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> However, Cousins noted that PFAS levels in people have actually dropped "quite significantly in the last 20 years" and "ambient levels (of PFAS in the environ

> However, Cousins noted that PFAS levels in people have actually dropped "quite significantly in the last 20 years" and "ambient levels (of PFAS in the environment) have been the same for the past 20 years". > "What's changed is the guidelines. They've gone down millions of times since the early 2000s, because we've learned more about the toxicity of these substances." I think what's changed most is our standards. Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good. Extra points if you got to watch your kids grow up. Now the standard is basically "Every substance that can be demonstrated to have worse health outcomes than its absence is toxic" - which on a technical level is true, and might even be what you care about, but you also need take a bigger-picture perspective and weigh it against all the other risks of ordinary living you face.

lr1970 3y ago
> I think what's changed most is our standards. Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good With so many people deciding to go childless i am not so sure.
tomxor 3y ago
> I think what's changed most is our standards. PFAS didn't exist 75 years ago. Now we've almost permanently contaminated our environment and atmosphere with it, that's quite a big change.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I feel like that's taking the commenter's quote out of context, or at least missing the point. They aren't arguing that PFAS aren't everywhere, or even that they aren't harmful. They're arguing that, in the grand scheme of things, the harm produced by PFAS to humans is relatively inconsequential, especially when you consider all the improvements that technology, broadly, has brought to the human condition. To emphasize, I think that point is very debatable, but I don't know enough about the real harms of PFAS to comment. But I do think it's valid to have a substantive debate on the true harms of PFAS, even if the other side of that debate is that comparing ourselves now to a time when the majority of kids died is the wrong yardstick.
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    I went and did some research, and have a friend who's a material scientist. The harms of PFAS are pretty substantial. Teflon is nasty; if you can do without it in your cookware, you probably should. However, statistically the things that are most likely to prevent you from passing on your genes are: 1. Not making enough money. 2. Anxiety/depression 3. Drug overdoses 4. Car accidents 5. An unhappy family life 6. Swimming pools And on that list of offspring averted, PFAS basically don't register. You are much better off making sure you get into a good career, talking to your kids about drugs, being very careful when you drive, and otherwise not sweating the small things than obsessing about forever-chemicals in the atmosphere.
    - timeon 3y ago
      > being very careful when you drive That helps, but there are more participants in traffic than just you.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      What is remarkable here is that every single thing you say is correct. Everything on your statistical list looks right, and can probably be proven by a stack of peer-reviewed scientific studies from medicine, sociology, psychology... And yet as an argument, it's worthless. Worse... it's dangerous. Because in your schema, the impact of climate change, pollution and other threats that will end this species each rank as zero! You get to "pass on your genes" merely to consign a few hundred of your descendents to a miserable death. This is the tyranny of instrumental reason that you so cleverly use against the goal (reproduction of genes) that you purport to champion.
      - Geisterde 3y ago
        1, 2, 5 is my best guess.
      - PeterisP 3y ago
        Wait, neither climate change nor pollution are in the category of threats that are expected to literally end this species.
- pookha 3y ago
  I'll go out on a limb and say that 99% of the people buying "Glide" dental floss at COSTCO have NO IDEA that they're coated in toxins (PFAS) and if they pick up a gargantium bag of Cheerios for their kids they also probably aren't aware that those too are coated in Chlormequat chloride. Modern living.
  - wodenokoto 3y ago
    > Cheerios for their kids they also probably aren't aware that those too are coated in Chlormequat chloride. From Wikipedia: > Chlormequat has not previously been registered for use on food crops in the United States. In April 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed allowing the use of the chemical on food crops such as barley, oat, triticale, and wheat. The EPA’s human health risk assessment indicated "no dietary, residential, or aggregate (i.e., combined dietary and residential exposures) risks of concern." No risks were identified by EPA to aquatic species of invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants in addition to terrestrial plants. So probably not coated in it.
    - demondemidi 3y ago
      I don’t know about you but that doesn’t make me feel any better.
      - doo_daa 3y ago
        This might make you feel better... https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pesticide-in-oat-products-should-you-worry/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pesticide-in-oat-products-s... ... unless you regularly eat more than 85,000 tons of oats.
        demondemidi 3y ago
        > unless you regularly eat more than 85,000 tons of oats. Between muesli in the summer and oatmeal in the winter I'm averaging close to that, but I exercise a lot so I got that going for me.
    - 3y ago
theGnuMe 3y ago
Cause I really need my water to be non-stick.
- dylan604 3y ago
