9 ms·

Thank you for posting this. Those numbers scary?! Does anyone know if these have kept increasing? I wonder if some of the gender and queer issues in kids these

Thank you for posting this. Those numbers scary?! Does anyone know if these have kept increasing? I wonder if some of the gender and queer issues in kids these days are actually because of this issue, same with other pathologies that sometimes require medication like ADHD/Autism. I'm saying that only from a place of love - as i've always always felt "wrong" in some aspects myself, and have always wondered if increased diagnosis is because of natural biological types getting recognised, because of industry pressure to sell more medication, or because of pollution or lifestyle. Very different scenarios.

rackjack 5y ago
The cynic/conspiracy theorist in me says "Imagine blaming kids for acting weird when they're literally infested with plastic."
blktiger 5y ago
I think at least some of the rise in ADHD/Autism is from been getting better at diagnosing these conditions and general awareness. Same with queer issues, they've been around forever but until recently it has been pushed out of the social consciousness so it was a lot more hidden.
- sarma912 5y ago
  Given we might not have data from the past about the prevalence of ADHD, is it safe to assume we'll never know if mircoparticles and other things we introduce into the environment are the cause of these issues?
  - tmoertel 5y ago
    We could always find a causal mechanism mediated by microparticals.
  - djokkataja 5y ago
    Arguably ADHD could have benefits for people in hunter-gatherer lifestyles: https://faculty.washington.edu/dtae/manuscripts/eisenberg%20and%20campbell%202011%20-%20the%20evolution%20of%20ADHD%20-%20artice%20in%20SF%20Medicine.pdf https://faculty.washington.edu/dtae/manuscripts/eisenberg%20...
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      I knew I had untapped potential!
    - yial 5y ago
      I love this article - I knew someone very closely who had “severe ADHD” quotes because in certain things - such as tracking - they were intensely focused and effective. The more time outside they spent , the better they seemed. They eventually found a position with the game commission that overall seemed to work well for them. They weren’t able to stay focused on nearly anything outside of nature, excluding things that brought them anxiety. However , this is anecdotal. They were before that able to run a semi successful cleaning business for rental properties, with the main issue being paperwork related.
      - geoduck14 5y ago
        >they were intensely focused and effective Oh, I feel this. I have ADHD and I can focus on ANYTHING, but I don't get to choose what to focus on. Some days, my body decides I get to focus on Jira - and then my Jira board gets ALL my attention. Some days, I learn a LOT about data governance or clearing out old emails. The hardest part of ADHD is to STOP focusing on one thing so I can START focusing on the right thing.
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      ADHD, High Functioning Autism all have traits which can benefit the hunter-gather lifestyles of the past. Thing is today, some countries like the UK have adopted a stealth war on these traits in some individuals seen with things like transgender promotion or turning a blind eye to more physical forms of abuse often seen in schools. In some case's autistics have been locked up for decades under the guise of mental health reasons which is just prison without trial with forced psych med ingestion and if you dont comply because med staff know best and have the pieces of paper to authorise them, you cant challenge them otherwise you get bullying both mental and physical from NHS staff. Rare cases have been documented in the news, but its just the tip of the iceberg of stuff going on behind closed doors. Society, the legal system is generally complicit when looking at interpretations of law and how little light is shed on these matters.
- oceanplexian 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s radical to suggest that modern technology, society, diet, and culture are making people sick, both mentally and physically. We know that people in history have had conditions like Autism. However even in the present day there are stark differences in prevalence in different regions of the world with modern healthcare systems (Japan, for example).
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Diagnosis of anything mental is inherently cultural and will be seen through subjective lenses. I would be very surprised if autism rates were truly different across the world. If so, then that would provide a good basis to compare populations to get at the root.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - winrid 5y ago
