9 ms·
Poison, Poison Everywhere
- supportengineer 11mo agoThe trend of making these medical tests cheaper and easier to obtain is going to result in a lot of positive change. Certainly for individuals and hopefully the anonymized data helps get the spotlight on larger trends.
- lr4444lr 11mo agoThis is precisely why I happily pay for an annual subscription to ConsumerLab[0]. It's largely just for supplements and a few functional foods, but with a tiny staff they are doing more work to help the public on the unregulated medicine market than the entire FDA, IMHO. [0]https://www.consumerlab.com/ https://www.consumerlab.com/
- codybontecou 11mo agoWhat does a subscription to ConsumerLab provide you? Is in in-depth product-reviews? e.g. you are curious of a supplement, you check there first?
- lr4444lr 11mo agoIndependent lab testing for contaminants and actual active ingredient levels vs. what's stated. They also publish summaries of studies on the active ingredients that test the effectiveness against claimed therapeutic value. (It's depressing how few studies actually show benefit over placebo.)
- ch4s3 11mo ago> It's depressing how few studies actually show benefit over placebo Look at it another way, isn’t it good to know you probably don’t need suplements.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoAlso, not surprising. The odds of snake oil actually curing anything are likely to hover just above zero (while bad side effects hover much higher). If it isn't proven with multiple, independent studies, it is snake oil.
- ch4s3 11mo agoEven then, if the effect size is tiny it's little better. Almost every time I see some supplement that's supported by good studies the effect is always minuscule.
- com2kid 11mo agoShout out to examine.com, they also do a great job summarizing studies on supplements.
- modeless 11mo agoI also recently subscribed to ConsumerLab, and I'm glad I did. I wish they could test products more frequently as things are bound to change from batch to batch, but it's a whole lot better than nothing. I don't take a lot of supplements, but I won't buy even one without some form of third party testing.
- the__alchemist 11mo agoSubscribed. Thanks!
- freddie_mercury 11mo agoCongress are the ones who define what the FDA does. Blame them and the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Congress could easily tell the FDA to do something different.
- kragen 11mo agoBlaming people for a problem only helps if you have the power to take away their ability to cause the problem. In this case, the most effective way to keep Congress from causing you health problems by giving you misinformation about supplements would seem to be to get your information from a source that Congress doesn't control, such as ConsumerLab. Hopefully it's a better source than the FDA rather than a worse one; but, if not, maybe you can switch to a better one, or start one yourself.
- k9294 11mo agoAlso, a happy customer of the consumerlab. Highly recommend the product.
- NalNezumi 11mo agoLooks like something I'd love to support / become member in, but I wonder how many brands outside US the lab tests? Do they also test products available in Europe/Asia?
- kgwxd 11mo agoI don't see anything new here. How is it not just another "quality" seal that can be bought through some under-the-table deal?
- lr4444lr 11mo agoYou should read their methodology. For one, they are entirely subscriber supported. Secondly, they send out people to buy the product at random stores off the shelf, not solicit manufacturers to send possibly biased batches. Thirdly, manufacturers often write in to them when they receive bad reviews, urging a retest. (The back and forth of those letters gets published.) Sure, it could all be a hoax. But we don't have too many alternatives.
- PyWoody 11mo agoTechGearLab[0] is a great, free resource, too. I have never been done wrong by one of their reviews and I have been using them for years. [0] https://www.techgearlab.com/ https://www.techgearlab.com/
- torcete 11mo agoIf you have ever visited the ruins of Pompeii, you might have seen all the lead pipes that provided water to the city. I wonder how that affected the health of the citizens back then.
- arthurbrown 11mo agoMy understanding is that the high calcium content in their water supply formed a lining on the inside of the pipes which largely prevented any exposure.
- decimalenough 11mo agoThey doubled down on the exposure by adding lead to wine though. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6750289/#:~:text=The%20custom%20of%20sweetening%20and,%2C%20moreover%2C%20an%20agreeable%20flavour. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6750289/#:~:text=The%20custo...