  I feel like we’ve missed a branding opportunity in the bottled water scene with this one. “Non-stick water” can be listed right next to the “Glutton Free” on the label
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good. Extra points if you got to watch your kids grow up. " I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah." [0] WTAF is it with this "noble savage" glorification of mythical past miseries as a way to avoid thinking about how massively we've screwed up as a civilisation? That sort of response is a "Don't look up" level of avoidance and rationalising. [0] https://python.mzonline.com/sketches/wewerepoor/ https://python.mzonline.com/sketches/wewerepoor/
- stuartjohnson12 3y ago
  I actually think this is the opposite of noble savage imagery, and that's actually what you're doing. They're not saying things were better in the past when technology was more primative, you're the one saying that the past was better and that getting to where we are now how we have is "screwing up" something (presumably a good thing that existed in the past that is no longer present).
  - r3d0c 3y ago
    lol that's definitely not what he's doing, way to miss the point unless you're actually arguing for toxic chemicals in the water that didn't exist more than 60 years ago
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      > way to miss the point All of those commenters deconstructing my clumsy use of "Noble Savage" (I admit it's not quite the right thing) - are indeed (maybe wilfully) missing the point. A better expression might be the "Parochialism of the present". But that doesn't quite get to it. Nor even Thomas Hobbes' flowery and overblown conceit of past life as "Nasty, brutish and short". It's about a phenomenon of lionising a one dimensional idea of "progress" in a patently self-deceiving way.
heresie-dabord 3y ago
This is at best an incomplete, complacent position to take. Homo plasticus has polluted the atmosphere and oceans, exploited topsoil and groundwater to the point of long-term destruction, and made polymers part of the global food supply. [1,2,4] > Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good. Used to be. And if you were lucky, you lived in a stable democracy instead of any one of the variants of violent dictatorship. Fertility levels are in steep decline. Today's children will grow to adulthood in a world abused to the point of global disaster. [3] Things have changed for the worse in ways that our species has never before faced. = = = [1]_ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-microplastics-are-found-in-fresh-antarctic-snow-180980264/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-micropl... , https://www.theseacleaners.org/news/microplastics-in-human-blood-and-lungs-the-urgent-need-for-scientific-research/ https://www.theseacleaners.org/news/microplastics-in-human-b... [2]_ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2023/06/16/humans-are-pumping-so-much-water-out-of-the-ground-that-earths-tilt-is-changing/?sh=2ddb1b305ce2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2023/06/16/humans-... [3]_ https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is... [4]_ https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462 https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  > Things have changed for the worse in ways that our species has never before faced. This question of "facing things" is what bothers me. Sure, science and technology is difficult and has awful side effects. Progress is a complex vector, and it isn't easy to have 'purpose' (telos) see where we should be going. But what I see here every day is very intelligent, witty, well read people ... using their intelligence against themselves. The extraordinary intellectual acrobatics of denial and apologetics just makes me weep. And so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument.
  - dirtyhippiefree 3y ago
    >so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument. Fear of the unknown is an impetus for herd mentality. Hopefully your comment ceases to be gray…
Hugsun 3y ago
It's true but other risks are usually discrete. PFAS exposure continously decreases your health while driving a car has no effect on your health until you get into an accident. The risk calculation feels different in those cases.
- theGnuMe 3y ago
  Cars impact your health if you would have otherwise used some form of self propelled transportation (i.e. walking).
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Lots of deliberately-missing-the-point by crusaders posting to your point, @nostrademons. Yes it's bad there's plastic in rainwater, they bang on about that like they've thought of something you missed. But I agree we live with so many other risks, there may conceivably be better windmills to tilt. Heart disease dominates the US health problems. Maybe we could do something about food in America. Something we can actually do something about, with a measurable improvement in living. And so on.
- theGnuMe 3y ago
  PFAS, plastics etc.. are all related to food in America.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Sure; but not related to health in the same way as the egregious use of fats and sugar. Start with first-order causes of health issues, then when that's dealt with move on to second-order and so on.
dogman144 3y ago
I mean, are you arguing this is somehow a bad development? “Sorry kid, but at least your dad got to see you ride your first bike, chalk that up to win, used to be much worse! You know, DuPont and 3M can’t give ground all the time.” It is very hard to read about the cancer clusters in WV/OH around the heavy PFAS sites and not feel some extreme disgust at how bad it got and feel thankful that this is getting significant attention.
unmole 3y ago
This comment is known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive harm.

