8 ms·

The US lags behind some safety measures, but leads in others. The US was one of the first countries to ban DDT, established food safety inspection way before ot

The US lags behind some safety measures, but leads in others. The US was one of the first countries to ban DDT, established food safety inspection way before other countries, established OSHA well before workplace safety had worldwide focus, and so on. It's also been late to the party in other areas. When evaluating why rules might differ between countries, the less strict rule shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "putting corporations before health" or the like; it's absolutely possible that US consumer safety bodies determined that the added risk from some tradeoff isn't high enough to warrant the additional cost, but some other cultures have different risk tolerances. Such tradeoffs are very normal and very okay for regulatory bodies to do (provided they're doing so with sound justifications, which I haven't seen any reason to doubt here).

mcv 4y ago
But those are all from half a century ago, aren't they? My impression is that from about the end of WW2 up to the 1970s, the US was ahead in these sort of things, but has been increasingly lagging behind since the neoliberalism of the 1980s and 1990s, and has been extremely reluctant to add any new regulations since.
- ploum 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - throwaway6734 4y ago
    >Like: "better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar" This has nothing to do with firearm producers but the second amendment: the right to bear arms is codified in our constitution. Firearms hold a special legal place.
    - yardie 4y ago
      Yet the right to free speech and assembly have far more restrictions in place.
      - koolba 4y ago
        > Yet the right to free speech and assembly have far more restrictions in place. That’s patently false. There’s an incredible number of federal and State regulations involved in the purchase, transfer, transport, and even storage of a firearm. What restrictions on speech and assembly would you consider more onerous than any of those?
        seanw444 4y ago
        I find that most people that claim guns themselves are the problem, and that there aren't already enough restrictions, don't have much or any experience with them. I don't really know how people manage to read the second amendment any other way than "due to the fact that a militia comprised of every able-bodied person is fundamental to a free society, every person has the right to own, carry, and operate anything that constitutes arms." It's pretty simple, really. Better go renew my warrantless search and seizure immunity permit, and my journalism permit.
      - msla 4y ago
        America has an amazing level of freedom of expression, to the point I've seen a lot of Europeans get outright shocked that the concept of "hate speech" doesn't exist in our laws.
        mcv 4y ago
        But also that you can't say "shit" on American TV.
        msla 4y ago
        > But also that you can't say "shit" on American TV. Yes, you can. South Park is on American TV, after all.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      The US constitution can be changed, which is why it's the second "amendment" rather than the second "article" or the second "clause".
      - dahfizz 4y ago
        And yet it hasn't. The fact that the second amendment could be removed, but hasn't, is what gives it it's legitimacy.
        ben_w 4y ago
        The broader argument, as I understand it, is: 1. The 2A happened 2. Substantial gun industry developed 3. Tech changed, people increasingly concerned 4. Gun industry now big enough to lobby against any changes to the 2A Thus, #4 causes the lack of removal of the 2A. Does it have democratic legitimacy? Probably, but no more so than the 18th had. Does that contradict "(the preference of the USA is that it is) better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar"? Not at all.
        dahfizz 4y ago
        The NRA has 5 million members. Nearly half of American households have a gun. You can't just waive this off as "muh lobbying". Americans like their guns. Gun owners don't care if sig sauer loses a buck. They care about their cool toys.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Size tells you very little. 5 million is bigger by headcount than Big Tech, while half the households is smaller. Big tech lobbies for what serves its interests. NRA lobbies likewise. So does Stonewall, effecting change with fewer members and fewer interested parties. When it comes to guns, what makes the USA different from the rest of the world? Tradition ("we've always had the 2nd A so it must be good") and lobbying ("nothing can prevent this" says only nation on earth where this regularly happens).
    - badcppdev 4y ago
      Question. What will it mean for the 2nd amendment when the police and armed forces of the world consists of semi-autonomous bullet proof robots and drones? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." If guns that fire bullets aren't relevant to the security of a free state does it change the legal arguments? I think you guys should probably amend the 2nd amendment already
      - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
        Every man needs a semi-autonomous bullet proof drone.
        seanw444 4y ago
        Or the means to stop them. EMP of some sort?
      - mcv 4y ago
