7 ms·

We really need to adopt an 'unsafe-until-proven-otherwise' mindset for materials, similar to how we view drugs. If you read up on the history of leaded fuel and

by t_mann 4y ago

We really need to adopt an 'unsafe-until-proven-otherwise' mindset for materials, similar to how we view drugs. If you read up on the history of leaded fuel and other products, it defies belief.

Blackstone4 4y ago
Proving a negative can be extremely impractical. Maybe a better way would be to introduce a mechanism to have products removed quickly.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Removing forever chemicals can be more practical
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
if they really poisoned all water on earth, and did so knowingly, what we really need is pitchforks amd guilotinnes. We have failed all future generations
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  There won’t be change until there are consequences.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  I certainly wouldn’t want to be a current or former DuPont, Chemours, BASF or 3M executive right now. Just today I learned that all commercial beverage bottles and cans in the US are treated with fluorinated gases and then leach these same forever chemicals to whatever beverage they contain.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    > I certainly wouldn’t want to be a current or former DuPont, Chemours, BASF or 3M executive right now. Looking at the past, profits are more important that human or animal life. For example: https://qz.com/1630348/dupont-and-3m-face-a-growing-list-of-water-contamination-lawsuits/ https://qz.com/1630348/dupont-and-3m-face-a-growing-list-of-...
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Who is 'they' specifically? I'm sure you're buying products containing this stuff all the time.
okt7hdigf 4y ago
One general name for this kind of thing is the Precautionary Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
malermeister 4y ago
That's called the precautionary principle and it's law in the EU: http://data.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2016/art_191/oj http://data.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2016/art_191/oj
- nickserv 4y ago
  It's not applied very uniformly though. The ongoing glysophate debate is a good example, there's reason to believe it's harmful in several ways and yet banning it doesn't look set to happen anytime soon.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    Yes, the case you've mentioned is quite unfortunate, it's basically high level corruption.
refurb 4y ago
Nothing is 100% safe. Water is toxic in high doses. What do you mean “proven safe”?
- throw827474737 4y ago
  Come on..
- samus 4y ago
  The common-sense defition would be something like "only transitory or easily correctable negative consequences after consumption of quantities encountered under everyday circumstances". Water is unlikely to be consumed in the toxic doses. The few cases where water overdoses happened were drinking competitions where participants forced themselves to drink many liters of water as fast as possible, leading to fatal electrolyte imbalances.
  - refurb 4y ago
    How do you define "easily correctable"? What are "everyday circumstances"? You're basically describing the challenge itself - how do you balance risk vs. benefit? The FDA does it every day, all day and still makes the wrong call sometimes.
    - samus 4y ago
      I added "easily correctable" to account for things that are clearly not good for us in any sense, but also don't cause lasting damage if taken in moderation. Coffeine, alcohol and sugars for example. Everyday circumstances describe normal consumption outside of addictions, accidents, competitions, medical conditions that make us more vulnerable, and other things. And chemicals that accumulate in our bodies (forever chemicals, microplastics, dioxins and other fat-soluble goodies, heavy metals) or cause permanent changes deserve increased scrutiny and bias for safety. Right now, I'd argue to be wary of _any_ novel polymers and substances (yes, it already happens for medicine and food), and to critically re-examine whatever was introduced before. The issue of microplastics and their impact on the ecosystem is clearly something we didn't think about before (more likely, we straightaway dismissed it).
legalcorrection 4y ago
In your world, disease and famine would be much more common than they are now.
- feet 4y ago
  It is, it has just been subtle and normalized over numerous generations
  - learn-forever 4y ago
    what is the amount of normalization that makes something more common than it is?
- t_mann 4y ago
  If you are referring to fertilizers, a lack of those definitely wasn't the main reason for mass deaths in the years following their discovery - and I'm only asking that safe products are delayed for a bit until we are reasonably sure they're safe. I don't know what you mean by diseases, because we are already doing exactly that for pharma products. It's mainly a change of mindset - leaded fuel is such a good example, it was known to be toxic right from its invention (almost killed its inventor), yet it took us decades of arguing before we were ready to act on that knowledge - because said inventor and his cronies always managed to cast a shadow of doubt, and we seemed to act like as long as we weren't 100% sure we couldn't ban anything (so basically 'safe-until-proven-otherwise'). Things haven't really changed, not even in the EU that purportedly already acts under this principle, if you look at the current debates like on glyphosate.
meltyness 4y ago
spywaregorilla 4y ago
How do you prove water is not unsafe?
- aaomidi 4y ago
  This is such an intellectually dishonest question. You mean the thing that makes up the extreme majority of every living being is unsafe? Do you legitimately believe it is necessary to study and prove that?
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    It's not dishonest at all. The proposal is to say that we cannot use materials unless they're proven safe. Proving things safe is very difficult and different from finding evidence of danger. It's easy to imagine asbestos going through the safety test and failing. Water is something we generally think of as safe and should easily pass this test. So how would you do so to a satisfying degree? How would you nuance the test for different sources of water? You probably don't want the water from Flint Michigan. We already have a list of common failure modes for water quality that we check for. What will you say if we discover another element that should be checked for in the water otherwise health risks occur? Was our proactive search to prove water safe insufficient? I guess so, but how could we possibly have done better ahead of time?
    - t_mann 4y ago
      For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest - in fact, public water (drinking water, rivers, lakes,...) is being tested very regularly, whether it's safe for drinking, swimming,... The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, the point is that if you have a cool product idea like putting lead into fuel, you have to apply before you're allowed to market it. What exact tests they are going to run then will be subject to scientific debate and changes over time (so your product might get pulled if it's found to be toxic later). Some posters informed me that that's how it actually works already, in the EU at least. But in that case I guess we have to demand that they apply stricter standards if they miss chemicals that poison our rain water or kill the bee population.

