to higher and higher levels of whatever chemical until they're subjected to a level several orders of magnitude beyond any realistic hypothetical human exposure. then you cut up all the mice and see if they're different from unexposed mice.
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      I've had 6 pet rats in my life and each one had tumors at the end. I wonder if that effect is properly controlled for as well.
      - zaphods-towel 9y ago
        ...yes, it is controlled for. Read the comment above you again. They compare exposed rats to unexposed rats. That accounts for your concern.
- theptip 9y ago
  The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. (It's tedious to post supporting studies on every post, so there's nothing nefarious about claims being initially unsupported.) I do agree that the "be careful..." comment is perhaps open to being interpreted as snarky, though it's always hard to infer the intent in a forum such as this.
  - naravara 9y ago
    >The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. When public health issues are concerned, the burden of proof is on the ones saying exposure does not present any risks worth worrying about. The FDA doesn't usually come in with the approach that we should just try everything out and see how it goes.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      It's low frequency radio waves from submarines. No, wait, it's copies of Jane Austen novels, that's what causing the problem. Hang on; it's headphones being worn by people near you. That's what doing it. Wait one; it's the after-effects of that landfill of ET game cartridges. If you disagree, have you got any proof that these aren't the causes? Otherwise I guess it's start removing Jane Austen novels from the libraries.
      - naravara 9y ago
        Since you’re so comfortable with it, just go ahead and dose yourself with everything you can get your hands on. Here in the real world people express some hesitation before shoveling suspicious new products down their gullets.
        mmmpop 9y ago
        Ever since I switched my entire diet to Soylent my diarrhea has never been better!
- dekhn 9y ago
  I'm not being lazy. I am saying there is no evidence showing what the person claims. Do you want me to cite a non-existent paper?
anigbrowl 9y ago
That sounds like an excellent reason to throw a lot of money at doing epidemiological studies then, doesn't it? I must say I'm very tired of naysayers with no positive proposals of their own who invoke the scientific method as a way of waving away problematics rather than engaging with their evaluation or mitigation.
- dekhn 9y ago
  Good epidemiology is a great investment. I wouldn't use the term "throw a lot of money"- we want a few good studies with unambiguous conclusions.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Quality costs.
    - dekhn 9y ago
      Yes, but unfortunately, cost is not a reliable correlate of quality. And you can get quality for low cost (typically through sweat equity or engineering)
abledon 9y ago
And remember 50% of published scientific studies can't be successfully reproduced! 100% confidence.
- dekhn 9y ago
  50% of studies can't be reproduced, and 90% are outright false (which makes you wonder about the percent that can be reproduced, but are false) :-)
  - kazinator 9y ago
    "can be reproduced" means true. If you can reproduce the experiment, so that approximately the same data comes out, but the paper turns out false, that can only be because the paper makes a flawed interpretation of the data. But that has nothing to do with reproducibility; you can tell that a flawed conclusion is made from some data without reproducing the process which produces the data. If the analysis is correct and the empirical results can be reproduced, then the research is true. Or something like that.
    - sheepmullet 9y ago
      > "can be reproduced" means true. Not really. I know what you mean but that's not the same as what you are saying. You mean consistently and reliably over a large number of studies.
jakelarkin 9y ago
The burden of proof should obviously be reversed! Complex, synthetic chemicals in our water, food, packaging, or furniture should be assumed harmful and disallowed until it there is sufficient evidence that they are safe. Escalating trials basically. This is what we do for pharmaceutical drugs that we ingest or contact, why don't take this approach with other man-made chemicals we are adding to our immediate ecosystem and bodies. the history of flame retardants is instructive https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/11/21/its-official-toxic-flame-retardants-no-longer-required-in-furniture/ https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/11/21/its-official-toxic-f... if industry/government had been required to prove these things safe beforehand we would have never exposed the population them in the first place.