        How about if militia isn't relevant to the security of a free state? The US has had a standing army for quite some time now, and by far the most powerful one in the world. And the only thing that looks like a "well regulated militia" is the National Guard. The second amendment could be interpreted as meaning that only members of the national guard can own guns, but it's not.
        seanw444 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure Article 1 Section 8 was supposed to prevent us from having a perpetual standing army, but here we are.
        gameman144 4y ago
        > How about if militia isn't relevant to the security of a free state? This is the interesting thing: in the context of the framers, a standing army would not diminish the importance of the rights of militias at all (and might increase its importance). Keep in mind that the US declared independence due to perceived government overreach from Britain, which had a huge standing army. One of the primary functions of the second amendment is to ensure that ad hoc militias are possible, to keep the government and its army from overreach.
    - mcv 4y ago
      You may have noticed that the firearms industry is one of the biggest proponents and lobbyists for the current interpretation of the second amendment. Other interpretations are possible, and of course it can be amended again, if people decide it's harmful. But that's unlikely to happen as long as there's a powerful lobby interested in keeping things the way they are, even if it means hundreds of children are shot in schools every year.
      - tekknik 4y ago
        More like it’s unlikely to happen while people like me still exist. Take away the NRA and we’ll just create a new one. Why are some determined to stifle citizens voices?
    - juve1996 4y ago
      Firearm law has not been a constant through the years. There were pragmatic restrictions that have slowly been eroded and left us with where we are now.
      - tekknik 4y ago
        You mean like the assault weapons ban that had no effect on safety yet keeps getting pushed for? Or magazine limits that somehow miss that you can carry and load more than one magazine thereby still accomplishing nothing? Or the red flag laws that were just used to take an individual’s property without due process because someone doesn’t like guns? Which gun control laws actually work to stop criminals from getting guns? Especially when they can be 3D printed.
        manuelabeledo 4y ago
        > Which gun control laws actually work to stop criminals from getting guns? This is a terrible argument. Lawmakers codify crimes, not deterrents. The corollary to your point would be that, since criminals exist, that implies laws don't work as crime deterrents, thus most should be abolished.
        tekknik 4y ago
        > that implies laws don't work as crime deterrents, thus most should be abolished When it’s related to the second amendment, I’m absolutely in favor of abolishing them.
        manuelabeledo 4y ago
        Which frankly sounds a lot like “rules for thee, not for me”. I get that some people love their hobbies, and don’t like to be inconvenienced by the law. But, I find trying to justify gun ownership, and their relationship with abolishing tyrannical governments, childish and comedic to an extreme nowadays. Like, I want a drone, but I’m not going to throw a tantrum every time the FAA issues a new ruling. We get it. You like guns. You don’t want to give them up. Stop making shit up, you will never stand in arms against the government, and you will not be part of a “well regulated militia”. Hell, I bet all my savings that, if there was a draft right now, to strengthen the military against a genuine and imminent threat, most gun owners would not volunteer, because shooting at cans, and at the clouds during the 4th of July is pretty much all they really do. I’m wondering why fireworks aren’t constitutionally protected, though.
  - gameman144 4y ago
    I have to say, I don't get the recent attribution of some sort of ethics into capitalism. Capitalism as a system provides methods to optimize whatever you want -- it just defines mechanisms of self-interested parties participating in markets. It is absolutely fair to say that the things the US is optimizing for are not what one might like, but the issue is with the objective function, not the algorithm. European social democracies are still absolutely capitalist, they just provide guardrails and regulations to focus markets more toward producing social output. See the recent US push to green energy -- the government points the optimization machine at a target, and the markets react. We can and should complain when our government isn't steering investment to the areas we want. When that happens, though, capitalism as a system isn't the problem (and would be just as functional if you incentivized the things you liked instead.) When I want to go to Canada but my driver takes me to Mexico, I don't blame the car.
saiya-jin 4y ago
You highlight past efforts but we talk about now - there is no reason US shouldn't have same or better food safety standards than say EU or Switzerland, if consumer safety and health is priority. But reality is a far cry from that and everybody knows that. We talk about baseline, not premium products that most population doesn't buy, ie how safe are the cheapest things that are legally sold in given market. The reason is simple - food lobby, pushing for example HFCS everywhere despite everybody knows how damaging it is to health, for decades. But half of US grows corn. I am sure there are few categories where US leads but that's not overall trend. It goes deeper, much deeper, see Boeing 737 Max and global loss of trust in FAA, that was just too big to fail corporation pushing through regulation like knife through butter, until SHTF repeatedly and they couldn't keep blaming foreign pilots for incompetence anymore. US is simply much more corporate friendly rather than population friendly compared to say Europe, be it employee protection, general food safety, fines to corporations etc.
