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FDA Denies Petition to Ban All Phthalates in Food Packaging
- westmeal 4y agoWish I worked in the FDA so I'd get all sorts of fun kickbacks from corporations
- coin 4y agoCR has lost credibility with their anti-GMO stance and echoing EWG’s organic-is-better nonsense.
- turndown 4y agoIs this not a 'tu quoque' logical fallacy?
- troyvit 4y agoAnd the FDA has credibility why?
- pessimizer 4y agoFor approving awesome Alzheimer's drugs.
- rndmind 4y agoAnti-GMO is tantamount to being against the extreme overuse of pestisides and herbicides, being anti-GMO is actually rooted in evidence as well as common sense... I don't want my strawberries or my corn bathed in round-up ready. Even if the corn does grow larger... glyphosate is bad.
- oifjsidjf 4y agoI have a feeling that payed bots/shills operate on this forum because each time a comment like this is made it gets downvoted asap. As the poster above said: modern GMO doesn't mean "no need for pesticides": modern GMO is instead "we made plants resistant to PESTICIDES so they can withstand MORE toxins before they die so that we can kill more pests by increasing the pesticide dosage without killing the plants first". The result is a huge increase in the amount of this toxic chemicals in the plants.
- Bjartr 4y agoIt really bothers me that anti pesticide & herbicide people choose to place their crosshairs on GMOs. The GMO isn't the problem! It's totally throwing the baby out with the bathwater and serves to muddle and confuse the conversation rather than advance their cause of reduced *icide use. There are real benefits to be had from GMO crops. If GMOs weren't demonized as a whole as a proxy for *icide usage maybe there'd have been more research or investment in more, and more useful GMO crops. [1] Wikipedia has a reasonable listing to start with for what traits existing GMO crops have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetically_modified_crops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetically_modified_c...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blix 4y agoYour own link makes a compelling case that herbicide resistance is ~by far~ the largest application of GMOs. The most commonly cited and largest impacts of GMOs derive primarily from hebicide application. They are demonized by proxy because they are inextricably linked.
- Bjartr 4y ago> Your own link makes a compelling case that herbicide resistance is ~by far~ the largest application of GMOs. I make absolutely no claim to the contrary. > They are demonized by proxy because they are inextricably linked. That's like demonizing computer manufacturers because computers are inextricably linked to cybercrime. (cue someone bringing up a real-world example of exactly that, I'm sure) Is it really so hard to fight the herbicide and pesticide usage itself that's doing the harm that attacking the entire concept of GMOs is necessary in some way? If the use of such chemicals was disallowed in the first place, there'd be no incentive to use roundup-ready crops. The only things that I can think of that fighting against the GMOs in general instead of against herbicides and pesticide usage directly gets you is a target that's easier to scaremonger against from what I've seen. It bothers me because it's dishonest. The problem isn't the GMO crops. The problem is companies dismissing customer harm in the face of increased profit. Fight the usage of the chemicals. Fight the companies harming their customers for a buck. Heck, fight the specific usage of roundup-ready crops. Leave GMOs as a concept and a field out of it.
- idiotsecant 4y agoSo if you're anti-roundup why not just be anti-roundup? A genetically modified organism is just that, it doesn't make any commentary on whether or not pesticide is used. We've been 'genetically modifying' organisms via selective breeding as long as we've had agriculture...
- blix 4y agoHerbicide-resistant GMO crops account for over 80% of total GMO crop area worldwide. There's a reason why people usually talk about both at the same time :)
- rendang 4y agoYes, but glyphosate and other herbicides have been used since before GMOs and would continue to be used if GMOs ceased to be planted
- samatman 4y agoIt should be obvious that no one plants a glyphosate-resistant crop without the express intention of spraying more glyphosate than the equivalent non-GMO crop can tolerate.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThere are other applications for genetically modified foods than just pesticide resistance.
- notyourday 4y agoAnd there are other applications of shitcoins than fleecing public.
- coin 4y agoThere are no GMO strawberries
- themaninthedark 4y agoOr we can be a little more nuanced and view CR as an organization that tries to do the right thing but also has some bad calls. I support CR for their work on testing products, I also support GMO as I feel it is one of the best ways we can feed people in the future. I also hate the over use of pesticides and hate Monsanto for many reasons.
