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> It purportedly could cure cancer and impotence and give those who used it an “all-around healthy glow,” as one advertisement put it. During the early 1900s, i

> It purportedly could cure cancer and impotence and give those who used it an “all-around healthy glow,” as one advertisement put it. During the early 1900s, it was added to medicines, cosmetics and sometimes even food. The Denver-based Radio-Active Chemical Company added radium to fertilizers. The Nutex Company made radium condoms. Every generation seems to think they can't possibly make such ignorant mistakes as were made in the past. It makes me wonder what we will observe in a hundred or so years from now what we're currently doing that we aren't aware of how harmful it is.

bmeski 5y ago
Sun tan lotion
- jdhn 5y ago
  Why suntan lotion?
  - escape_goat 5y ago
    Many (not all) types of suntan lotion are toxic enough to corals that it has an impact on the environment at popular beaches in coral reef areas.
  - lupire 5y ago
    It's skin cancer in a bottle. It's the opposite of sunscreen.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    If it’s not the zinc stuff, it’s a toxic goop that is probably worse than the alternative. Additionally, people inhale the crap when they spray it around them like perfume.
  - MarkSweep 5y ago
    Fun fact, the CARES act, which was mainly a corona virus relief bill, included changes on how sunscreen is approved by the FDA, loosening the requirements if I understand correctly. Search “sunscreen” in this PDF: https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.p...
DSingularity 5y ago
AI based content suggestion trained through reinforcement to maximize ad revenues at the expense of human attention. Humanity will one day look back and say how the hell did we let Silicon Valley ruin the minds of an entire generation.
- eloff 5y ago
  Yes, this is vastly underestimated. The harm greatly outweighs the piddly profits of the tech giants doing this. Using AI to hack humans for maximizing ad revenue is so, so bad for society.
- cardosof 5y ago
  This, and I wonder how we (as societies/countries) aren't aware of that. I know some high level people in ad tech and they couldn't care less, but I believe lots of average Joes would care much more about their online habits if they knew the long term impacts (which we don't fully understand, but there's already some bad sides).
- Griffinsauce 5y ago
  > an entire generation I think we're on ~3 generations and counting now and letting us reach that conclusion is against their interests.
cbanek 5y ago
I feel like we already had another mistake pass since radium which was leaded gasoline. But yeah, there will certainly be more.
- Blankenface 5y ago
  We've had a lot. Asbestos, leaded paint, PCBs, Dioxins, plasticizers (not just BPA, bunch of others.) Too many pesticides to count. Fracking chemicals are horrific and completely unregulated. Indoors you've got VOCs like formaldehyde leaking out of furniture and carpets. There's also the fireproofing chemicals in furniture that are seriously nasty stuff. "New car smell" is also chock full of gasses that aren't good for you. Near waterways we're doing a fantastic job of killing off everything via nitrogen runoff from lawns, farms, and septic systems. Bush and Trump both raised limits for stuff like arseni in drinking water. PFOA and PFOS contamination is showing up all over the place thanks to airports and firefighter training facilities using them and letting it just run off: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking... A radio program recently covered how the EPA was pressuring its researchers to strip out mention of possible analogues if those analogs were known toxins. What little review the EPA does is nearly useless because the industry has inserted itself so well.
smnrchrds 5y ago
My bet is that our generation's will be microplastics.
adventured 5y ago
Prescribing fluoroquinolones like they're candy. They're extraordinarily dangerous antibiotics. It was becoming known in the early 1990s the soft tissue, heart, retina, brain and nerve damage they can cause. Most European nations restricted their prescription considerably. The US did the opposite and commonly prescribed them. As of a decade ago the US was prescribing fluoroquinolones to roughly 10% of its adult population annually. The evil scumbags at Bayer tried to get enrofloxacin (Baytril; comparable to Cipro) approved to be put in water to be fed to poultry for mass consumption by the population. Cipro carries two blackbox warning labels. The FDA dragged their feet on dealing with it for more than a decade despite knowing how dangerous it is. And Cipro is the gentle one in the family. What we'll eventually prove is that Cipro harms everyone that takes it and should be used only as a last resort, not first resort.
mikewarot 5y ago
Open an old Scientific American, wonder at just how wrong some of the facts reported turned out to be. Is there any real reason to believe the same is not true of the latest edition?
- chana_masala 5y ago
  Yep, that is exactly my point