- gameman144 4y ago
  > there is no reason US shouldn't have same or better food safety standards than say EU or Switzerland, if consumer safety and health is priority. This is the crux of my point though, everything is relative and composed of trade-offs. A more strict standard is not necessarily better. We know mercury is toxic and builds up over a lifetime: why is it acceptable to sell any fish which is known to aggregate mercury? Why not only allow extremely low mercury fish? We know red meat has some carcinogenic effects: why not ban its sale, or only allow species of animals with less of this effect? > We talk about baseline [...] how safe are the cheapest things that are legally sold in given market. This is the other side of that trade-off here. Everyone wants access to products. We could reduce the risk of basically any product by increasing its cost. A very reasonable heuristic for regulators might be "Find an acceptable risk point at which further risk reduction would not warrant the marginal increase in cost". Another reasonable heuristic might be "Minimize risk at all costs: if the market can't bear the product, so be it". Another reasonable heuristic might be "Label all risks, then let individuals sort things out". We're focusing on the first one here, but we accept the others in different cases: the second applies more to medical testing, the third to items like tobacco and alcohol. I'm all for reducing the risks that we can reduce -- nobody is arguing against keeping turpentine out of your juice. My whole point is just that we can't look at two acceptable safety limits, see one that's more stringent, and then conclude that it's a better regulation.
dspillett 4y ago
As an outsider I get the impression that the US works in bursts on these things. For your examples: * Massively using DDT, therefore seeing the problems before others or worse than others, so banning it. * Putting commercial interests ahead of safety in food production, then having issues with that and snapping back with inspection regimes. (things seem to have swung back the other way significantly on this one though – the various food lobbies seem to have a lot of power) * Putting easy business and fast growth ahead of worker safety, then noticing the problem with that (broken workers are not efficient workers!), and establishing OSHA to try deal with the issue. So the US looks to have a high risk tolerance generally, but when a limit is passed things snap back hard. A few things seem to be overdue a snap-back: HFCS levels in food, guns, etc. – maybe we'll see these in coming years.
rsynnott 4y ago
The US was a world leader in this sort of thing for a while, before losing interest, is a reasonable way to think about it. I wonder how much of an influence thalidomide was. The US failed to authorise thalidomide essentially because one person in the FDA put up a huge fight. This was, in retrospect, clearly correct, and would have given a lot of political cover for introducing safety regulations (in the thalidomide aftermath the FDA was a leader in introducing more modern safety requirements, say). The stuff you’re talking about is old, though. It’s more difficult to find areas where the US is _still_ leading on this. For better or for worse, the EU is increasingly the world’s regulator (in much the same way that California is the US’s regulator on certain matters; when a really big market regulates, it tends to drag everyone else along with it). On food, in particular, the US has a slightly weird approach; certain things which would clearly never be approved today are allowed if they’ve been around long enough. The US is virtually the only place to allow use of potassium bromate in food, say; if it was submitted today it would likely be barred as a carcinogen, but it predates the ban on carcinogens in food.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  Incidentally, as to _why_ this is, I suspect that it's (a) because safety, as a concept, has somehow become highly politicised in the US (albeit recently in weird directions; bundling of anti-vax-ism into the far-right and increasingly the mainstream right has lead to the odd situation where the traditionally anti-safety faction are pushing for _higher_ regulation in one narrow area) and (b) because the US's regulatory apparatus is much more politically influenced than that in most developed countries, due to how the US civil service works.
chiefalchemist 4y ago
> the less strict rule shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "putting corporations before health" or the like; it's absolutely possible that US consumer safety bodies determined that the added risk from some tradeoff isn't high enough to warrant the additional cost, but... Not that I'd blame it on figs, but one look at the US healthcare system (i.e., costs, as well as the health / illnesses of the people who need that system) and it highlights the need to question *everything*. The problem with say "X is low amounts is safe" and "Y is liw amounts is safe" is that we don't understand the effects of X + Y, nor what happens when adding some unknown Z. The more that comes out on gut bacteria (i.e., maybe the human body can handle X and/or Y, but our bacteria friends can not) the more our safety levels look suspect.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mcv 4y ago