      Yes, I'm sure in some cultures they just tried to beat it out of you... :)
thathndude 5y ago
I'm not speaking to the veracity of any of this, but Dr. Shanna Swan has researched this pretty extensively (and written papers). What we're seeing since the beginning of petrochemical use in the US (50's) are clear physiology changes (specifically in males) where we're seeing a reduction in physical traits associated with being a biological male of the species.
- sarma912 5y ago
  Is there a pop sci accessible version of the work that details the physiological changes?
- IncRnd 5y ago
  "But a new study says that even if they don't contain BPA, most plastic products release estrogenic chemicals. Most plastic products, from sippy cups to food wraps, can release chemicals that act like the sex hormone estrogen, according to a study in Environmental Health Perspectives." [1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics-leach-hormone-like-chemicals https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics...
  - shadowofneptune 5y ago
    Well, let's think about this. If estrogens or xenoestrogens were at levels in food and drink that they were changing the bodies of young men, what you would see is distress as their body shifts away from their assigned gender. I do not see what about that would lead them to think they are transgender. Far from distress, the rate of dissatisfaction trans people after hormonal transition is very low and is most often driven by external factors. https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/ https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/ I do not see how plastics are a convincing explanation for current social trends.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ikr678 5y ago
manmal 5y ago
There‘s other stuff to pick from, too - lead, mercury, and other metals come to mind for example. Lyme disease, which is now suspected to be transmitted sexually and maybe across the placenta (speculative though that is). Pesticides and herbicides. Radical particulates emitted by cars and industry (have been shown to lower IQ, and who knows what else). Nutrient-depleted soil (eg magnesium and copper), resulting in deficiencies. Iodine deficiency, which is endemic in many western countries. Rampant sugar (even worse: HFCS) consumption, obviously. Increase in food lectins via GMO, endangering gut mucosal barrier function. The list goes on.
- rkk3 5y ago
  > Lyme disease, which is now suspected to be transmitted sexually and maybe across the placenta (speculative though that is). Source? Lyme disease is from ticks.
  - manmal 5y ago
    And the Black Death was from fleas. What are you trying to say? There is speculation around the human-human-transmission vector out there, easy to find via a quick search. As I mentioned, it’s speculative and I haven’t found anything I‘d post here.
    - rkk3 5y ago
      rude... Lyme disease is actually part of my life, unlike the black death.
- kongolongo 5y ago
  Yep that shear number of possible confounders is why it is so difficult to draw any sort of clear relationships between any particular pollutant and any particular health outcomes. It's not necessarily always conspiracy by corporations to thwart the research, it's genuinely difficult to study any affect because there's so many confounding pollutant exposures, metabolic pathways, and outcomes. An interesting question is that would the risk of these outcomes be worth the massive amount of savings and productivity that plastics have had on nearly every industry? Then there's also the use cases where plastics are nearly irreplaceable, or at least not easily replaceable without incurring a huge cost increase for example in medical applications (think packaging for syringes, vaccines, surgical tools, or anything that requires contamination control).
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Hold up, what do you mean with "gender and queer issues" ? I don't consider those as "issues" but as "nature". Obviously (most) societies have estranged LGBQT people for centuries, so they had to go underground for most of that time. Obviously more people are coming out now that it's not nearly as dangerous for them.
- kossTKR 5y ago