- kazinator 9y ago
  I completely agree with you, but since we have all these materials used in a myriad ways, and it's not practical to just stop using all of them cold turkey, it would really be useful to figure out exactly which stuff is doing what harm and how.
- highd 9y ago
  Our diet is full of fruits and vegetables containing thousands of complex chemicals, indistinguishable from "synthetic" chemicals, that have entered our diet far too short a time ago to have had evolutionary impact. If one wanted they could surely distill many chemicals in isolation from these naturally occurring fruits and vegetables that in concentration would have many concerning health effects. The fact that many don't worry about this is largely because this research program has not been attempted. Point being, there is no reason to hold any of these chemicals to a standard higher than that of a strawberry - that is, we can give people a bunch of strawberries and say any negative effect is below some acceptable level. And, in fact, we have found many "natural" foods containing absurdly high levels of arsenic and other dangerous compounds, and that has affected their preparation for consumption. The scientific process has in this way even outperformed the naturalism heuristic.
  - cryoshon 9y ago
    >Point being, there is no reason to hold any of these chemicals to a standard higher than that of a strawberry - that is, we can give people a bunch of strawberries and say any negative effect is below some acceptable level. ah yes, the logic that brought us Silent Spring and the children happily playing and breathing in clouds of "safe" DDT gas. if it's from a plant or animal, it can still be plenty harmful, but at least there's a history of use without major effects. not the case with industrial chemicals...
300bps 9y ago
I would think unlimited access to high definition porn in any variety for completely free would be more responsible for lowered sperm count than chemical exposure.
cameldrv 9y ago
I don't know what would convince you that at minimum, these chemicals should be taken out of food contact applications or heated up and volatilized in thermal printers, and then handed to a customer. Just picking articles at random, I don't have time for a full literature review for Hacker News, but the evidence taken in totality is overwhelming: 1. BPA (and related chemicals) activate estrogen receptors, causal study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28407500 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28407500 This has been repeatedly demonstrated. 2. Direct human effects, correlational study: Working in a factory with BPA makes you impotent: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/dep381.pdf http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/dep381.pdf 3. Direct human effects, correlational study: BPA exposure by parents, especially mothers leads to reduced anogenital distance in children: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987463 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987463 4. Direct human effects, correlational: BPA and other EDCs are associated with penile defects: http://www.acmt.net/_Library/PEHSU_Webinars/Is_Hypospadias_Associated_with_Prenatal_Exposure_to_Endocrine_Disruptors.pdf http://www.acmt.net/_Library/PEHSU_Webinars/Is_Hypospadias_A... 5. Human ingestion routes, correlational: Blood BPA levels are highest occupationally among cashiers (thermal receipts), and people who eat a lot of canned vegetables (plastic can liners): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21205581 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21205581 There are loads more where that came from. You've got a very direct mechanism of action, clear effects in animal models, and correlational studies showing people who are exposed to larger quantities show clear medical problems. You have clear, understandable routes of ingestion, and correlational data that shows that people who are exposed more to those routes of ingestion have more in their blood. I suppose you can complain that the human studies are correlational, but you can't legally perform a blinded study on this, because we know that BPA is harmful, and you won't get it past an IRB. Maybe you formed your opinion on this in the nineties or 2000s when only the hippies were trading out their nalgene bottles, but the science has come a long way, and the hippies were right. Phthalates are a very similar story.