But those are all from half a century ago, aren't they? My impression is that from about the end of WW2 up to the 1970s, the US was ahead in these sort of things, but has been increasingly lagging behind since the neoliberalism of the 1980s and 1990s, and has been extremely reluctant to add any new regulations since.

ploum 4y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway6734 4y ago
  >Like: "better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar" This has nothing to do with firearm producers but the second amendment: the right to bear arms is codified in our constitution. Firearms hold a special legal place.
  - yardie 4y ago
    Yet the right to free speech and assembly have far more restrictions in place.
    - koolba 4y ago
      > Yet the right to free speech and assembly have far more restrictions in place. That’s patently false. There’s an incredible number of federal and State regulations involved in the purchase, transfer, transport, and even storage of a firearm. What restrictions on speech and assembly would you consider more onerous than any of those?
      - seanw444 4y ago
        I find that most people that claim guns themselves are the problem, and that there aren't already enough restrictions, don't have much or any experience with them. I don't really know how people manage to read the second amendment any other way than "due to the fact that a militia comprised of every able-bodied person is fundamental to a free society, every person has the right to own, carry, and operate anything that constitutes arms." It's pretty simple, really. Better go renew my warrantless search and seizure immunity permit, and my journalism permit.
    - msla 4y ago
      America has an amazing level of freedom of expression, to the point I've seen a lot of Europeans get outright shocked that the concept of "hate speech" doesn't exist in our laws.
      - mcv 4y ago
        But also that you can't say "shit" on American TV.
        msla 4y ago
        > But also that you can't say "shit" on American TV. Yes, you can. South Park is on American TV, after all.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    The US constitution can be changed, which is why it's the second "amendment" rather than the second "article" or the second "clause".
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      And yet it hasn't. The fact that the second amendment could be removed, but hasn't, is what gives it it's legitimacy.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        The broader argument, as I understand it, is: 1. The 2A happened 2. Substantial gun industry developed 3. Tech changed, people increasingly concerned 4. Gun industry now big enough to lobby against any changes to the 2A Thus, #4 causes the lack of removal of the 2A. Does it have democratic legitimacy? Probably, but no more so than the 18th had. Does that contradict "(the preference of the USA is that it is) better having our children killed in school than allowing firearms producers to lose one dollar"? Not at all.
        dahfizz 4y ago
        The NRA has 5 million members. Nearly half of American households have a gun. You can't just waive this off as "muh lobbying". Americans like their guns. Gun owners don't care if sig sauer loses a buck. They care about their cool toys.
        ben_w 4y ago
        Size tells you very little. 5 million is bigger by headcount than Big Tech, while half the households is smaller. Big tech lobbies for what serves its interests. NRA lobbies likewise. So does Stonewall, effecting change with fewer members and fewer interested parties. When it comes to guns, what makes the USA different from the rest of the world? Tradition ("we've always had the 2nd A so it must be good") and lobbying ("nothing can prevent this" says only nation on earth where this regularly happens).
  - badcppdev 4y ago
    Question. What will it mean for the 2nd amendment when the police and armed forces of the world consists of semi-autonomous bullet proof robots and drones? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." If guns that fire bullets aren't relevant to the security of a free state does it change the legal arguments? I think you guys should probably amend the 2nd amendment already
    - inkblotuniverse 4y ago
      Every man needs a semi-autonomous bullet proof drone.
      - seanw444 4y ago
        Or the means to stop them. EMP of some sort?
    - mcv 4y ago
      How about if militia isn't relevant to the security of a free state? The US has had a standing army for quite some time now, and by far the most powerful one in the world. And the only thing that looks like a "well regulated militia" is the National Guard. The second amendment could be interpreted as meaning that only members of the national guard can own guns, but it's not.
