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And the "scares" are often correct. See smoking, leaded gasoline, trans fats, various other food additives, etc. You don't need a double blind study to look a
by scottLobster 3y ago
And the "scares" are often correct. See smoking, leaded gasoline, trans fats, various other food additives, etc.
You don't need a double blind study to look at smoking and say "inhaling smoke is probably bad for you". Likewise you can look at the evidence of microplastics being bad for human health and say "ingesting random synthetic chemicals that bio-accumulate and are hard to break down are probably bad for you".
Obviously panic isn't helpful. But I've switched anything that has to touch hot food/liquid to some combination of glass/metal. I've also started buying milk in glass containers. All of this has had zero impact on my life beyond some upfront cost buying glass food storage containers and making milk more expensive. I'd recommend everyone else who can afford it do the same.
Even in the 1950s when everyone smoked everywhere and you couldn't escape second hand smoke outside of the house, it was still a healthier choice to not smoke yourself.
- rajnathani 3y ago> Even in the 1950s when everyone smoked everywhere and you couldn't escape second hand smoke outside of the house, it was still a healthier choice to not smoke yourself. Side: Unfortunately in multi-family apartment buildings in tropical places like India where balconies are common, even escaping second hand smoke in your own home is difficult if you don’t keep your windows always closed to the neighbor below you.
- dennis_jeeves2 3y ago>See smoking, leaded gasoline, trans fats, various other food additives, etc. Good observation, as a general rule any new substance must generally proven to be safe ( and there are reasonable ways to do it, without being overly cautious), it must not be a case of proving that something is harmful once in use.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Eisenstein 3y ago> And the "scares" are often correct. See smoking, leaded gasoline, trans fats, various other food additives, etc. Leaded gasoline: we knew that was bad and did it anyway because it was easy and cheap. Trans fats: was this ever a 'scare'? Various other food additives: which? I know of more that were demonized for no reason than additives that ended up being bad for people. I applaud your use of non-plastic and think more people should do it. I dislike our reliance on plastics and think the microplastic scare is useful. I just don't see any evidence and only see scare headlines and I think that rousing people's fears over something is generally a bad idea when we could do it rationally. > Likewise you can look at the evidence of microplastics being bad for human health and say "ingesting random synthetic chemicals that bio-accumulate and are hard to break down are probably bad for you". I'm not sure why it should be self-evident that inert, tiny things in your body would cause harm. It sounds bad, but there is no real reason why it would be.
- scottLobster 3y agoGiven the wide variety of chemicals lumped under the name "microplastics" and the complexity of the systems of the human body, many of which even modern medical science doesn't fully comprehend, the chance that they're all or even mostly inert is extremely small. Also "inert" materials can cause problems in human body all the time, even if it's just simple inflammation from the immune system responding to the physical damage they can cause. It's like continuously pouring small grains of random dirt you scraped off the ground into your car's engine while it's running, when you're not entirely sure how the engine works, and going "meh, they're just tiny particles of dirt. My engine is still running. Probably fine". You can run that experiment on your one and only body if you wish.
- Eisenstein 3y agoI would hope that there were a better 'we don't need evidence because it is obvious they are harmful' argument than 'things are complex and we don't know yet'.