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There are certainly issues of this sort. I've seen references to "environmental racism" where poor neighborhoods like Altgeld Gardens in Chicago are built on to

by nwah1 8y ago

There are certainly issues of this sort. I've seen references to "environmental racism" where poor neighborhoods like Altgeld Gardens in Chicago are built on top of reclaimed landfills, and the water pipes are all made of lead. And Camden, New Jersey had very similar problems being a site of major industrial pollution. On the other hand, the upper middle class obsession with purity and organic stuff verges on neuroticism and New Age mysticism. Much of the panic over chemicals involves only trace amounts. Like how formaldehyde in vaccines is extremely tiny compared to formaldehyde in pears, yet it is used as a reason not to vaccinate. Or how sea salt has been replacing iodized salt, even though rates of iodine deficiency in the West are rising, and this is a major problem for cognitive development.

wppick 8y ago
One of the arguments in the book I mentioned was that yes the trace amounts are "safe", but in some cases the body cannot detox certain synthetic chemicals, so they build up in the body until they reach a level that begins to cause health issues
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  Broadly, this corresponds to the use "threshold model" and "linear no-threshold model" in toxicology, which describe whether the risk/harm from a substance has a safe 'cliff' or declines smoothly down to 0 dose. It's well understood that carcinogens are LNT hazards. The old quip that "even breathing causes cancer" is literally true, so there's no such thing as a safe dose of a carcinogen, just an acceptable dose. (Interestingly, effectively-safe doses decline as lifespans - and therefore cumulative risk - rise.) Increasingly, we seem to be finding that non-carcinogenic risks which have been filed under 'threshold' are actually LNT threats for which the low-end risk gets lost in other noise. I'm not particularly sold on the 'synthetic' framing here, though. Lead exposure is almost certainly LNT at least in childhood. Copper and zinc are linked to Alzheimer's in some uncertain-but-suspicious way. While endocrine disruptors like BPA are synthetic, they're acting on the same pathways as 'natural' disruptors like phytoestrogens. 2.5nm particulate pollution now appears to be not only carcinogenic but also development-inhibiting; the primary sources are man-made but the primary agents (NOx, SO2) are naturally occurring at much lower doses. Very broadly, I do expect many thing we're exposed to today will eventually be viewed as horrible errors like leaded gasoline (if hopefully less severe). But I'm not sure 'synthetic' is a meaningful metric, and I'm not sure bioaccumulation of the compound is actually a very common pathway relative to accumulative damage.

by nwah1 8y ago

wppick 8y ago

One of the arguments in the book I mentioned was that yes the trace amounts are "safe", but in some cases the body cannot detox certain synthetic chemicals, so they build up in the body until they reach a level that begins to cause health issues

Bartweiss 8y ago
Broadly, this corresponds to the use "threshold model" and "linear no-threshold model" in toxicology, which describe whether the risk/harm from a substance has a safe 'cliff' or declines smoothly down to 0 dose. It's well understood that carcinogens are LNT hazards. The old quip that "even breathing causes cancer" is literally true, so there's no such thing as a safe dose of a carcinogen, just an acceptable dose. (Interestingly, effectively-safe doses decline as lifespans - and therefore cumulative risk - rise.) Increasingly, we seem to be finding that non-carcinogenic risks which have been filed under 'threshold' are actually LNT threats for which the low-end risk gets lost in other noise. I'm not particularly sold on the 'synthetic' framing here, though. Lead exposure is almost certainly LNT at least in childhood. Copper and zinc are linked to Alzheimer's in some uncertain-but-suspicious way. While endocrine disruptors like BPA are synthetic, they're acting on the same pathways as 'natural' disruptors like phytoestrogens. 2.5nm particulate pollution now appears to be not only carcinogenic but also development-inhibiting; the primary sources are man-made but the primary agents (NOx, SO2) are naturally occurring at much lower doses. Very broadly, I do expect many thing we're exposed to today will eventually be viewed as horrible errors like leaded gasoline (if hopefully less severe). But I'm not sure 'synthetic' is a meaningful metric, and I'm not sure bioaccumulation of the compound is actually a very common pathway relative to accumulative damage.