5 ms·

Allowed? Perhaps. Is anyone using it? Well certainly not that I know of... who in their reasonable mind would? You have to remember that the U.K. is very much

Allowed? Perhaps. Is anyone using it? Well certainly not that I know of... who in their reasonable mind would? You have to remember that the U.K. is very much of the mindset that everything will kill you until they’ve proven, tested, provided warning signs and signals, etc. The US is the exact opposite. Until there is a problem... go for it (with some caveats, obviously). Sure sometimes that causes a problem, but on the whole the market does work itself out. Case in point? We’re still alive.

cygx 7y ago
Case in point? We’re still alive. That's a rather crude metric...
- chrismeller 7y ago
  And yet really, isn’t that the most important one? If the whitelist vs blacklist attitude were really as important as everyone in this thread is claiming, wouldn’t there be some mass catastrophic extinction-level event in the US? There’s not.....
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    By that logic we should just ignore <problem> until we're too dead to do anything about it.
    - Digit-Al 7y ago
      That's basically what you are doing isn't it?
      - MegaButts 7y ago
        I try to solve problems when I can, rather than ignore them. Especially when I believe those problems might kill me.
  - rcxdude 7y ago
    Not really. There's a large difference between catastrophe and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths distributed across the country and across years from many different issues. One is very visible and the other can be hard to see but is still very significant. Just because it's not killing everyone doesn't mean it's not killing a lot of people or making their health and happiness worse.
    - repolfx 7y ago
      But there's no significance. There's no evidence the precautionary principle works at all. As observed in a comment above, when you remove car deaths and murders (things unrelated to chemical regulation) US life expectancy is the same. Just because it's not killing everyone doesn't mean it's not killing a lot of people or making their health and happiness worse That logic is faulty. Allowing things until proven dangerous can be both not killing everyone and not killing a lot of people or making anyone's health or happiness worse. For the precautionary principle to make a detectable difference to people's health, dangerous cosmetics would have to be staggeringly common, and cosmetics firms would have to be staggeringly willing to repeatedly sell cosmetics known to be dangerous. But that doesn't seem to be the case: are there any cases in recent times of Americans being seriously harmed by unexpectedly dangerous cosmetics? I mean, even just one?
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Most of these things don't result in a cleanly attributable death, just increased risk of already common end of life diseases. Or a reduction in quality of life. HFCS won't kill you even if you drink it in bulk. Spend 40 years eating it and you get a 10% higher chance of, say, dying before 70.
    - mdpopescu 7y ago
      So you're saying that [grin] it's absolutely irrelevant?
      - pjc50 7y ago
        ?
  - deogeo 7y ago
    And 'everyone is still alive' in New Delhi too, where you can chew the air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Delhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Delhi
fzeroracer 7y ago
Not to be a jerk, but you really should do a bit of research before you make claims that no one would use it. There was a large HN discussion not too long ago about the fact that Johnson & Johnson's baby powder contained asbestos [1] The free market doesn't really work in this case because issues as a result of known carcinogens, asbestos etc can take decades to show up. By the time that happens, the executives in charge might've already changed, the company might be dead etc and it becomes harder to hold them accountable for essentially poisoning their customers. So yes, we're alive today. But in five or ten years, would you be happy to know your cancer was the result of a specific brand of baby powder? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18684384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18684384
- chrismeller 7y ago
  I never said asbestos was never used. I said no company, knowing what we know today, would continue to use it and that a regulation preventing its use would therefore be pointless. Are there instances in the past where it has been used? Ok, sure. Are there instances where companies and people have flat out lied to regulators, both US and EU? I’m sure we can all think of at least one, there were criminal charges recently. Clearly simply having a law doesn’t make it so.
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    I gave you an example of a company, knowing what we know today about the dangers of asbestos, continuing to sell their product despite knowing it contained asbestos. They were concerned about the dangers internally and proceeded to cover it up. This is an example which directly contradicts your first paragraph.
    - chrismeller 7y ago
      Even according to your link it stopped almost 20 years ago (2000), and you ignored the second paragraph, so... ball’s in your court.
      - 7y ago
ChrisSD 7y ago
The reason asbestos is banned is because it was used and did cause real harms (and even today it's still occasionally found in old buildings). Sure it didn't decimate the UK population but that's a very low bar to step over.
- benj111 7y ago
  Not even old buildings. It stopped being used in the 90s in the UK.
- dvdbloc 7y ago
  Asbestos is not currently banned in the US and is still in use in products today at regulated levels
  - ChrisSD 7y ago
    Yes, hence my first comment that this was surprising to me.
athenot 7y ago
> Case in point? We’re still alive. But we die younger than Europeans: 78.6 years in U.S. vs 82.4 in France or 83.3 in Italy. I've always thought this was mostly because healthcare systems over there better tackle preventable deaths, but now I wonder if there might be some environmental factors at play too. Data: https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.ht...
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Yes and we work more than the French I hear. Working less and better healthcare seem like they would be large factors. As an aside, I think our “blacklist” approach also really leads to a lot of environmental harm. Our system basically says “use this unless we start to notice harm” which is a clear plan for legalized environmental harm. You can use some pesticide unless after 20-30 years of use a few studies indicate harm, then we will review it. This led to the Slient Spring and DDT being so widespread that the Peregrine Falcon almost went extinct. Our default view that things are okay until they’re obviously causing problems isn’t the best. I likely wouldn’t want to live under a government that prohibited everything by default either, so I’d hope some middle ground could be reached. And ultimately I have to accept that some things should be prohibited even if I really want to do them. I suppose my policy plan would be to much better publicly fund research and whitelist with a fast initial review period and a collaborative research based initial rollout. :shrug:
- esyir 7y ago
  The obesity rate alone says leagues here.
- wang_li 7y ago
  >mostly because healthcare systems over there better tackle preventable deaths, This is not a chart of life expectancy as a result of medical care. When you remove fatalities from car accidents and murders, the US life expectancy is in line with other developed countries.
  - bonzini 7y ago
mola 7y ago
We're still alive? Except those that died. The problem with the black list model is that companies come to considerable size before the dangers are known. And then they have the lobbying power to save their businesses on the expanse of the public health, and life. Case and point, countless. Pain killers, tobacco, fire proofing chemicals, etc etc. If the us corporations weren't so greedy as to disregard public health completely maybe a black model would be sustainable. But it doesn't seem the case

