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We really ought to show more care and test more when we are creating chemical marvels and new materials. At a certain level of scale a lot of the inventions of
by PaulKeeble 3y ago
We really ought to show more care and test more when we are creating chemical marvels and new materials. At a certain level of scale a lot of the inventions of the last 50 years turned out to be quite damaging to our health and environment. We don't seem to have the balance right yet comparing freedom to release whatever and complete lockdown until something is proved safe and we keep damaging people and the biodiversity of the planet on which we depend.
- robcohen 3y agoYou could make the argument that we really need better methods and technology for determining the health impact of what we put into our environment. The problem as I see it (as a total layman) is that the health sciences are not good at determining the effects of almost anything in the future. The best we can do is wide-scale studies that try to control for different variables (and largely fail, because the set of variables is incredibly large). I have a feeling we aren’t going to solve this problem anytime soon, as the simulations required appear to be so large they are beyond our reach. I am optimistic that we can massively increase the data collected as time goes on, and that will increase our accuracy of studies of things that occurred in the past.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago> is that the health sciences are not good at determining the effects of almost anything in the future For this particular case I think the real problem is that no one really spent much effort seeing the effects of particular PFOAs in cell culture prior to marketing it. We've had cell culture for over 100 years, so this lack is basically because people either didn't even think about it, or didn't care thanks to dollar signs or greater fear of another threat (household fires).
- mandmandam 3y agoI've been hearing about the dangers of Teflon for at least a quarter century. Lawsuits were being settled in the 9-figure range as far back as 2001 - they kept making it, and actively covered up what they knew, tobacco firm style. I haven't watched it yet, but 'The Devil We Know' apparently goes in depth on this, with very highly rated reviews. I don't need to be that angry right now though; I know enough about Du Pont for "strong opinions" as it is.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI certainly wouldn't have bought that bottle of Scotchguard for my shoes in the late 2000s if it had had a warning label on it.
- Axien 3y agoOr scotchguard my entire car.
- myshpa 3y agoOr outdoor textiles, or toilet paper, or paper food boxes, or furniture with stain repelents, or cosmetics, or school uniforms, or breast milk, or microwave popcorn bags, or carpet cleaners, or candy wrappers, or pizza boxes, or cattle, or agricultural fields and products, or houshold dust, or water, or firefighting foams, or dental floss, or air ... better to stay away from it all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid
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- jeff_carr 3y agoAlso every stain resistant material. Clothes, carpet, etc. I'm not sure, but I suspect even bubbles. Like when we were kids.
- stephen_g 3y agoTeflon itself is safe to use as long as you don’t heat it too much (stay well clear of 260°C/500°F) - it’s technically a PFAS but polymerised into to molecules that have a high molecular weight so have no biological activity and it is chemically inert. It’s the shorter chain PFAS chemicals used in the production process that has caused the huge problems - especially to workers and to people living near the plants (due to groundwater contamination and other environmental release of PFAS)
- johnchristopher 3y agoNow replace health science with climate science and see how it reads. https://www.tellerreport.com/life/2021-02-23-%0A---%22the-factory-of-ignorance%22--arte-tells-about-these-industrialists-who-manipulate-science%0A--.SJbWVIfG_.html https://www.tellerreport.com/life/2021-02-23-%0A---%22the-fa... edit: documentary might come back on ARTE in the future but in the meantime, if you understand french: https://video.ploud.fr/w/4d35ad9a-6eac-4708-aa62-3b7540574071 https://video.ploud.fr/w/4d35ad9a-6eac-4708-aa62-3b754057407... and https://archive.org/details/la-fabrique-de-lignorance-documentaire-qui-denonce-le-passe-pour-mentir-sur-le-present https://archive.org/details/la-fabrique-de-lignorance-docume... It's usually subbed/dubbed in French and German.
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- specialist 3y agoCites the documentary "La fabrique de l'ignorance". I could only find a trailer. https://boutique.arte.tv/detail/la-fabrique-de-lignorance https://boutique.arte.tv/detail/la-fabrique-de-lignorance Please share if you can find the full video. TIA.
- thephyber 3y agoI would argue there are enough companies that have continued creating these cash cow chemicals even after there was sufficient evidence of substantial harm that additional testing would be useless, except to class action lawsuit plaintiffs to prove what the defendants already know. Movies that cover this topic: Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, Dark Waters. More recently the talc powder lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson. Hell, the Bay Area is littered with EPA Superfund Sites where all of the old chipmakers and their suppliers were. Good luck to Chandler, AZ (where the new American chip fans are being built). I hope you learn at least a little something from the SF peninsula’s mistakes of the 1960s-1990s. A former naval base in my area has been decommissioned for years but still hasn’t cleaned up the firefighting chemical runoff that has seeped into the ground. Sometimes there simply isn’t a healthier substitute for a chemical or there is no legal method to prevent an organization from screwing up the environment (good luck suing the Navy for something they did 50 years ago before the harm was known). I would agree that better testing and health trials could have identified these health risks before the companies started using these chemicals, but companies don’t have emotions or ethics. They are sociopaths seeking maximum returns and will turn a blind eye (or worse) if their profits are threatened. There is a ton of motivated reasoning within and around companies that produce and use harmful chemicals, especially if they are the only industry in a region.
