6 ms·

>Consumer Reports said none of the phthalate levels it found exceeded limits set by U.S. and European regulators. I'm totally fine with this. Maybe the FDA is

>Consumer Reports said none of the phthalate levels it found exceeded limits set by U.S. and European regulators. I'm totally fine with this. Maybe the FDA is toothless, I don't know, but EFSA do not kid around.

boringuser2 3y ago
The FDA isn't "toothless"...
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  One of the key differences here is the FDA permits food additives and adulterants to be self-affirmed as "Generally Recognized As Safe", which largely means "well, no one says it isn't, yet". https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-10-246 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-10-246 > Because GRAS notification is voluntary and companies are not required to identify nanomaterials in their GRAS substances, FDA has no way of knowing the full extent to which engineered nanomaterials have entered the U.S. food supply as part of GRAS substances. In contrast to FDA's approach, all food ingredients that incorporate engineered nanomaterials must be submitted to regulators in Canada and the European Union before they can be marketed.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    Right. Effectively, it's innocent until found to be guilty. In the context of public health and environmental wellbeing, that's a way-more-risk-than-is-necessary way to approach their responsibilities. Great for profits. Nots so good for everyone and everything else.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Toothless? How about clueless then? Or better, favors Big Inc profits over public health. Call it what you want, but the FDA is too often a paper tiger.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    Only someone who has never worked under the FDAs eye of Sauron could think this, strong Dunning-Kruger vibe.
    - beedeebeedee 3y ago
      I'm sure they come hard when enforcing legislation, but the issue seems to be they are not proactive enough in investigating issues before legislation has been made.
    - chiefalchemist 3y ago
      Only someone who doesn't follow the news would think this. The FDA's (unofficial) motto is: Innocent until found guilty. They know. We know it. Big Inc knows it. That's a foolish - at best - way to approach public health and ecological health. Tho', of course, it's great for profits.
    - malfist 3y ago
      > strong Dunning-Kruger vibe Remember, personal attacks are not allowed here. One doesn't have to work for the FDA to realize that the prioritize profit over health in a lot of cases. Case in point is sunscreen. How many years did the FDA allow sunscreens that didn't protect against UV-A exposure, knowing that UV-A was the primary cause for sun damage related skin cancer. Even when they did decide to require protection against UV-A, the enforcement was delayed for several years, explicitly to not cause financial harm to sunscreen makers. I remember back in college, enforcement was delayed over a year to permit sellers to move through existing stock of sunscreen. This is far from the only example. FDA very much prioritizes protecting companies bottom lines.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        It's true though. The FDA almost certainly has at least a dozen folks much smarter than the user calling them 'clueless'. And all regulated organizations, in total, certainly have many hundreds much smarter responding to the FDA. It's very likely that at least a few thousand actual bonafide geniuses interact substantially, in some way, in any given year.
- tootie 3y ago
  John Oliver did a whole bit on the FDA recently. They are very stringent and professional, but massively underresourced for the amount of ground they have to cover. And they spend most of their resources on drugs and far less on food. https://youtu.be/Za45bT41sXg?si=LiW1DD4hGJAT5OOh https://youtu.be/Za45bT41sXg?si=LiW1DD4hGJAT5OOh
zug_zug 3y ago
Two points - 1. That's the current tolerable levels of xenoestrogen chemicals per agencies. However it's not clear whether there's a safe level of plastic ever established by these agencies. 2. These "Safe levels" are adjusted all the time. There no reason to presume that in the future the current safe levels won't be reduced.
agilob 3y ago
This is the canary of plastic pollution similar to we knew about global warming in '70s. We know it's only going to get worse, but we're happy to ignore it until it gets really bad.
- Log_out_ 3y ago
  I'm more worried about the output of life that is capable of devouring plastics being toxic becoming widespread?
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    I'm pretty ignorant of biology, but it would be wild if plastic consuming fungi/bacteria became widespread. Imagine all the plastic bits of your car getting "moldy" if you leave it outside too long.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. First, don't worry about it... Then, some is ok... Wait! Less than some is ok... Wait again!! Next to nothing is ok... Fuck!!! Avoid this shit at all costs.
  - ajross 3y ago
    > These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely don't know the whole story, but we know pretty well that the effect is less than smoking/obesity/etc. because it would be there in the data if so.
    - djbusby 3y ago
      That's like step #2 from above.
masto 3y ago
The highest amount in their list was 54 micrograms per serving. Most of them were under 5 µg. They seem to have just bundled everything together instead of listing specific amounts of specific chemicals, and chose to put the numbers in "nanograms per serving" to make them look as big as possible. I tried to look up the regulations, but whatever the value of EU regulations may be, readability and simplicity are not their strong points. Picking on DEHP because it's one CR mentions, I found these secondhand references: * https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/16th-amendment-to-eu-regulation-10-2011-on-plastic-fcms-now-in-force https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/16th-amendment-to-eu... * https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/efsa-updated-risk-assessment-of-five-phthalates https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/efsa-updated-risk-as... The first says that the "specific migration limit" for DEHP had been lowered to 0.6 mg/kg. I assume that's the amount that ends up in the product. The second refers to Tolerable Daily Intake based on body weight, of 50 µg/kg. So we're talking about, in one measure, the limit being 600000 nanograms in a kilogram of food. The serving size of Annie's Original Organic Cheesy Ravioli is 242g. So the allowable amount of DEHP in that serving would be 2,479,338 nanograms. They found 53,579, or around 2% of the acceptable amount. Looking at it from TDI, Wikipedia gives a low bound on the average adult body weight of 60 kg. That's 3,000,000 nanograms, which brings it down to 1.8%. Consumer Reports has not been a reputable publication for many years, and they continue to trade on their name as many Americans at least have it in their head that CR is some kind of unbiased arbiter of quantitative information about what's good or not. What they actually do is clickbait to sell subscriptions. This became clear to me when I realized that any time they write about a product category I have a lot of experience with, their recommendations make no sense. Thinking that they actually provide useful information but only about the things I don't have the ability to fact-check them on is a form of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.
- morsch 3y ago
  2% isn't nothing. It's easy to get a bigger number: have a kid (30 kg) eat two servings -- hardly unrealistic -- and you're already at 8%. And that's not the only food they'll consume that day. German government research estimates that around 1% of the population consumes more than the TDI (according to another federal government press release from 2013[1]). According to that source, kids' exposition to DEHP is half from food, and half from other sources like toys and the overall environment, and the typical exposition is between 15-44 ug/kg (i.e. below the TDI). [1] https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2013/13/weichmacher_dehp_wird_hauptsaechlich_ueber_lebensmittel_aufgenommen-186791.html https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2013/13/weichma...
dieterjakob 3y ago
In biotech circles, the FDA is actually renowned to be the tougher one of the two...