cygx 7y ago

Case in point? We’re still alive. That's a rather crude metric...

chrismeller 7y ago
And yet really, isn’t that the most important one? If the whitelist vs blacklist attitude were really as important as everyone in this thread is claiming, wouldn’t there be some mass catastrophic extinction-level event in the US? There’s not.....
- MegaButts 7y ago
  By that logic we should just ignore <problem> until we're too dead to do anything about it.
  - Digit-Al 7y ago
    That's basically what you are doing isn't it?
    - MegaButts 7y ago
      I try to solve problems when I can, rather than ignore them. Especially when I believe those problems might kill me.
- rcxdude 7y ago
  Not really. There's a large difference between catastrophe and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths distributed across the country and across years from many different issues. One is very visible and the other can be hard to see but is still very significant. Just because it's not killing everyone doesn't mean it's not killing a lot of people or making their health and happiness worse.
  - repolfx 7y ago
    But there's no significance. There's no evidence the precautionary principle works at all. As observed in a comment above, when you remove car deaths and murders (things unrelated to chemical regulation) US life expectancy is the same. Just because it's not killing everyone doesn't mean it's not killing a lot of people or making their health and happiness worse That logic is faulty. Allowing things until proven dangerous can be both not killing everyone and not killing a lot of people or making anyone's health or happiness worse. For the precautionary principle to make a detectable difference to people's health, dangerous cosmetics would have to be staggeringly common, and cosmetics firms would have to be staggeringly willing to repeatedly sell cosmetics known to be dangerous. But that doesn't seem to be the case: are there any cases in recent times of Americans being seriously harmed by unexpectedly dangerous cosmetics? I mean, even just one?
- pjc50 7y ago
  Most of these things don't result in a cleanly attributable death, just increased risk of already common end of life diseases. Or a reduction in quality of life. HFCS won't kill you even if you drink it in bulk. Spend 40 years eating it and you get a 10% higher chance of, say, dying before 70.
  - mdpopescu 7y ago
    So you're saying that [grin] it's absolutely irrelevant?
    - pjc50 7y ago
      ?
- deogeo 7y ago
  And 'everyone is still alive' in New Delhi too, where you can chew the air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Delhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Delhi

