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EPA Takes Action to Protect Scientific Integrity
- samizdis 6y agoFor some context, see EPA alleges Trump officials interfered in toxic chemical assessment (Axios, Feb 9): https://www.axios.com/epa-trump-political-intereference-toxic-chemical-d1330e8a-8922-4a03-b29a-8f4f7b896ada.html https://www.axios.com/epa-trump-political-intereference-toxi...
- driverdan 6y agoThat doesn't clarify or add anything else, it just rewords the PR. What, exactly, was wrong? Who interfered? What does the science say?
- fock 6y ago3M and DuPont knew 30 years ago about the PFAS-dangers, yet here we are still using it and the "replacement" GenX is not a bit less problematic (try to Google that. Apparently someone doesn't want you to find that...)
- spodek 6y agoA lot longer than 30 years. I'm reading Exposure by the lawyer who helped blow the case open, Robert Bilott, portrayed in the movie Dark Waters, which I recommend -- the book and movie. What DuPont knowingly did, sacrificing our health for their profit, would be unbelievable except that it happened. Over 99 percent of us have these known carcinogens and causers of birth defect in our blood. As they knew, our bodies don't know how to get rid of them nor process them into anything benign. And that's just one class of known-to-be-dangerous but profitable chemicals they create and dump. If they had to pay the externalities, Teflon would cost . . . well, what price do you put on testicular cancer, or a baby born with half a nose or eyes in the wrong place?
- staticautomatic 6y agoIn case you were wondering, the term for “causer of birth defect” is teratogen.
- linuxftw 6y agoWait until you hear about pharmaceutical companies.
- refurb 6y agoTeflon? Teflon the polymer isn’t toxic. The monomer is a gas. Teflon is used in medical implants. It’s a massive technological gain, massive positive externalities.
- mschuster91 6y agoThe resulting product is fine, yes (assuming proper filtering at the end to remove contaminants). The nasty things happen along the production process, similar to why an awful lot of the US Superfund sites are in the "Silicon Valley" - the production process leached chemicals in the landscape: https://cleanair.camfil.us/2017/11/21/toxic-danger-silicon-valley-superfund-sites/ https://cleanair.camfil.us/2017/11/21/toxic-danger-silicon-v...
- loveistheanswer 6y ago>What DuPont knowingly did, sacrificing our health for their profit, would be unbelievable except that it happened. Why would that seem unbelievable to you? Aren't there countless examples of corporations harming humanity for profit?
- minikites 6y agoIt can't actually be that bad because if it was, the free market would punish Du Pont, right?
- zepto 6y ago> GenX is not a bit less problematic Do you mean Generation X, or is this a reference to some chemical?
- fock 6y agoit's a chemical, but of course every reference is conveniently painted over by this
- xboxnolifes 6y agoIt's not exactly hard to find by just searching "GenX chemical"
- klyrs 6y agoFirst hit for "teflon alternative genx" https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/epa-finds-replacements-toxic-teflon-chemicals-are-also https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/epa-finds-replacemen...
- arthurcolle 6y agoThe last four years have been some Twilight Zone-level regressions in the simulation Glad to see the core maintainers are reviewing pull requests again
- meddlepal 6y agoTemporarily reviewing until 2024 or 2028.
- mlindner 6y agoTrump was historically unusual in this respect. So unless Trump comes back for re-election and wins, I don't think you need to worry.
- minikites 6y agoIn what way is Trump unusual? He picked up the torch from Ronald Reagan and Trump currently has many people in both branches of Congress who support him and his ideas.
- mhh__ 6y agoI think Trump is unusual in that he is genuinely a stupid man who is incredibly easily manipulated - e.g. See Rex Tillerson's comments on it wrt. having to use pretty graphs and no words for the president, and Bob Woodwards calls. Nixon was a tortured soul, but he was no fool. Beyond that he's not too unique as a president - at least in the abstract: No one else has dared to be so bold in their disregard for the constitution, and yet so inept in executing it.
- mhh__ 6y agoIf you're going to downvote please counterargue. If you can find me some evidence of Donald Trump being a genius then go right ahead...