boringuser2 3y ago

The FDA isn't "toothless"...

ceejayoz 3y ago
One of the key differences here is the FDA permits food additives and adulterants to be self-affirmed as "Generally Recognized As Safe", which largely means "well, no one says it isn't, yet". https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-10-246 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-10-246 > Because GRAS notification is voluntary and companies are not required to identify nanomaterials in their GRAS substances, FDA has no way of knowing the full extent to which engineered nanomaterials have entered the U.S. food supply as part of GRAS substances. In contrast to FDA's approach, all food ingredients that incorporate engineered nanomaterials must be submitted to regulators in Canada and the European Union before they can be marketed.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Right. Effectively, it's innocent until found to be guilty. In the context of public health and environmental wellbeing, that's a way-more-risk-than-is-necessary way to approach their responsibilities. Great for profits. Nots so good for everyone and everything else.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Toothless? How about clueless then? Or better, favors Big Inc profits over public health. Call it what you want, but the FDA is too often a paper tiger.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  Only someone who has never worked under the FDAs eye of Sauron could think this, strong Dunning-Kruger vibe.
  - beedeebeedee 3y ago
    I'm sure they come hard when enforcing legislation, but the issue seems to be they are not proactive enough in investigating issues before legislation has been made.
  - chiefalchemist 3y ago
    Only someone who doesn't follow the news would think this. The FDA's (unofficial) motto is: Innocent until found guilty. They know. We know it. Big Inc knows it. That's a foolish - at best - way to approach public health and ecological health. Tho', of course, it's great for profits.
  - malfist 3y ago
    > strong Dunning-Kruger vibe Remember, personal attacks are not allowed here. One doesn't have to work for the FDA to realize that the prioritize profit over health in a lot of cases. Case in point is sunscreen. How many years did the FDA allow sunscreens that didn't protect against UV-A exposure, knowing that UV-A was the primary cause for sun damage related skin cancer. Even when they did decide to require protection against UV-A, the enforcement was delayed for several years, explicitly to not cause financial harm to sunscreen makers. I remember back in college, enforcement was delayed over a year to permit sellers to move through existing stock of sunscreen. This is far from the only example. FDA very much prioritizes protecting companies bottom lines.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      It's true though. The FDA almost certainly has at least a dozen folks much smarter than the user calling them 'clueless'. And all regulated organizations, in total, certainly have many hundreds much smarter responding to the FDA. It's very likely that at least a few thousand actual bonafide geniuses interact substantially, in some way, in any given year.
tootie 3y ago
John Oliver did a whole bit on the FDA recently. They are very stringent and professional, but massively underresourced for the amount of ground they have to cover. And they spend most of their resources on drugs and far less on food. https://youtu.be/Za45bT41sXg?si=LiW1DD4hGJAT5OOh https://youtu.be/Za45bT41sXg?si=LiW1DD4hGJAT5OOh