      - seanw444 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure Article 1 Section 8 was supposed to prevent us from having a perpetual standing army, but here we are.
      - gameman144 4y ago
        > How about if militia isn't relevant to the security of a free state? This is the interesting thing: in the context of the framers, a standing army would not diminish the importance of the rights of militias at all (and might increase its importance). Keep in mind that the US declared independence due to perceived government overreach from Britain, which had a huge standing army. One of the primary functions of the second amendment is to ensure that ad hoc militias are possible, to keep the government and its army from overreach.
  - mcv 4y ago
    You may have noticed that the firearms industry is one of the biggest proponents and lobbyists for the current interpretation of the second amendment. Other interpretations are possible, and of course it can be amended again, if people decide it's harmful. But that's unlikely to happen as long as there's a powerful lobby interested in keeping things the way they are, even if it means hundreds of children are shot in schools every year.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      More like it’s unlikely to happen while people like me still exist. Take away the NRA and we’ll just create a new one. Why are some determined to stifle citizens voices?
  - juve1996 4y ago
    Firearm law has not been a constant through the years. There were pragmatic restrictions that have slowly been eroded and left us with where we are now.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      You mean like the assault weapons ban that had no effect on safety yet keeps getting pushed for? Or magazine limits that somehow miss that you can carry and load more than one magazine thereby still accomplishing nothing? Or the red flag laws that were just used to take an individual’s property without due process because someone doesn’t like guns? Which gun control laws actually work to stop criminals from getting guns? Especially when they can be 3D printed.
      - manuelabeledo 4y ago
        > Which gun control laws actually work to stop criminals from getting guns? This is a terrible argument. Lawmakers codify crimes, not deterrents. The corollary to your point would be that, since criminals exist, that implies laws don't work as crime deterrents, thus most should be abolished.
        tekknik 4y ago
        > that implies laws don't work as crime deterrents, thus most should be abolished When it’s related to the second amendment, I’m absolutely in favor of abolishing them.
        manuelabeledo 4y ago
        Which frankly sounds a lot like “rules for thee, not for me”. I get that some people love their hobbies, and don’t like to be inconvenienced by the law. But, I find trying to justify gun ownership, and their relationship with abolishing tyrannical governments, childish and comedic to an extreme nowadays. Like, I want a drone, but I’m not going to throw a tantrum every time the FAA issues a new ruling. We get it. You like guns. You don’t want to give them up. Stop making shit up, you will never stand in arms against the government, and you will not be part of a “well regulated militia”. Hell, I bet all my savings that, if there was a draft right now, to strengthen the military against a genuine and imminent threat, most gun owners would not volunteer, because shooting at cans, and at the clouds during the 4th of July is pretty much all they really do. I’m wondering why fireworks aren’t constitutionally protected, though.
- gameman144 4y ago
  I have to say, I don't get the recent attribution of some sort of ethics into capitalism. Capitalism as a system provides methods to optimize whatever you want -- it just defines mechanisms of self-interested parties participating in markets. It is absolutely fair to say that the things the US is optimizing for are not what one might like, but the issue is with the objective function, not the algorithm. European social democracies are still absolutely capitalist, they just provide guardrails and regulations to focus markets more toward producing social output. See the recent US push to green energy -- the government points the optimization machine at a target, and the markets react. We can and should complain when our government isn't steering investment to the areas we want. When that happens, though, capitalism as a system isn't the problem (and would be just as functional if you incentivized the things you liked instead.) When I want to go to Canada but my driver takes me to Mexico, I don't blame the car.

