3 ms·

There's a middle ground. You can permit novel substances but if it is discovered to be harmful then the burden of proof is inverted for the family of related ch

• gmac 4y ago
  Yes! That would catch firms touting “BPA-free” plastics that instead contain the chemically very similar BPS, for example.
  • mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    And BPF, both of which are now known to have similar problems. It's not like the companies developing these chemicals don't know that they're likely to have the same activity. It's just pharmacology. Similar structures tend to have similar activity. I definitely second GPs suggestion of having the burden of proof reversed like that. It would greatly reduce the work required by researchers, too. Interestingly, BPA was actually known to have estrogenergic properties in the 30s shortly after it was first isolated, and was first researched as a potential estrogen replacement. With the right regulation this could have been caught close to a century ago...