lr1970 3y ago

> I think what's changed most is our standards. Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good With so many people deciding to go childless i am not so sure.

tomxor 3y ago

> I think what's changed most is our standards. PFAS didn't exist 75 years ago. Now we've almost permanently contaminated our environment and atmosphere with it, that's quite a big change.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I feel like that's taking the commenter's quote out of context, or at least missing the point. They aren't arguing that PFAS aren't everywhere, or even that they aren't harmful. They're arguing that, in the grand scheme of things, the harm produced by PFAS to humans is relatively inconsequential, especially when you consider all the improvements that technology, broadly, has brought to the human condition. To emphasize, I think that point is very debatable, but I don't know enough about the real harms of PFAS to comment. But I do think it's valid to have a substantive debate on the true harms of PFAS, even if the other side of that debate is that comparing ourselves now to a time when the majority of kids died is the wrong yardstick.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  I went and did some research, and have a friend who's a material scientist. The harms of PFAS are pretty substantial. Teflon is nasty; if you can do without it in your cookware, you probably should. However, statistically the things that are most likely to prevent you from passing on your genes are: 1. Not making enough money. 2. Anxiety/depression 3. Drug overdoses 4. Car accidents 5. An unhappy family life 6. Swimming pools And on that list of offspring averted, PFAS basically don't register. You are much better off making sure you get into a good career, talking to your kids about drugs, being very careful when you drive, and otherwise not sweating the small things than obsessing about forever-chemicals in the atmosphere.
  - timeon 3y ago
    > being very careful when you drive That helps, but there are more participants in traffic than just you.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    What is remarkable here is that every single thing you say is correct. Everything on your statistical list looks right, and can probably be proven by a stack of peer-reviewed scientific studies from medicine, sociology, psychology... And yet as an argument, it's worthless. Worse... it's dangerous. Because in your schema, the impact of climate change, pollution and other threats that will end this species each rank as zero! You get to "pass on your genes" merely to consign a few hundred of your descendents to a miserable death. This is the tyranny of instrumental reason that you so cleverly use against the goal (reproduction of genes) that you purport to champion.
    - Geisterde 3y ago
      1, 2, 5 is my best guess.
    - PeterisP 3y ago
      Wait, neither climate change nor pollution are in the category of threats that are expected to literally end this species.
pookha 3y ago
I'll go out on a limb and say that 99% of the people buying "Glide" dental floss at COSTCO have NO IDEA that they're coated in toxins (PFAS) and if they pick up a gargantium bag of Cheerios for their kids they also probably aren't aware that those too are coated in Chlormequat chloride. Modern living.
- wodenokoto 3y ago
  > Cheerios for their kids they also probably aren't aware that those too are coated in Chlormequat chloride. From Wikipedia: > Chlormequat has not previously been registered for use on food crops in the United States. In April 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed allowing the use of the chemical on food crops such as barley, oat, triticale, and wheat. The EPA’s human health risk assessment indicated "no dietary, residential, or aggregate (i.e., combined dietary and residential exposures) risks of concern." No risks were identified by EPA to aquatic species of invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants in addition to terrestrial plants. So probably not coated in it.
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    I don’t know about you but that doesn’t make me feel any better.
    - doo_daa 3y ago
      This might make you feel better... https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pesticide-in-oat-products-should-you-worry/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pesticide-in-oat-products-s... ... unless you regularly eat more than 85,000 tons of oats.
      - demondemidi 3y ago
        > unless you regularly eat more than 85,000 tons of oats. Between muesli in the summer and oatmeal in the winter I'm averaging close to that, but I exercise a lot so I got that going for me.
  - 3y ago

theGnuMe 3y ago

Cause I really need my water to be non-stick.

dylan604 3y ago
I feel like we’ve missed a branding opportunity in the bottled water scene with this one. “Non-stick water” can be listed right next to the “Glutton Free” on the label