- scruple 3y agoThere are multi-million dollar homes and a school facility built on top of (parts of) the EPA Superfund site near the old El Toro MCAS in Irvine. Another set of million dollar homes nearby was built on top of a nursery that was founded in the early 1900s. In both cases, residents are warned not to plant edible fruits or vegetables directly into the soil.
- GuB-42 3y ago> I have a feeling we aren’t going to solve this problem anytime soon, as the simulations required appear to be so large they are beyond our reach. That's what we need quantum computers for! Seriously, crypto breaking problems tend to get all the attention when we are talking about quantum computing, but one of the most promising application of quantum computers is modeling quantum systems. Studying the health impact of substances involves a lot of chemistry, which is a quantum process. A quantum computer could help with modeling the interactions between artificial substances and biomolecules.
- peteradio 3y agoMaybe, but isn't it an intrinsically hard problem to model? How close are we to growing organ tissues at scale? Can we dose these things and correctly ascertain an expected outcome?
- nonethewiser 3y agoAren’t we totally ignoring this with the renewed push for nuclear energy? If we insist nuclear waste can safely be stored than surely we can safely store PFAS.
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- jdiff 3y agoThere's a pretty big difference between the two. Nuclear waste is always tracked and treated carefully. PFAS are on store shelves and in homes and in landfills and are entirely untracked. Nothing's being ignored, it's just an entirely differently kind of situation.
- pkaye 3y agoWe don't use nuclear waste to make non stick pans and water resistant jackets.
- ted_dunning 3y agoNot non-stick pans. But yes, they did make red Fiesta ware using what is effectively low-level nuclear waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiesta_(dinnerware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiesta_(dinnerware)
- Chris2048 3y agoBut nuclear waste isn't going to be mass distributed?
- weaksauce 3y agolook at the one man environmental hazard that was thomas midgely jr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. one man was so absolutely prolifically bad to the environment.
- dclowd9901 3y ago> Kettering was elected as president with Midgley as vice president. However, after two deaths and several cases of lead poisoning at the TEL prototype plant in Dayton, Ohio, the staff at Dayton was said in 1924 to be "depressed to the point of considering giving up the whole tetraethyl lead program". Over the course of the next year, eight more people died at DuPont's plant in Deepwater, New Jersey. … > The risks associated with exposure to lead were known at least 150 years before, when Benjamin Franklin wrote about his experiences as a typesetter. Holy cow. I always chocked up leaded gasoline as one of those “well how could they know” kind of things but people were dropping dead just making it, and Midgley himself was sickened from it by researching its production. Absolutely fucking evil people.
- akiselev 3y agoI think we've known about the dangers of lead since Roman times so it's even worse. Quoting Vitruvius [1]: > Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead [PbCO3, lead carbonate] is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system. Hence, if what is generated from it is pernicious, there can be no doubt that itself cannot be a wholesome body. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead, who are of a pallid colour; for in casting lead, the fumes from it fixing on the different members, and daily burning them, destroy the vigour of the blood; water should therefore on no account be conducted in leaden pipes if we are desirous that it should be wholesome. That the flavour of that conveyed in earthen pipes is better, is shewn at our daily meals, for all those whose tables are furnished with silver vessels, nevertheless use those made of earth, from the purity of the flavour being preserved in them We've known about the danger of the fumes for over two thousand years! [1] https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/leadpoisoning.html https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/wi...
- cde-v 3y agoSorry, but more care and testing harm shareholder value. Denied.
- dclowd9901 3y agoBecause we don’t close the loop. We find out asbestos and plastics and whatever else is dangerous actually and then go “ah shit” and that’s all. We don’t prosecute the makers of it or charge for cleanup. Yeah we have superfunds for breathtakingly poor resource and conservation management, but with micro pollutants don’t have the same kind of knee jerk visceral reaction a major radioactive waste site does. We should have laws that say “if you make something, you own its entire lifecycle, including its safe and ecologically sound disposal.” That would turn the page on wasteful production almost overnight.
- ALLTaken 3y agoWhat about the BP Oil Spill? How would that go, reparation and paying someone money like the government isn't going to benefit nobody and especially not the world. After the Fukushima incident they just dropped the radioactive water back into the ocean. yayy ...radioactive seafood :/
- neltnerb 3y agoSomething that blows my mind is that you can get a patent on a new "state of matter" (implying intrinsically that it has novel properties) but then claim to regulators that it doesn't need new safety testing because it's similar to something existing.
- mtsr 3y agoOr, you know, not dump millions of liters of waste water with all kinds of chemicals in the rivers at all.
- Tanjreeve 3y agoI don't think it'll ever be the case. There's an infinite number of unknowns and unknown unknowns. It's a lot easier in our economic system to solve a bounded problem by throwing money at it than for regulations to be enforced politically on what would be 99% speculative problems.
- frozenport 3y ago>> At a certain level of scale a lot of the inventions of the last 50 years turned out to be quite damaging to our health Except that people like longer
- mensetmanusman 3y agoThese were invented during ww2 to make high temperature machine parts.
- Mistletoe 3y agoHaving been around lots of chemists in my life, they just don’t think that way. And that’s a problem.