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It won't be a vaccine that makes you sterile. It will be one of the chemicals that end up everywhere because of corruption at the only agency that would protect

It won't be a vaccine that makes you sterile. It will be one of the chemicals that end up everywhere because of corruption at the only agency that would protect us. This is also why those people for a unregulated free market are insane. Sure the company pedaling the dangerous chemical will eventual go out of business. But how many people will die and suffer and does anyone think that the people responsible will still around the decades later until the crime is found out? All new chemicals should be assumed dangerous and require rigorous safety studies and we need to make absolutely sure these studies are independent. Pumping millions of gallons of corexit into an oil spill should not be permitted if the ingredients are a trade secret. We need to know what goes where, same goes for chemicals used in fracking.

voxic11 5y ago
New chemicals save lives as well, they may be safer than existing alternatives or enable safer processes to be used or they may enable some new technology that saves lives (there is almost unlimited potential here, few areas of technological advancement are as wide impacting as improvements to materials). It sounds like you are advocating for the precautionary principle, but what do you think about the counterargument that by blocking technological improvements before actually investigating their risk you could be doing more harm than you prevent. > Strong formulations of the precautionary principle... when applied to the principle itself as a policy decision, beats its own purpose of reducing risk. The reason suggested is that preventing innovation from coming to market means that only current technology may be used, and current technology itself may cause harm or leave needs unmet; there is a risk of causing harm by blocking innovation. As Michael Crichton wrote in his novel State of Fear: "The 'precautionary principle', properly applied, forbids the precautionary principle." > For example, forbidding nuclear power plants based on concerns about low-probability high-impact risks means continuing to rely on power plants that burn fossil fuels, which continue to release greenhouse gases and thousands of certain deaths from air pollution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#Internal_inconsistency:_applying_strong_PP_risks_causing_harm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#Intern...
- OnlineGladiator 5y ago
  I'd never heard of the precautionary principle before, but the way you explain it is just circular reasoning used to straw man it as nefarious. Arguing for validation is not arguing to ban innovation - we just need some actual accountability (and ideally transparency) included in the process. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, whereas the article points out we are straight-up falsifying documents in order to push sales for chemical corporations. What's the harm in actually knowing scientific data about the chemicals we're buying?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    The harm that parent alludes to is that in toxicity studies you only know it doesn't cause cancer after 30 years of exposure... after 30 years. Those studies are incredibly expensive, and are the reason so many chemical companies merged.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  >by blocking technological improvements before actually investigating their risk How is not doing this not an obvious recipe for doom. The only ridiculous thing here is you have stated this as a binary instead of a continuum.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  If you allow the sale & use of new chemicals before they are proven to be safe, you don’t just run the risk of them eventually turning out to be unsafe. You also remove all incentives to actually investigate their safety. We’ve also found most of the low-hanging fruits of material science. Can you think of a single new chemical that came out in the last decade or two that is worth the risk of something like, say, Teflon seeing widespread use and then being shown to be carcinogenic? …and Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is his pseudoscientific turn to the dark side, a wild recounting of dozens of superficial arguments trying to proof that climate change isn’t real, years after they had been disproven.
  - specialist 5y ago
atatatat 5y ago
> This is also why those people for a unregulated free market are insane. Unfair tangent, because if it was a truly free market, the government wouldn't hold a monopoly on violence.
CommanderData 5y ago
People and their arguments pushing for less regulation still surprise me. It's a bad idea yet someone will rise from the depths to argue why it isn't. What doesn't surprise me is there's always someone with a counter argument no matter how illogical it is. The world's a big place.
GaryTang 5y ago
I’m willing to bet it will be one of the chemicals introduced to public water by your local utility company.

voxic11 5y ago

New chemicals save lives as well, they may be safer than existing alternatives or enable safer processes to be used or they may enable some new technology that saves lives (there is almost unlimited potential here, few areas of technological advancement are as wide impacting as improvements to materials). It sounds like you are advocating for the precautionary principle, but what do you think about the counterargument that by blocking technological improvements before actually investigating their risk you could be doing more harm than you prevent. > Strong formulations of the precautionary principle... when applied to the principle itself as a policy decision, beats its own purpose of reducing risk. The reason suggested is that preventing innovation from coming to market means that only current technology may be used, and current technology itself may cause harm or leave needs unmet; there is a risk of causing harm by blocking innovation. As Michael Crichton wrote in his novel State of Fear: "The 'precautionary principle', properly applied, forbids the precautionary principle." > For example, forbidding nuclear power plants based on concerns about low-probability high-impact risks means continuing to rely on power plants that burn fossil fuels, which continue to release greenhouse gases and thousands of certain deaths from air pollution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#Internal_inconsistency:_applying_strong_PP_risks_causing_harm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#Intern...

OnlineGladiator 5y ago
I'd never heard of the precautionary principle before, but the way you explain it is just circular reasoning used to straw man it as nefarious. Arguing for validation is not arguing to ban innovation - we just need some actual accountability (and ideally transparency) included in the process. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, whereas the article points out we are straight-up falsifying documents in order to push sales for chemical corporations. What's the harm in actually knowing scientific data about the chemicals we're buying?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The harm that parent alludes to is that in toxicity studies you only know it doesn't cause cancer after 30 years of exposure... after 30 years. Those studies are incredibly expensive, and are the reason so many chemical companies merged.
michaelmrose 5y ago
>by blocking technological improvements before actually investigating their risk How is not doing this not an obvious recipe for doom. The only ridiculous thing here is you have stated this as a binary instead of a continuum.
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
If you allow the sale & use of new chemicals before they are proven to be safe, you don’t just run the risk of them eventually turning out to be unsafe. You also remove all incentives to actually investigate their safety. We’ve also found most of the low-hanging fruits of material science. Can you think of a single new chemical that came out in the last decade or two that is worth the risk of something like, say, Teflon seeing widespread use and then being shown to be carcinogenic? …and Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is his pseudoscientific turn to the dark side, a wild recounting of dozens of superficial arguments trying to proof that climate change isn’t real, years after they had been disproven.
- specialist 5y ago

atatatat 5y ago

> This is also why those people for a unregulated free market are insane. Unfair tangent, because if it was a truly free market, the government wouldn't hold a monopoly on violence.

CommanderData 5y ago

People and their arguments pushing for less regulation still surprise me. It's a bad idea yet someone will rise from the depths to argue why it isn't. What doesn't surprise me is there's always someone with a counter argument no matter how illogical it is. The world's a big place.

GaryTang 5y ago

I’m willing to bet it will be one of the chemicals introduced to public water by your local utility company.