- turndown 4y agoPretty damning that the FDA only issued a report on this after a court ordered them to. I can't really help but believe that this is willful negligence - if some of these have already been banned for use in children's toys, why would it be fine in a plastic bag the child holds food in? I ate a sandwich every day from a plastic bag for ~12 years...
- kn0where 4y agoIf it makes you feel any better, ziploc bags don’t contain phthalates. They’re used in different types of plastic.
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoAll the advice on this is way too generic. I as a consumer need more actionable advice. Study after study focus on chemical substances I have no empirical understanding of. - Give me a list of types of plastic that use these plasticizers. - Give me a list of consumer brands that use those plastics. - Give me a list of hygiene products that use phtalates under the "perfume" label in their composition. Publish something like this and consumers will take their money elsewhere and the Unilever's, P&G, and J&J, of the world can take notes.
- gadflyinyoureye 4y agoThat's how they roll. They were forced to release the Pfizer covid data early. Initially they wanted to release it over the course of 75 years. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importance-judge-orders-fda-hasten-release-pfizer-vaccine-docs-2022-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importanc...
- captainredbeard 4y agoWho is the FDA protecting (with our money)? Not us.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- youessayyyaway 4y agoOver the past decade or two, the FDA has completely and comprehensively abrogated their regulatory duties. They had an active role in marketing opiates as safe. They cannot keep factories safe enough to feed our nation's infants. They steadfastly refuse to remove harmful chemicals from our food and water supply. It is utterly sickening, literally and metaphorically.
- cinntaile 4y agoThey don't refuse, they need sufficient evidence. They have banned different phtalates before.
- kup0 4y agoThey already have the evidence- at least on some of these. Three of the phtalates they've already banned previously in children's toys are part of the nine that they're continuing to allow for use in food packaging
- blooalien 4y ago> "Over the past decade or two, the FDA has completely and comprehensively abrogated their regulatory duties." The FDA, FTC, FCC, EPA, and a whole bunch of other "TLA" alphabet soup agencies …
- bad_alloc 4y agoWhat caused this change? Regulatory capture? Political reasons? Good old corruption?
- calibas 4y agoRegulatory capture is a big part of it, the current head of the FDA has very close ties to the pharmaceutical industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Califf#Relationships_with_the_pharmaceutical_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Califf#Relationships_wi...
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- yes_man 4y agoBanning substances one after another has proven to be quite useless or even damaging approach. Another, less studied and potentially worse chemical compound will always substitute the banned ones. It’s an endless game of whack a mole to keep banning a substance for next random one to spawn. More correct approach might be that if you want to use a chemical in food packaging or children’s equipment, you must first do long-term studies that prove its relative safety to other studied compounds. In time the world would start accumulating safer products. I won’t hold my breath though.
- jpgvm 4y agoExactly, they need to switch to a whitelisted approach.
- euroderf 4y agoI've read that this is the EU's approach, altho I don't know how it works out in practice.
- gruez 4y agoThe downside is that novel technologies (eg. GMOs) take forever to get approved.
- pwdisswordfish9 4y agoHow is that a bad thing?
- pragmatic 4y agoPeople starving to death in the mean time, perhaps?
- suture 4y agoAs a result of GMOs the carrying capacity of the world increased. Isn’t it the case that the population tends toward the carrying capacity? If so then the delay of GMOs would only mean that the world’s population today would be lower and not that the amount of overall starvation would be higher. We still have episodes of starvation in the world even with GMOs.
- derelicto 4y agoDaily reminder that the FDA also approved Therano's herpes test https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-gets-fda-approval-2015-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-gets-fda-approval-2...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 0xcde4c3db 4y agoI'm not an expert, but it seems like the test only received "clearance", not "approval". Many people conflate these terms even though they represent very different regulatory standards. I'm not sure it even makes sense for a purely diagnostic thing like a blood test to get "approval".
- bergenty 4y agoIt was a clearance
- tonymet 4y agoGiven the downward quality of life trajectory: including obesity, allergies, mental health issues like autism & depression – I'm highly concerned about the food, air and water supply. We should be more sensitive to possible chemical risks with the horrible health trajectory. I would expect a specific task force to address chronic health issues , by the FDA & EPA