  I totally agree that living in the past was horrible for many people and i'm extremely lucky to be living right now - where i'm personally sceptical is when heavy medication or surgery is the answer, especially for youngsters - that to me is a sign of something very wrong with society if required to be broadened too much in scope. Personally i see the heavy use of SSRI's and Ritalin etc. for kids through the same lens where societal or psychological changes should be the focus, or a culprit found instead of patching up. The answer can't be that in the future out of a class room one half will require some dependency from a medico industrial complex, that's dystopian to me.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > The answer can't be that in the future out of a class room one half will require some dependency from a medico industrial complex, that's dystopian to me. The difference to "back then" is that the amount of work required both in school and in later work life was far less than today. Only those with actual academic ambitions went to school for longer than eight years, the rest entered the trades and worked on a farm. The answer will have to be a radical reform of our societies - away from turbo-capitalism that is only focused on hyper-growth and excellence, to a society that actually respects the needs of all of its citizens and nature itself. Not everyone needs to have an academic degree just for a bullshit data-entry job ffs.
- md2020 5y ago
  I buy that as society becomes more accepting, the prevalence of non-heterosexual and trans people should be expected to increase, but this is a huge confounding variable in figuring out what the natural prevalence of these traits in society is. A Gallup poll this year [0] broke it down by generational cohort, and I was surprised at the increase in LGBT identification from Millennials (10.5%) to Gen Z (20.8%), and I am part of Gen Z. I don’t know what explains an increase of that size, simply because while society in general has become more accepting, my feeling is that it hasn’t become that much more accepting between Millennials and Gen Z. But maybe it has and I’m just underestimating it. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-tick...
ruined 5y ago
"they turned the frickin' frogs gay, and me too" - l cuboniks
sjg007 5y ago
Highly unlikely. You'd expect higher prevalence if environmental causes are to blame.
verisimi 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRLCBb7qK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRLCBb7qK8 gay frogs
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
z_zetetic_z 5y ago
gender / queer / autism / ADHD are not pathologies are not 'wrong' are not just in kids, they've been in adults and kids for millenia Please stop perpetuating such misleading tropes.
mschuster91 5y ago
> I wonder if some of the gender and queer issues in kids these days are actually because of this issue, same with other pathologies that sometimes require medication like ADHD/Autism. Uh, transgender people were scientifically known since at least the late 19th century [1]. The problem is that the Nazis eradicated all the knowledge during their reign [2], and that the Catholic Church was actively fighting against LGBT people for a very long time, even before that era (and modern-day Evangelicals in the US have taken on their mission). What has changed in "gender and queer issues" is that this negative influence has disappeared as the public importance of the Catholic Church has waned over the last decades and that protections for LGBT people got affirmed by courts, constitutions and laws. As for ADHD/autism: these were also known to science at least in the mid 19th century [3]. However, for a very long time the issues were not as apparent or problematic in society as they are today, mostly because most of society was working in the agricultural sector with lot less work load than modern-day turbo-capitalism requires [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific-Humanitarian_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific-Humanitarian_Commit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter [4] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
- 2143 5y ago
  Yep. You know, in ancient Indian legends there are characters who one can now perceive as LGBTQ people. Granted, the accuracy of the stories as a whole is questionable — but the very fact that such people are mentioned means the idea existed even back then. Maybe if somebody looks deep enough they can find something similar in ancient Greek/Egyptian/Chinese literatures as well. Just a thought. My hypothesis could totally be wrong.
  - Bjartr 5y ago
    > Maybe if somebody looks deep enough they can find something similar in ancient Greek/Egyptian/Chinese literatures as well. The ancient greek culture is well known to have a decent prevalence of homosexuality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greec...