- kryogen1c 6y agowildly offtopic, but: > the Biden-Harris Administration this phrase made me stop in my tracks. its so bizarre that for the past 4 years, almost everything has been "the trump administration", and now its a pres-VP team. i cant help but think its reflective of the open secret that biden was elected in failing health and is basically just a gateway for kamala. its probably also an appeal to the fact that shes a woman so its the PR win that just keeps winning. a darker part of me worries its a foreshadowing of hierarchy-less woke culture (see kamala's videos on equity and enforced equal outcome[1]). i dont really have a thesis, but boy american politics is sure in a weird place. bettin money says its about to get way weirder. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4kowE_YIVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4kowE_YIVw
- refurb 6y agoAm I the only one who thinks you can't separate science and politics when it comes to deciding policy? I agree 100% we should not be fudging the science. If the LD50 of a chemical is 10mg, we shouldn't be playing with the number to make it 20mg to say it's safe. But translating an LD50 of 10mg to government policy is of course fraught with political bias and interference. Scientists might say "that pesticide is toxic we should ban it", but they know one side of the equation. What's the economic impact? What's the impact on jobs? What if there is one industry that has to shutdown if it's banned? What if it's need in the defense industry? Anyone who says "just follow the science" is inferring that science will give you one answer, and only one answer, and every other answer is undeniably wrong. That's rarely the case. It's usually probabilities, other theories are likely wrong, but maybe not. The world isn't black and white. Even in science.
- Frost1x 6y agoFrom what I understand reading through the memorandum, knowing a bit about how these agencies operate, and understanding how policy is made, what you want is what is happening here. Remember hurricane forecasts where Trump or one of his minions literally labeled his own projected path in with a sharpie? That's the nonsense we don't want to see. The point of the memorandum and actions are that in the previous administration, in order to influence policy, the scientific evidence was ignored, manipulated, cherry picked, etc. to match a policy decision that was already made. This is trying to protect against that sort of action. They were producing false information and labeling it scientific evidence undermining trust in government and federally funded scientific research. It's one thing to say: here's the evidence, but unfortunately we can't do that for reason X. It's another thing to say: outcome X needs to happen, here's some fringe science that supports us doing X. Policy will still be made weighing in other factors going forward, it's just nice to know the evidence preceeds the decision and you can hopefully better trust the evidence to know if there are mistakes, it's not likely due to political pressure of say the current POTUS.
- refurb 6y agoYou talk about cherry picking or ignoring data. But that happens in science as well. I can remember in graduate school there were two senior researchers with competing scientific theories. They both just made judgement calls about which data could be ignored and which was solid and could be relied upon. So if we extend this to the EPA, it seems like we might be getting into the realm where scientific integrity means “nobody questions our view of the science”. You see that trend already “we follow the science”. Well there is not one universal scientific truth all the time. Two people could both “follow the science” and make very different decisions.
- jwr 6y agoI wonder if we'll see a comeback of the EPA. In the last few years it was a mockery of the name, doing exactly the opposite.
- refurb 6y agoDidn’t the EPA burst open an old gold mine and poison a huge swath of a Colorado River tributary? Not sure they need help in making a mockery of their name.
- 1_2__4 6y agoThis isn’t a helpful or constructive comment. It would be better suited for a Twitter slap fight thread.
- ecommerceguy 6y agoRefurb is referring to the EPA personnel created disaster near Durango Colorado of the Animas River. I suspect this is wrong think so he's being greytexted. There are plugins that remove censoring from HN for those that gas. edit: link for the censors. please read the first sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_wate... "The 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill was an environmental disaster that began at the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado,[2] when Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) personnel, along with workers for Environmental Restoration LLC (a Missouri company under EPA contract to mitigate pollutants from the closed mine), caused the release of toxic waste water into the Animas River watershed."
- BigGreenTurtle 6y agoIt sounds like mining companies created a disaster aided by shoddy work from the state of Colorado who then asked the EPA to bail them out.
- ecommerceguy 6y agoMining companies from the 1840's or maybe the rich white folk who moved to the area much much later should have researched before sticking holes in the ground.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoAnother reason you should be using water filters at home.