fzeroracer 7y ago

Not to be a jerk, but you really should do a bit of research before you make claims that no one would use it. There was a large HN discussion not too long ago about the fact that Johnson & Johnson's baby powder contained asbestos [1] The free market doesn't really work in this case because issues as a result of known carcinogens, asbestos etc can take decades to show up. By the time that happens, the executives in charge might've already changed, the company might be dead etc and it becomes harder to hold them accountable for essentially poisoning their customers. So yes, we're alive today. But in five or ten years, would you be happy to know your cancer was the result of a specific brand of baby powder? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18684384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18684384

chrismeller 7y ago
I never said asbestos was never used. I said no company, knowing what we know today, would continue to use it and that a regulation preventing its use would therefore be pointless. Are there instances in the past where it has been used? Ok, sure. Are there instances where companies and people have flat out lied to regulators, both US and EU? I’m sure we can all think of at least one, there were criminal charges recently. Clearly simply having a law doesn’t make it so.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  I gave you an example of a company, knowing what we know today about the dangers of asbestos, continuing to sell their product despite knowing it contained asbestos. They were concerned about the dangers internally and proceeded to cover it up. This is an example which directly contradicts your first paragraph.
  - chrismeller 7y ago
    Even according to your link it stopped almost 20 years ago (2000), and you ignored the second paragraph, so... ball’s in your court.
    - 7y ago

ChrisSD 7y ago

The reason asbestos is banned is because it was used and did cause real harms (and even today it's still occasionally found in old buildings). Sure it didn't decimate the UK population but that's a very low bar to step over.

benj111 7y ago
Not even old buildings. It stopped being used in the 90s in the UK.
dvdbloc 7y ago
Asbestos is not currently banned in the US and is still in use in products today at regulated levels
- ChrisSD 7y ago
  Yes, hence my first comment that this was surprising to me.

athenot 7y ago

> Case in point? We’re still alive. But we die younger than Europeans: 78.6 years in U.S. vs 82.4 in France or 83.3 in Italy. I've always thought this was mostly because healthcare systems over there better tackle preventable deaths, but now I wonder if there might be some environmental factors at play too. Data: https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.ht...

TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Yes and we work more than the French I hear. Working less and better healthcare seem like they would be large factors. As an aside, I think our “blacklist” approach also really leads to a lot of environmental harm. Our system basically says “use this unless we start to notice harm” which is a clear plan for legalized environmental harm. You can use some pesticide unless after 20-30 years of use a few studies indicate harm, then we will review it. This led to the Slient Spring and DDT being so widespread that the Peregrine Falcon almost went extinct. Our default view that things are okay until they’re obviously causing problems isn’t the best. I likely wouldn’t want to live under a government that prohibited everything by default either, so I’d hope some middle ground could be reached. And ultimately I have to accept that some things should be prohibited even if I really want to do them. I suppose my policy plan would be to much better publicly fund research and whitelist with a fast initial review period and a collaborative research based initial rollout. :shrug:
esyir 7y ago
The obesity rate alone says leagues here.
wang_li 7y ago
>mostly because healthcare systems over there better tackle preventable deaths, This is not a chart of life expectancy as a result of medical care. When you remove fatalities from car accidents and murders, the US life expectancy is in line with other developed countries.
- bonzini 7y ago

mola 7y ago

We're still alive? Except those that died. The problem with the black list model is that companies come to considerable size before the dangers are known. And then they have the lobbying power to save their businesses on the expanse of the public health, and life. Case and point, countless. Pain killers, tobacco, fire proofing chemicals, etc etc. If the us corporations weren't so greedy as to disregard public health completely maybe a black model would be sustainable. But it doesn't seem the case