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Nearly 500 years ago, Paracelsus wrote "All things are poisonous and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not poisonous". He was correct then

Nearly 500 years ago, Paracelsus wrote "All things are poisonous and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not poisonous". He was correct then and he is still correct today, but we stubbornly refuse to accept the first law of toxicology. Broiling, frying and baking makes food more toxic. There's absolutely no getting away from that fact. As soon as you apply high heat to a food, you're performing a poorly-controlled chemical synthesis that produces all sorts of toxic stuff - acrylamide, acrolein, heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, you name it. The risk isn't particularly high, but it's real. Most people have perfectly reasonably decided that they are willing to take that very modest risk in preference to exclusively eating raw foods. Some people aren't willing to take that risk and it is their right to do so, but anyone proposing a ban on the sale of cooked food on public health grounds would be rightly dismissed as a lunatic. The plastics that we use (within and without the food industry) aren't significantly toxic and they're incredibly useful. Without plastics, the food available to you would be more expensive and much less varied. A lot of work has gone into minimising the harms and maximising the benefits of plastics and other synthetic chemicals and that work continues. The villainisation of plastic is based on prejudice, not science. Some people have decided to hate or fear plastics and are trying to concoct an argument that they are devastatingly dangerous, but that effort has yielded little other than rumour and guilt-by-implication. Yes, we produce a lot of plastic, because it's very useful. Yes, some of that plastic does get into the environment and can in some cases bioaccumulate. Yes, some species of animals have been meaningfully harmed by plastics, primarily because they are unable to distinguish macroplastics from food and actively seek out and eat pieces of plastic that they then cannot digest. No, there is no evidence that the levels of microplastics or free plasticisers in the environment are significantly harmful to human health or ecosystem health, nor any plausible mechanism by which that could be true or become true in the foreseeable future. Plastics are not the next CO2 or the next tetraethyllead. They are far too well-studied to hold any significant surprises. Many, many researchers have spent their careers actively trying to prove that plastics are terrible (by fair means or foul), all to no avail.

Sammi 3y ago
The first half of this post was so refreshingly level headed. The second half was not. The First half argued plastics are useful yet they might be somewhat poisonous. The second half then suddenly insisted we cannot believe plastics are poisonous. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Apocryphon 3y ago
> Without plastics, the food available to you would be more expensive and much less varied. Maybe that's not so bad? The modern consumer has access to a wide variety of hyper-processed food that is nutritionally bad anyway, the microplastics are just the toxic sprinkles on top. > No, there is no evidence that the levels of microplastics or free plasticisers in the environment are significantly harmful to human health or ecosystem health, nor any plausible mechanism by which that could be true or become true in the foreseeable future. What about the xenoestrogens angle, the hypothesis that invasive microplastics are behind the drop in fertility?
denverllc 3y ago
> They are far too well-studied to hold any significant surprises This statement is absurd. The vast majority of research is (1) funded by industry, (2) focused on how plastic can be used in industry, and (3) not focused on biological aspects. The actual research on endocrine effects of plastics show it has a clear negative effect [0]. > EDCs are chemicals that disturb the body’s hormone systems and can cause cancer, diabetes, reproductive disorders, and neurological impairments of developing fetuses and children. The report describes a wealth of evidence supporting direct cause-and-effect links between the toxic chemical additives in plastics and specific health impacts to the endocrine system. [0] https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/plastics-pose-threat-to-human-health https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/p...
- jdietrich 3y ago
  That report is about plastic additives, not plastics themselves. Most of the chemicals named in the report for which there is evidence of actual harm have been banned, very heavily restricted or are in the process of being phased out in the EU. To reiterate my original comment, I trust the judgement of the EU regulators. I don't know enough about US regulators to comment. I don't know if that report is just scaremongering about known issues that have already been addressed, or if it's still relevant because the EPA and the FDA are asleep at the switch. It certainly doesn't scare me, because the concerns it raises are ancient history from where I'm sitting. If the US government allows companies to sell you products that contain harmful levels of known toxins, then I don't see how anyone could reasonably conclude that the real problem is that some of those known toxins happen to be added to plastics.
agilob 3y ago
> "All things are poisonous and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not poisonous". He was correct then and he is still correct today, but we stubbornly refuse to accept the first law of toxicology. So when is enough? Will it be 2100 when an avalanche of garbage floods a city?

Sammi 3y ago

The first half of this post was so refreshingly level headed. The second half was not. The First half argued plastics are useful yet they might be somewhat poisonous. The second half then suddenly insisted we cannot believe plastics are poisonous. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apocryphon 3y ago

> Without plastics, the food available to you would be more expensive and much less varied. Maybe that's not so bad? The modern consumer has access to a wide variety of hyper-processed food that is nutritionally bad anyway, the microplastics are just the toxic sprinkles on top. > No, there is no evidence that the levels of microplastics or free plasticisers in the environment are significantly harmful to human health or ecosystem health, nor any plausible mechanism by which that could be true or become true in the foreseeable future. What about the xenoestrogens angle, the hypothesis that invasive microplastics are behind the drop in fertility?

denverllc 3y ago

> They are far too well-studied to hold any significant surprises This statement is absurd. The vast majority of research is (1) funded by industry, (2) focused on how plastic can be used in industry, and (3) not focused on biological aspects. The actual research on endocrine effects of plastics show it has a clear negative effect [0]. > EDCs are chemicals that disturb the body’s hormone systems and can cause cancer, diabetes, reproductive disorders, and neurological impairments of developing fetuses and children. The report describes a wealth of evidence supporting direct cause-and-effect links between the toxic chemical additives in plastics and specific health impacts to the endocrine system. [0] https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/plastics-pose-threat-to-human-health https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/p...

jdietrich 3y ago
That report is about plastic additives, not plastics themselves. Most of the chemicals named in the report for which there is evidence of actual harm have been banned, very heavily restricted or are in the process of being phased out in the EU. To reiterate my original comment, I trust the judgement of the EU regulators. I don't know enough about US regulators to comment. I don't know if that report is just scaremongering about known issues that have already been addressed, or if it's still relevant because the EPA and the FDA are asleep at the switch. It certainly doesn't scare me, because the concerns it raises are ancient history from where I'm sitting. If the US government allows companies to sell you products that contain harmful levels of known toxins, then I don't see how anyone could reasonably conclude that the real problem is that some of those known toxins happen to be added to plastics.

agilob 3y ago

> "All things are poisonous and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not poisonous". He was correct then and he is still correct today, but we stubbornly refuse to accept the first law of toxicology. So when is enough? Will it be 2100 when an avalanche of garbage floods a city?