zug_zug 3y ago

Two points - 1. That's the current tolerable levels of xenoestrogen chemicals per agencies. However it's not clear whether there's a safe level of plastic ever established by these agencies. 2. These "Safe levels" are adjusted all the time. There no reason to presume that in the future the current safe levels won't be reduced.

agilob 3y ago

This is the canary of plastic pollution similar to we knew about global warming in '70s. We know it's only going to get worse, but we're happy to ignore it until it gets really bad.

Log_out_ 3y ago
I'm more worried about the output of life that is capable of devouring plastics being toxic becoming widespread?
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  I'm pretty ignorant of biology, but it would be wild if plastic consuming fungi/bacteria became widespread. Imagine all the plastic bits of your car getting "moldy" if you leave it outside too long.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. First, don't worry about it... Then, some is ok... Wait! Less than some is ok... Wait again!! Next to nothing is ok... Fuck!!! Avoid this shit at all costs.
- ajross 3y ago
  > These plastics are going to follow tobacco and alcohol. No. Demographics can show you with extremely small error bars the aggregate health effects of smoking and (heavy) drinking. If there was an effect of that magnitude from other variables, we'd know for sure. Microplastics and pthalates and other related contaminants are real, and deserve study. But let's not get ahead of ourselves with the doomerism. We surely don't know the whole story, but we know pretty well that the effect is less than smoking/obesity/etc. because it would be there in the data if so.
  - djbusby 3y ago
    That's like step #2 from above.

masto 3y ago

The highest amount in their list was 54 micrograms per serving. Most of them were under 5 µg. They seem to have just bundled everything together instead of listing specific amounts of specific chemicals, and chose to put the numbers in "nanograms per serving" to make them look as big as possible. I tried to look up the regulations, but whatever the value of EU regulations may be, readability and simplicity are not their strong points. Picking on DEHP because it's one CR mentions, I found these secondhand references: * https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/16th-amendment-to-eu-regulation-10-2011-on-plastic-fcms-now-in-force https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/16th-amendment-to-eu... * https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/efsa-updated-risk-assessment-of-five-phthalates https://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/efsa-updated-risk-as... The first says that the "specific migration limit" for DEHP had been lowered to 0.6 mg/kg. I assume that's the amount that ends up in the product. The second refers to Tolerable Daily Intake based on body weight, of 50 µg/kg. So we're talking about, in one measure, the limit being 600000 nanograms in a kilogram of food. The serving size of Annie's Original Organic Cheesy Ravioli is 242g. So the allowable amount of DEHP in that serving would be 2,479,338 nanograms. They found 53,579, or around 2% of the acceptable amount. Looking at it from TDI, Wikipedia gives a low bound on the average adult body weight of 60 kg. That's 3,000,000 nanograms, which brings it down to 1.8%. Consumer Reports has not been a reputable publication for many years, and they continue to trade on their name as many Americans at least have it in their head that CR is some kind of unbiased arbiter of quantitative information about what's good or not. What they actually do is clickbait to sell subscriptions. This became clear to me when I realized that any time they write about a product category I have a lot of experience with, their recommendations make no sense. Thinking that they actually provide useful information but only about the things I don't have the ability to fact-check them on is a form of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.

morsch 3y ago
2% isn't nothing. It's easy to get a bigger number: have a kid (30 kg) eat two servings -- hardly unrealistic -- and you're already at 8%. And that's not the only food they'll consume that day. German government research estimates that around 1% of the population consumes more than the TDI (according to another federal government press release from 2013[1]). According to that source, kids' exposition to DEHP is half from food, and half from other sources like toys and the overall environment, and the typical exposition is between 15-44 ug/kg (i.e. below the TDI). [1] https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2013/13/weichmacher_dehp_wird_hauptsaechlich_ueber_lebensmittel_aufgenommen-186791.html https://www.bfr.bund.de/de/presseinformation/2013/13/weichma...

dieterjakob 3y ago

In biotech circles, the FDA is actually renowned to be the tougher one of the two...