- zionic 6y agoI took it a step further, I had been using a large (roughly 1L in size) sink-attaching filter (think of a standing filter with its on spigot that attaches to your sink with a bypass/selector knob). $75 on amazon so not bad. While that was a great improvement over tap I really worried about all the stuff it couldn't get, so I purchased a home distiller. I fill the distiller with filtered water for maintenance reasons (way less effort to clean out of the distiller), and it can make a gallon in about 3 hours. I add 1/4 tea spoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and a pinch of pink salt for minerals to each gallon and shake well. I dump each gallon into a borosilicate glass container w/304 stainless dispenser nozzle in the fridge that holds 3 gallons. It is by far the best tasting water I have ever had, no bottled water even comes close. You can tweak the baking soda and added salt to your personal taste, total cost around $350
- jinkyu 6y agothe definition of science has gotten pretty shady over the last decade. just sayin.
- mhh__ 6y agoOnly if you listen to Fox news types who believe or want you to believe there is any real debate over climate change.
- brink 6y agoI think that OP is saying that science has become exceedingly politicized over the last decade. In which case they're right. Politically tainted science has emerged from the entire political spectrum, and it's enough to make you not want to trust what anyone claims to be science.
- 24gttghh 6y agoThat's the thing... science is a method. If you have actual evidence, and reproducible results, then they speak for themselves. The problem is the wholesale, willful ignorance of this method.
- CivBase 6y ago> That's the thing... science is a method. Exactly. Politicians and media outlets want us to believe science is just the opinions of people with credentials, regardless of evidence or consensus from others with similar credentials. Once those opinions are shared by enough political supporters, those same politicians and media outlets will do everything they can to amass evidence which supports them. It often comes in the form of quasi-scientific studies with unmentioned flaws and limitations. If you're lucky, the studies will even be peer reviewed; but once the opinions which the study seeks to verified have been so heavily politicized, it's much harder to trust the effectiveness of peer reviews.
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- dec0dedab0de 6y agoI think the EPA, and most executive agencies should not be allowed to write policy. They should be broken up into an independent advisory group, and an enforcement group which would be part of the FBI. The advisory group would advise congress on environmental concerns, and congress should write laws accordingly, balancing all other concerns. Before you come at me for being for deregulation, I think punishments should be extreme for breaking environmental laws. In my world C-Level/Board members of a company willfully polluting to save money would be executed. I just don't think its ok to have bureaucrats writing detailed policies that have the same power as law.
- hcurtiss 6y agoAgreed. The problem is that many of these decisions are not exclusively "science." They involve policy-making, and agenda-driven organizations are masking their preferred policy choices as "science." Toxic risk assessments are a perfect example. Toxicity assessments are famously arbitrary (e.g., adjusting acceptable dosages by orders of magnitude on the basis of uncertainty when one could argue for any other uncertainty factor).
- TrispusAttucks 6y agoThis. Not many people are anti-science. It's just when opinion gets passed for science that we should be worried because opinions are instructed by agenda. And if there is a funding motive behind that agenda, well, your gonna have problems with corruption.
- mcguire 6y agoI dunno. From what I've seen, most people are pro-sciencism, not science. Science is difficult and rarely provides easy answers. If it does not affect them, sure---nobody really cares about the big bang, dark matter, etc., and astronomy provides pretty pictures---but if the question interacts with their jobs, cultures, or lifestyles then they are very happy picking the result that agrees with them and ignoring any nuance or counter-evidence. Would you or the parent have any specific examples? The only thing I can think of is the different values assigned to human life by different agencies.
- eqdw 6y agoWeird... their name is EPA not SPA
- nexthash 6y agoThe context to this is the EPA's toxicity assessment on PFAS chemicals ("forever chemicals"), which are a family of chemicals shown to stay in the environment and human body for extremely long periods of time. Under the Trump administration, the EPA's toxicity assessment on PFAS essentially provided polluters leniency on how much they could release. Consequently, these chemicals are showing up in significant numbers in drinking water & food. Since they are proven to have damaging effects on human health, this assessment is now being reevaluated. The lesson from all this is that depending on where you are and how you use tap water, the regulations might not line up with what's good for you. Use a water filter.