by t_mann 4y ago

We really need to adopt an 'unsafe-until-proven-otherwise' mindset for materials, similar to how we view drugs. If you read up on the history of leaded fuel and other products, it defies belief.

Blackstone4 4y ago

Proving a negative can be extremely impractical. Maybe a better way would be to introduce a mechanism to have products removed quickly.

ETH_start 4y ago
Removing forever chemicals can be more practical

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

if they really poisoned all water on earth, and did so knowingly, what we really need is pitchforks amd guilotinnes. We have failed all future generations

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
toomuchtodo 4y ago
There won’t be change until there are consequences.
eurasiantiger 4y ago
I certainly wouldn’t want to be a current or former DuPont, Chemours, BASF or 3M executive right now. Just today I learned that all commercial beverage bottles and cans in the US are treated with fluorinated gases and then leach these same forever chemicals to whatever beverage they contain.
- hulitu 4y ago
  > I certainly wouldn’t want to be a current or former DuPont, Chemours, BASF or 3M executive right now. Looking at the past, profits are more important that human or animal life. For example: https://qz.com/1630348/dupont-and-3m-face-a-growing-list-of-water-contamination-lawsuits/ https://qz.com/1630348/dupont-and-3m-face-a-growing-list-of-...
bamboozled 4y ago
Who is 'they' specifically? I'm sure you're buying products containing this stuff all the time.

okt7hdigf 4y ago

One general name for this kind of thing is the Precautionary Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

malermeister 4y ago

That's called the precautionary principle and it's law in the EU: http://data.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2016/art_191/oj http://data.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2016/art_191/oj

nickserv 4y ago
It's not applied very uniformly though. The ongoing glysophate debate is a good example, there's reason to believe it's harmful in several ways and yet banning it doesn't look set to happen anytime soon.
- malermeister 4y ago
  Yes, the case you've mentioned is quite unfortunate, it's basically high level corruption.