rackjack 5y ago

The cynic/conspiracy theorist in me says "Imagine blaming kids for acting weird when they're literally infested with plastic."

blktiger 5y ago

I think at least some of the rise in ADHD/Autism is from been getting better at diagnosing these conditions and general awareness. Same with queer issues, they've been around forever but until recently it has been pushed out of the social consciousness so it was a lot more hidden.

sarma912 5y ago
Given we might not have data from the past about the prevalence of ADHD, is it safe to assume we'll never know if mircoparticles and other things we introduce into the environment are the cause of these issues?
- tmoertel 5y ago
  We could always find a causal mechanism mediated by microparticals.
- djokkataja 5y ago
  Arguably ADHD could have benefits for people in hunter-gatherer lifestyles: https://faculty.washington.edu/dtae/manuscripts/eisenberg%20and%20campbell%202011%20-%20the%20evolution%20of%20ADHD%20-%20artice%20in%20SF%20Medicine.pdf https://faculty.washington.edu/dtae/manuscripts/eisenberg%20...
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    I knew I had untapped potential!
  - yial 5y ago
    I love this article - I knew someone very closely who had “severe ADHD” quotes because in certain things - such as tracking - they were intensely focused and effective. The more time outside they spent , the better they seemed. They eventually found a position with the game commission that overall seemed to work well for them. They weren’t able to stay focused on nearly anything outside of nature, excluding things that brought them anxiety. However , this is anecdotal. They were before that able to run a semi successful cleaning business for rental properties, with the main issue being paperwork related.
    - geoduck14 5y ago
      >they were intensely focused and effective Oh, I feel this. I have ADHD and I can focus on ANYTHING, but I don't get to choose what to focus on. Some days, my body decides I get to focus on Jira - and then my Jira board gets ALL my attention. Some days, I learn a LOT about data governance or clearing out old emails. The hardest part of ADHD is to STOP focusing on one thing so I can START focusing on the right thing.
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    ADHD, High Functioning Autism all have traits which can benefit the hunter-gather lifestyles of the past. Thing is today, some countries like the UK have adopted a stealth war on these traits in some individuals seen with things like transgender promotion or turning a blind eye to more physical forms of abuse often seen in schools. In some case's autistics have been locked up for decades under the guise of mental health reasons which is just prison without trial with forced psych med ingestion and if you dont comply because med staff know best and have the pieces of paper to authorise them, you cant challenge them otherwise you get bullying both mental and physical from NHS staff. Rare cases have been documented in the news, but its just the tip of the iceberg of stuff going on behind closed doors. Society, the legal system is generally complicit when looking at interpretations of law and how little light is shed on these matters.
oceanplexian 5y ago
I don’t think it’s radical to suggest that modern technology, society, diet, and culture are making people sick, both mentally and physically. We know that people in history have had conditions like Autism. However even in the present day there are stark differences in prevalence in different regions of the world with modern healthcare systems (Japan, for example).
- azinman2 5y ago
  Diagnosis of anything mental is inherently cultural and will be seen through subjective lenses. I would be very surprised if autism rates were truly different across the world. If so, then that would provide a good basis to compare populations to get at the root.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - winrid 5y ago
    Yes, I'm sure in some cultures they just tried to beat it out of you... :)

thathndude 5y ago

I'm not speaking to the veracity of any of this, but Dr. Shanna Swan has researched this pretty extensively (and written papers). What we're seeing since the beginning of petrochemical use in the US (50's) are clear physiology changes (specifically in males) where we're seeing a reduction in physical traits associated with being a biological male of the species.

sarma912 5y ago
Is there a pop sci accessible version of the work that details the physiological changes?
IncRnd 5y ago
"But a new study says that even if they don't contain BPA, most plastic products release estrogenic chemicals. Most plastic products, from sippy cups to food wraps, can release chemicals that act like the sex hormone estrogen, according to a study in Environmental Health Perspectives." [1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics-leach-hormone-like-chemicals https://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics...
- shadowofneptune 5y ago
  Well, let's think about this. If estrogens or xenoestrogens were at levels in food and drink that they were changing the bodies of young men, what you would see is distress as their body shifts away from their assigned gender. I do not see what about that would lead them to think they are transgender. Far from distress, the rate of dissatisfaction trans people after hormonal transition is very low and is most often driven by external factors. https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/ https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/ I do not see how plastics are a convincing explanation for current social trends.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ikr678 5y ago

manmal 5y ago

There‘s other stuff to pick from, too - lead, mercury, and other metals come to mind for example. Lyme disease, which is now suspected to be transmitted sexually and maybe across the placenta (speculative though that is). Pesticides and herbicides. Radical particulates emitted by cars and industry (have been shown to lower IQ, and who knows what else). Nutrient-depleted soil (eg magnesium and copper), resulting in deficiencies. Iodine deficiency, which is endemic in many western countries. Rampant sugar (even worse: HFCS) consumption, obviously. Increase in food lectins via GMO, endangering gut mucosal barrier function. The list goes on.

rkk3 5y ago
> Lyme disease, which is now suspected to be transmitted sexually and maybe across the placenta (speculative though that is). Source? Lyme disease is from ticks.
- manmal 5y ago
  And the Black Death was from fleas. What are you trying to say? There is speculation around the human-human-transmission vector out there, easy to find via a quick search. As I mentioned, it’s speculative and I haven’t found anything I‘d post here.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    rude... Lyme disease is actually part of my life, unlike the black death.
kongolongo 5y ago
Yep that shear number of possible confounders is why it is so difficult to draw any sort of clear relationships between any particular pollutant and any particular health outcomes. It's not necessarily always conspiracy by corporations to thwart the research, it's genuinely difficult to study any affect because there's so many confounding pollutant exposures, metabolic pathways, and outcomes. An interesting question is that would the risk of these outcomes be worth the massive amount of savings and productivity that plastics have had on nearly every industry? Then there's also the use cases where plastics are nearly irreplaceable, or at least not easily replaceable without incurring a huge cost increase for example in medical applications (think packaging for syringes, vaccines, surgical tools, or anything that requires contamination control).