bmeski 5y ago

Sun tan lotion

jdhn 5y ago
Why suntan lotion?
- escape_goat 5y ago
  Many (not all) types of suntan lotion are toxic enough to corals that it has an impact on the environment at popular beaches in coral reef areas.
- lupire 5y ago
  It's skin cancer in a bottle. It's the opposite of sunscreen.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  If it’s not the zinc stuff, it’s a toxic goop that is probably worse than the alternative. Additionally, people inhale the crap when they spray it around them like perfume.
- MarkSweep 5y ago
  Fun fact, the CARES act, which was mainly a corona virus relief bill, included changes on how sunscreen is approved by the FDA, loosening the requirements if I understand correctly. Search “sunscreen” in this PDF: https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.p...

DSingularity 5y ago

AI based content suggestion trained through reinforcement to maximize ad revenues at the expense of human attention. Humanity will one day look back and say how the hell did we let Silicon Valley ruin the minds of an entire generation.

eloff 5y ago
Yes, this is vastly underestimated. The harm greatly outweighs the piddly profits of the tech giants doing this. Using AI to hack humans for maximizing ad revenue is so, so bad for society.
cardosof 5y ago
This, and I wonder how we (as societies/countries) aren't aware of that. I know some high level people in ad tech and they couldn't care less, but I believe lots of average Joes would care much more about their online habits if they knew the long term impacts (which we don't fully understand, but there's already some bad sides).
Griffinsauce 5y ago
> an entire generation I think we're on ~3 generations and counting now and letting us reach that conclusion is against their interests.

cbanek 5y ago

I feel like we already had another mistake pass since radium which was leaded gasoline. But yeah, there will certainly be more.

Blankenface 5y ago
We've had a lot. Asbestos, leaded paint, PCBs, Dioxins, plasticizers (not just BPA, bunch of others.) Too many pesticides to count. Fracking chemicals are horrific and completely unregulated. Indoors you've got VOCs like formaldehyde leaking out of furniture and carpets. There's also the fireproofing chemicals in furniture that are seriously nasty stuff. "New car smell" is also chock full of gasses that aren't good for you. Near waterways we're doing a fantastic job of killing off everything via nitrogen runoff from lawns, farms, and septic systems. Bush and Trump both raised limits for stuff like arseni in drinking water. PFOA and PFOS contamination is showing up all over the place thanks to airports and firefighter training facilities using them and letting it just run off: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking... A radio program recently covered how the EPA was pressuring its researchers to strip out mention of possible analogues if those analogs were known toxins. What little review the EPA does is nearly useless because the industry has inserted itself so well.

smnrchrds 5y ago

My bet is that our generation's will be microplastics.

adventured 5y ago

Prescribing fluoroquinolones like they're candy. They're extraordinarily dangerous antibiotics. It was becoming known in the early 1990s the soft tissue, heart, retina, brain and nerve damage they can cause. Most European nations restricted their prescription considerably. The US did the opposite and commonly prescribed them. As of a decade ago the US was prescribing fluoroquinolones to roughly 10% of its adult population annually. The evil scumbags at Bayer tried to get enrofloxacin (Baytril; comparable to Cipro) approved to be put in water to be fed to poultry for mass consumption by the population. Cipro carries two blackbox warning labels. The FDA dragged their feet on dealing with it for more than a decade despite knowing how dangerous it is. And Cipro is the gentle one in the family. What we'll eventually prove is that Cipro harms everyone that takes it and should be used only as a last resort, not first resort.

mikewarot 5y ago

Open an old Scientific American, wonder at just how wrong some of the facts reported turned out to be. Is there any real reason to believe the same is not true of the latest edition?

chana_masala 5y ago
Yep, that is exactly my point