wonderwonder 9y ago

Want an interesting read? Go to your city water providers website and read up on all the pollutants they are over recommended levels on. Then look at the pollutants they are over the legal limit on. We assume that the water in our taps is safe to drink but there are often a myriad of tests that our utility companies are failing. For example, I live in a relatively well to do suburb and my utility is over the recommended limit on 2 carcinogens, and chlorate which damages the thyroid. In addition they have been over the legal limit for Trihalomethanes, another carcinogen since 2014

Raphmedia 9y ago
Even worst is all the extra female hormones coming from birth control pills and livestock (mostly milk cows) that are not getting filtered out of by water providers.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  If I may pick a nit: there are no pills in sewage streams. We're talking drugs in solution or suspension (the term "dissolved solids" is used in the water treatment industry). Drugs can very difficult to remove, and water treatment facilities are only able to remove roughly half [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-half-of-drugs-removed-by-sewage-treatment/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-half-of-drug...].
  - jxramos 9y ago
    I thought a lot of pharmaceuticals wind up in water supplies because when we take pills only part of the mass is used in the body, the rest stays in the blood stream, passes the kidneys, and is removed fairly intact into the urine thereby entering our water supply at the next voiding of the bladder.
    - 13of40 9y ago
      I think the parent was pointing out that you can't just run the resulting urine through a sieve to filter it.

diogenescynic 9y ago

And all the flame retardants and anti-stick coatings on practically every surface we touch and interact with all day, every day. These are all hormone disrupters.

AstralStorm 9y ago
Not everyone does and there would be much higher variance if so. (Different building codes, food handling practices etc.)

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ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

> Someone clever though might be able to come up with a campaign about chemicals stealing your manhood that might resonate with conservative voters. Have you heard Alex Jones? He is telling his listeners that the government puts chemicals in the water that are turning the Frogs gay. It is funny, but ultimately might make them more receptive to real environmental cleanup legislation.

hyperdunc 9y ago
That was a typical embellishment by Alex Jones. The actual story was that the males of a certain species of frog became transsexual when exposed to Atrazine weedkiller. There was also a story going around some years ago about the same thing happening to a species of fish, but I don't recall the details. The point is that some of the chemicals we use have an effect on biology and we need to pay more attention to what is going on. Alex Jones might be hyperbolic, but he's touching on an important topic that many supposedly more kosher news outlets barely discuss.
- emmelaich 9y ago
  Some reputable links. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070521-sex-fish.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070521-sex-f... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/estrogen-in-waterways/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/estrogen-in-water... http://www.newsweek.com/female-frogs-estrogen-hermaphrodites-suburban-waste-369553 http://www.newsweek.com/female-frogs-estrogen-hermaphrodites...

foldr 9y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM

WalterGR 9y ago
I don't have access to YouTube at work. What is the video you're linking to? What are you trying to say by linking to that particular video?
- foldr 9y ago
  General Jack D. Ripper talking about water fluoridation and the purity of our bodily essences in Dr. Strangelove.

bitL 9y ago

Alright, so what should we do? Should we daily take DHEA/GABA/Zinc etc. to compensate effect of these chemicals? Eat only food we grow/kill ourselves? Move to mountains shielded from airborne pollution?

abledon 9y ago
Ruthlessly eat healthy whole foods , limit junk media, daily muscle/tendon/bone strengthening exercise regime on a 'religious' level of importance. Develop a level of body intelligence to combat the dullness learnt from sitting in front of screens for most our developing and adult lives. Learn to feel the inside of your body, the tensions in your head/cranial sacral nerves, inside your tendons, feel the bone marrow at the core of your bones (this last one comes only after decades of practice( if you don't have genetic boost from athletic/physically gifted bloodline) but apparently it's worth it in terms of willful relaxation and awareness of where the days stress has deposited itself). Fast regime in springtime to give liver a chance to rest and clean out system instead of being overloaded with digestive tasks. When everyone worked on the farm years ago, t'was slim pickings come spring, and you didn't get a lot to eat , sugar was a godsend , everyone was poor and you were more 'forced' to eat healthy and pure during springtime. Now it's more of a hard mode hallenree to enter into fasting phase, but usually a HN-reader has the intensity required..' Being socially isolated or lacking a network/community is as bad if not worse than smoking, so, hard as it is in our modern life, seek out a social group to hang out with, esp. important for men as they let these skills diminish as they grow older , letting their wives take up the burden of connecting outwards and setting up social events. You can drink alcohol but don't let alcohol drink you. Get out into nature more on the weekends, shinrin yoku, trees and plants release stress reducing chemicals for us -- if that's too hard to do -- put a plant in your bedroom.
- astrange 9y ago
  Can we have an executive summary?
  - deleted 9y ago
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sliverstorm 9y ago