refurb 4y ago

Nothing is 100% safe. Water is toxic in high doses. What do you mean “proven safe”?

throw827474737 4y ago
Come on..
samus 4y ago
The common-sense defition would be something like "only transitory or easily correctable negative consequences after consumption of quantities encountered under everyday circumstances". Water is unlikely to be consumed in the toxic doses. The few cases where water overdoses happened were drinking competitions where participants forced themselves to drink many liters of water as fast as possible, leading to fatal electrolyte imbalances.
- refurb 4y ago
  How do you define "easily correctable"? What are "everyday circumstances"? You're basically describing the challenge itself - how do you balance risk vs. benefit? The FDA does it every day, all day and still makes the wrong call sometimes.
  - samus 4y ago
    I added "easily correctable" to account for things that are clearly not good for us in any sense, but also don't cause lasting damage if taken in moderation. Coffeine, alcohol and sugars for example. Everyday circumstances describe normal consumption outside of addictions, accidents, competitions, medical conditions that make us more vulnerable, and other things. And chemicals that accumulate in our bodies (forever chemicals, microplastics, dioxins and other fat-soluble goodies, heavy metals) or cause permanent changes deserve increased scrutiny and bias for safety. Right now, I'd argue to be wary of _any_ novel polymers and substances (yes, it already happens for medicine and food), and to critically re-examine whatever was introduced before. The issue of microplastics and their impact on the ecosystem is clearly something we didn't think about before (more likely, we straightaway dismissed it).

legalcorrection 4y ago

In your world, disease and famine would be much more common than they are now.

feet 4y ago
It is, it has just been subtle and normalized over numerous generations
- learn-forever 4y ago
  what is the amount of normalization that makes something more common than it is?
t_mann 4y ago
If you are referring to fertilizers, a lack of those definitely wasn't the main reason for mass deaths in the years following their discovery - and I'm only asking that safe products are delayed for a bit until we are reasonably sure they're safe. I don't know what you mean by diseases, because we are already doing exactly that for pharma products. It's mainly a change of mindset - leaded fuel is such a good example, it was known to be toxic right from its invention (almost killed its inventor), yet it took us decades of arguing before we were ready to act on that knowledge - because said inventor and his cronies always managed to cast a shadow of doubt, and we seemed to act like as long as we weren't 100% sure we couldn't ban anything (so basically 'safe-until-proven-otherwise'). Things haven't really changed, not even in the EU that purportedly already acts under this principle, if you look at the current debates like on glyphosate.

meltyness 4y ago

spywaregorilla 4y ago

How do you prove water is not unsafe?

aaomidi 4y ago
This is such an intellectually dishonest question. You mean the thing that makes up the extreme majority of every living being is unsafe? Do you legitimately believe it is necessary to study and prove that?
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  It's not dishonest at all. The proposal is to say that we cannot use materials unless they're proven safe. Proving things safe is very difficult and different from finding evidence of danger. It's easy to imagine asbestos going through the safety test and failing. Water is something we generally think of as safe and should easily pass this test. So how would you do so to a satisfying degree? How would you nuance the test for different sources of water? You probably don't want the water from Flint Michigan. We already have a list of common failure modes for water quality that we check for. What will you say if we discover another element that should be checked for in the water otherwise health risks occur? Was our proactive search to prove water safe insufficient? I guess so, but how could we possibly have done better ahead of time?
  - t_mann 4y ago
    For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest - in fact, public water (drinking water, rivers, lakes,...) is being tested very regularly, whether it's safe for drinking, swimming,... The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, the point is that if you have a cool product idea like putting lead into fuel, you have to apply before you're allowed to market it. What exact tests they are going to run then will be subject to scientific debate and changes over time (so your product might get pulled if it's found to be toxic later). Some posters informed me that that's how it actually works already, in the EU at least. But in that case I guess we have to demand that they apply stricter standards if they miss chemicals that poison our rain water or kill the bee population.