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good. Extra points if you got to watch your kids grow up. " I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah." [0] WTAF is it with this "noble savage" glorification of mythical past miseries as a way to avoid thinking about how massively we've screwed up as a civilisation? That sort of response is a "Don't look up" level of avoidance and rationalising. [0] https://python.mzonline.com/sketches/wewerepoor/ https://python.mzonline.com/sketches/wewerepoor/

stuartjohnson12 3y ago
I actually think this is the opposite of noble savage imagery, and that's actually what you're doing. They're not saying things were better in the past when technology was more primative, you're the one saying that the past was better and that getting to where we are now how we have is "screwing up" something (presumably a good thing that existed in the past that is no longer present).
- r3d0c 3y ago
  lol that's definitely not what he's doing, way to miss the point unless you're actually arguing for toxic chemicals in the water that didn't exist more than 60 years ago
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > way to miss the point All of those commenters deconstructing my clumsy use of "Noble Savage" (I admit it's not quite the right thing) - are indeed (maybe wilfully) missing the point. A better expression might be the "Parochialism of the present". But that doesn't quite get to it. Nor even Thomas Hobbes' flowery and overblown conceit of past life as "Nasty, brutish and short". It's about a phenomenon of lionising a one dimensional idea of "progress" in a patently self-deceiving way.

heresie-dabord 3y ago

This is at best an incomplete, complacent position to take. Homo plasticus has polluted the atmosphere and oceans, exploited topsoil and groundwater to the point of long-term destruction, and made polymers part of the global food supply. [1,2,4] > Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good. Used to be. And if you were lucky, you lived in a stable democracy instead of any one of the variants of violent dictatorship. Fertility levels are in steep decline. Today's children will grow to adulthood in a world abused to the point of global disaster. [3] Things have changed for the worse in ways that our species has never before faced. = = = [1]_ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-microplastics-are-found-in-fresh-antarctic-snow-180980264/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-micropl... , https://www.theseacleaners.org/news/microplastics-in-human-blood-and-lungs-the-urgent-need-for-scientific-research/ https://www.theseacleaners.org/news/microplastics-in-human-b... [2]_ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2023/06/16/humans-are-pumping-so-much-water-out-of-the-ground-that-earths-tilt-is-changing/?sh=2ddb1b305ce2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2023/06/16/humans-... [3]_ https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is... [4]_ https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462 https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462

nonrandomstring 3y ago
> Things have changed for the worse in ways that our species has never before faced. This question of "facing things" is what bothers me. Sure, science and technology is difficult and has awful side effects. Progress is a complex vector, and it isn't easy to have 'purpose' (telos) see where we should be going. But what I see here every day is very intelligent, witty, well read people ... using their intelligence against themselves. The extraordinary intellectual acrobatics of denial and apologetics just makes me weep. And so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument.
- dirtyhippiefree 3y ago
  >so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument. Fear of the unknown is an impetus for herd mentality. Hopefully your comment ceases to be gray…

Hugsun 3y ago

It's true but other risks are usually discrete. PFAS exposure continously decreases your health while driving a car has no effect on your health until you get into an accident. The risk calculation feels different in those cases.

theGnuMe 3y ago
Cars impact your health if you would have otherwise used some form of self propelled transportation (i.e. walking).

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

Lots of deliberately-missing-the-point by crusaders posting to your point, @nostrademons. Yes it's bad there's plastic in rainwater, they bang on about that like they've thought of something you missed. But I agree we live with so many other risks, there may conceivably be better windmills to tilt. Heart disease dominates the US health problems. Maybe we could do something about food in America. Something we can actually do something about, with a measurable improvement in living. And so on.

theGnuMe 3y ago
PFAS, plastics etc.. are all related to food in America.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Sure; but not related to health in the same way as the egregious use of fats and sugar. Start with first-order causes of health issues, then when that's dealt with move on to second-order and so on.

dogman144 3y ago

I mean, are you arguing this is somehow a bad development? “Sorry kid, but at least your dad got to see you ride your first bike, chalk that up to win, used to be much worse! You know, DuPont and 3M can’t give ground all the time.” It is very hard to read about the cancer clusters in WV/OH around the heavy PFAS sites and not feel some extreme disgust at how bad it got and feel thankful that this is getting significant attention.

unmole 3y ago

This comment is known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive harm.