Why do you rate that above being overweight and not exercising, both of which are known to depress testosterone and are known to be reaching epidemic levels in our population? Would like to hear your thoughts.

paulcole 9y ago
It is fine to super size your value meal as long as you don't touch the receipt.
deleted 9y ago
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aaron695 9y ago

I'm personally disappointed on HN that this comment would receive more upvotes than downvotes. This is a typical anti-vaxxer style of argument. It even mentions trump (sic). Which on top of that irrelevance, seriously this is the level of maturity we are at, not capitalising his name? There 'might' be some interesting science here but point blank this comment is wrong. Like all good scaremongering there are some things worth investigating but this is leaps and bounds beyond current reality.

Jabanga 9y ago

>Ultimately we are in dire need of regulation of these substances, especially where there is food contact. We don't need regulation. We need consumer education (and in this gov funded programs can help) and entrepreneurship to provide the market with what it demands.

DomreiRoam 9y ago
I think you need good regulation and that is difficult to achieve. Seriously you can ask the consumer to be a little knowledgeable but you can't ask all consumer to have the equivalence of master in Biology, Chemistry, Material science ... and conduct testing on their food, water, car ... when you have sophisticate actor with huge budget and can make profit by tricking consumer.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  Consumers don't need to be experts to discover organizations that use experts to create standards for safe food, and only buy products certified by said organization. Regulation is about controlling what other people buy, which I find to be absolutely unjustifiable. If you don't want unsafe food, you should deliberately avoid it. The problem is no government or private company provides any kind of certification on this.
  - DomreiRoam 9y ago
    We have already plenty of certification companies that take your money in exchange for a nice logo/label on the packaging. You still need an expert to tells if they do it right. I think the difficulty is to find a source of 'Authority' that can control the controller. I don't believe that the State is always doing the right think (Flint water ...) but the private sector has already been caught doing very nasty thing (Asbestos, Cigarette ...). I believe the democratic can provide a last resort authority most of the time. In fact the Courts are sometime used in this capacity. Also we need to take in account that you cant only take in account the consumer point of view. Other aspect like geopolitics or pollution or security need to be addressed: Japan still try to support agriculture because they don't want to have starvation in case of a maritime blockade. We still have states secure maritime transport and fight piracy. The difficulty, is to see what need to be regulated and what can be let to the market force. And there is no definitive answer because the market react to regulation and regulation are adapted according to market behavior. But ideology and culture background are determinant to define what proportion you want. It is clearly the opposition between collectivism and individualism. I think both to the extreme are wrong.

emmelaich 9y ago

Not only those chemicals but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen and endocrine disruptors generally. Palm Oil and Triclosan are everywhere.

justadeveloper2 9y ago

Before you jump to there, you might consider taking a look at the methodology of the study itself. On the face of it, it seems like too broad of a claim. There's been nothing wrong with my sperm counts, for example. So maybe painting with such a broad brush isn't a good idea here. Besides that, "the west" doesn't contain the majority of the world's population and yet there were breathless articles in the press predicting "the end of the human race." Uh, what? Not that toxic load isn't an interesting subject. But you "Trump's fault" comment is juvenile. A lot of the status quo in DC is why we have all these problems--government not working for the people. I stand with anyone who wants to reform that bad system where a corporation can spend a bunch of money lobbying so that the government turns a blind eye to their pollution or "socializes" that cost while privatizing their profits.

Pica_soO 9y ago

Im imagine this as quite a nice service, especially in the US where food safety and ingredients are basically non- or only half-existant. You stick some sample of air/ or a product into a vial, stick that vial into a drone, and that drone flies it to a fully automated labratory, providing with time wise close to consumption information on what your produce contains.