saiya-jin 4y ago

You highlight past efforts but we talk about now - there is no reason US shouldn't have same or better food safety standards than say EU or Switzerland, if consumer safety and health is priority. But reality is a far cry from that and everybody knows that. We talk about baseline, not premium products that most population doesn't buy, ie how safe are the cheapest things that are legally sold in given market. The reason is simple - food lobby, pushing for example HFCS everywhere despite everybody knows how damaging it is to health, for decades. But half of US grows corn. I am sure there are few categories where US leads but that's not overall trend. It goes deeper, much deeper, see Boeing 737 Max and global loss of trust in FAA, that was just too big to fail corporation pushing through regulation like knife through butter, until SHTF repeatedly and they couldn't keep blaming foreign pilots for incompetence anymore. US is simply much more corporate friendly rather than population friendly compared to say Europe, be it employee protection, general food safety, fines to corporations etc.

gameman144 4y ago
> there is no reason US shouldn't have same or better food safety standards than say EU or Switzerland, if consumer safety and health is priority. This is the crux of my point though, everything is relative and composed of trade-offs. A more strict standard is not necessarily better. We know mercury is toxic and builds up over a lifetime: why is it acceptable to sell any fish which is known to aggregate mercury? Why not only allow extremely low mercury fish? We know red meat has some carcinogenic effects: why not ban its sale, or only allow species of animals with less of this effect? > We talk about baseline [...] how safe are the cheapest things that are legally sold in given market. This is the other side of that trade-off here. Everyone wants access to products. We could reduce the risk of basically any product by increasing its cost. A very reasonable heuristic for regulators might be "Find an acceptable risk point at which further risk reduction would not warrant the marginal increase in cost". Another reasonable heuristic might be "Minimize risk at all costs: if the market can't bear the product, so be it". Another reasonable heuristic might be "Label all risks, then let individuals sort things out". We're focusing on the first one here, but we accept the others in different cases: the second applies more to medical testing, the third to items like tobacco and alcohol. I'm all for reducing the risks that we can reduce -- nobody is arguing against keeping turpentine out of your juice. My whole point is just that we can't look at two acceptable safety limits, see one that's more stringent, and then conclude that it's a better regulation.

dspillett 4y ago

As an outsider I get the impression that the US works in bursts on these things. For your examples: * Massively using DDT, therefore seeing the problems before others or worse than others, so banning it. * Putting commercial interests ahead of safety in food production, then having issues with that and snapping back with inspection regimes. (things seem to have swung back the other way significantly on this one though – the various food lobbies seem to have a lot of power) * Putting easy business and fast growth ahead of worker safety, then noticing the problem with that (broken workers are not efficient workers!), and establishing OSHA to try deal with the issue. So the US looks to have a high risk tolerance generally, but when a limit is passed things snap back hard. A few things seem to be overdue a snap-back: HFCS levels in food, guns, etc. – maybe we'll see these in coming years.

rsynnott 4y ago

The US was a world leader in this sort of thing for a while, before losing interest, is a reasonable way to think about it. I wonder how much of an influence thalidomide was. The US failed to authorise thalidomide essentially because one person in the FDA put up a huge fight. This was, in retrospect, clearly correct, and would have given a lot of political cover for introducing safety regulations (in the thalidomide aftermath the FDA was a leader in introducing more modern safety requirements, say). The stuff you’re talking about is old, though. It’s more difficult to find areas where the US is _still_ leading on this. For better or for worse, the EU is increasingly the world’s regulator (in much the same way that California is the US’s regulator on certain matters; when a really big market regulates, it tends to drag everyone else along with it). On food, in particular, the US has a slightly weird approach; certain things which would clearly never be approved today are allowed if they’ve been around long enough. The US is virtually the only place to allow use of potassium bromate in food, say; if it was submitted today it would likely be barred as a carcinogen, but it predates the ban on carcinogens in food.

rsynnott 4y ago
Incidentally, as to _why_ this is, I suspect that it's (a) because safety, as a concept, has somehow become highly politicised in the US (albeit recently in weird directions; bundling of anti-vax-ism into the far-right and increasingly the mainstream right has lead to the odd situation where the traditionally anti-safety faction are pushing for _higher_ regulation in one narrow area) and (b) because the US's regulatory apparatus is much more politically influenced than that in most developed countries, due to how the US civil service works.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

> the less strict rule shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as "putting corporations before health" or the like; it's absolutely possible that US consumer safety bodies determined that the added risk from some tradeoff isn't high enough to warrant the additional cost, but... Not that I'd blame it on figs, but one look at the US healthcare system (i.e., costs, as well as the health / illnesses of the people who need that system) and it highlights the need to question *everything*. The problem with say "X is low amounts is safe" and "Y is liw amounts is safe" is that we don't understand the effects of X + Y, nor what happens when adding some unknown Z. The more that comes out on gut bacteria (i.e., maybe the human body can handle X and/or Y, but our bacteria friends can not) the more our safety levels look suspect.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]