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Hold up, what do you mean with "gender and queer issues" ? I don't consider those as "issues" but as "nature". Obviously (most) societies have estranged LGBQT people for centuries, so they had to go underground for most of that time. Obviously more people are coming out now that it's not nearly as dangerous for them.

kossTKR 5y ago
I totally agree that living in the past was horrible for many people and i'm extremely lucky to be living right now - where i'm personally sceptical is when heavy medication or surgery is the answer, especially for youngsters - that to me is a sign of something very wrong with society if required to be broadened too much in scope. Personally i see the heavy use of SSRI's and Ritalin etc. for kids through the same lens where societal or psychological changes should be the focus, or a culprit found instead of patching up. The answer can't be that in the future out of a class room one half will require some dependency from a medico industrial complex, that's dystopian to me.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > The answer can't be that in the future out of a class room one half will require some dependency from a medico industrial complex, that's dystopian to me. The difference to "back then" is that the amount of work required both in school and in later work life was far less than today. Only those with actual academic ambitions went to school for longer than eight years, the rest entered the trades and worked on a farm. The answer will have to be a radical reform of our societies - away from turbo-capitalism that is only focused on hyper-growth and excellence, to a society that actually respects the needs of all of its citizens and nature itself. Not everyone needs to have an academic degree just for a bullshit data-entry job ffs.
md2020 5y ago
I buy that as society becomes more accepting, the prevalence of non-heterosexual and trans people should be expected to increase, but this is a huge confounding variable in figuring out what the natural prevalence of these traits in society is. A Gallup poll this year [0] broke it down by generational cohort, and I was surprised at the increase in LGBT identification from Millennials (10.5%) to Gen Z (20.8%), and I am part of Gen Z. I don’t know what explains an increase of that size, simply because while society in general has become more accepting, my feeling is that it hasn’t become that much more accepting between Millennials and Gen Z. But maybe it has and I’m just underestimating it. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-tick...

ruined 5y ago

"they turned the frickin' frogs gay, and me too" - l cuboniks

sjg007 5y ago

Highly unlikely. You'd expect higher prevalence if environmental causes are to blame.

verisimi 5y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRLCBb7qK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRLCBb7qK8 gay frogs

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

z_zetetic_z 5y ago

gender / queer / autism / ADHD are not pathologies are not 'wrong' are not just in kids, they've been in adults and kids for millenia Please stop perpetuating such misleading tropes.

mschuster91 5y ago

> I wonder if some of the gender and queer issues in kids these days are actually because of this issue, same with other pathologies that sometimes require medication like ADHD/Autism. Uh, transgender people were scientifically known since at least the late 19th century [1]. The problem is that the Nazis eradicated all the knowledge during their reign [2], and that the Catholic Church was actively fighting against LGBT people for a very long time, even before that era (and modern-day Evangelicals in the US have taken on their mission). What has changed in "gender and queer issues" is that this negative influence has disappeared as the public importance of the Catholic Church has waned over the last decades and that protections for LGBT people got affirmed by courts, constitutions and laws. As for ADHD/autism: these were also known to science at least in the mid 19th century [3]. However, for a very long time the issues were not as apparent or problematic in society as they are today, mostly because most of society was working in the agricultural sector with lot less work load than modern-day turbo-capitalism requires [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific-Humanitarian_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific-Humanitarian_Commit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter [4] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

2143 5y ago
Yep. You know, in ancient Indian legends there are characters who one can now perceive as LGBTQ people. Granted, the accuracy of the stories as a whole is questionable — but the very fact that such people are mentioned means the idea existed even back then. Maybe if somebody looks deep enough they can find something similar in ancient Greek/Egyptian/Chinese literatures as well. Just a thought. My hypothesis could totally be wrong.
- Bjartr 5y ago
  > Maybe if somebody looks deep enough they can find something similar in ancient Greek/Egyptian/Chinese literatures as well. The ancient greek culture is well known to have a decent prevalence of homosexuality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greec...