- IAmBroom 11mo agoA bit of a reverse tax, that. The poor didn't drink adultered wine; they drank aqueduct water.
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoYeah, the water problems in Flint weren't the pipes directly, but that the water had changed so the lead was no longer protected from getting in the water.
- koliber 11mo agoLess than the volcano.
- IAmBroom 11mo agoThat's cherry picking. Most days the volcano didn't bother anyone...
- teddyh 11mo agoEmpowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680> The appropriate solution is legislation.
- DennisP 11mo agoMaybe so, but in the meantime I'll take all the empowerment I can get.
- walleeee 11mo ago> legislation Perhaps more generally phrased as governance Yes, the answer is not some business plan by which some can dodge disaster in an untrustworthy market, the answer is to recognize that this planet is a spaceship i.e. materially closed, and we are massively soiling the nest, microplastic is in steak because it's literally everywhere on the surface of the earth, etc. Therefore, good ecological governance is a requirement, as is the analysis, as a public service, of the resources and ecosystems, and the services they provide human beings and our dependents, i.e. a democratic and just policy, not a lucrative plan to privatize yet more of public health If one is convinced the best vehicle for the above in the near term is a business, then it had better have a different approach than is typical of personal health tech startups Empowering individuals isn't worthless by any means but pitting one against another with asymmetric information is worse than worthless
- lumost 11mo agoThe fundamental constraint the article alludes to is the powerlessness of consumer choice. You can’t make a better choice because you don’t have any better option. When there is a better option, you lack the tools to verify that the option is truly better vs scamming you to pay more for something which either doesn’t matter or is simply a lie. Prior to free trade, you could reasonably sue the manufacturers or distributors for egregious harms. You could also reasonably expect domestic regulatory authorities to intervene before these harms entered the market.* In principal, this could be done in a free trade system with counterparties who implement and enforce similar rules. But then you need all parties to agree on any new rules and enforcement mechanisms. You only need one bad actor to nuke the arrangement by growing without these burdens. * Assuming regulations and laws are equitably and incorruptibly enforced in the local government.
- klevertree1 11mo agoI'm tackling part of the issue of food toxin remediation with my new venture, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com). It's a modified oat fiber supplement that selectively traps BPA, PFAS, and plasticizers in the gut and reduces levels in the blood serum. The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and marketing. I've had to be very scrappy. Hopefully this will change in the future as we build momentum and awareness, but for right now it's tooth and nail.
- jonway 11mo agoI wish you luck!
- tomrod 11mo agoNot sure or the US programs are running, but check out SBIRs
- BugsJustFindMe 11mo ago> it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works In the US it doesn't matter. Just talk about the problem and pretend like it works. You'll be rich.
- hshdhdhehd 11mo agoGood luck. I'll order some if it works.
- krackers 11mo agoExcept now I have the problem of trusting that this new supplement isn't contaminated with anything, _and_ that the "microscopic pores" resulting from this "patented process" don't turn out to have some harmful effect in the body.
- cenamus 11mo agoI guess it would be sort of similar to activated charcoal? And that's surely well studied, and also "eaten"
- andy99 11mo agoThis reminds me a bit of a private group that did a big study (I thought in SFBA) looking at the amount of microplastics in different stuff, for example delivered food. Just thinking about it because of the startup he mentioned and I was wondering if it was them, but can’t find the article now. I know it was discussed at length here. Edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42525633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42525633
- foresto 11mo agoI was just going to ask if this was it... https://www.plasticlist.org/ https://www.plasticlist.org/ ...and then I saw your link. I'll leave this comment here for the convenience of others.
- jonstewart 11mo ago[flagged]
- DennisP 11mo agoSuggesting a connection to Nazi ideology just because someone wants to help people avoid toxins seems a bit over the top to me.
- jonstewart 11mo agoOh, I am not at all implying or insinuating this article is connected to populism, nationalism, etc., or advocating for them, nor mean to impugn the author through association. Lead is bad. PFAS and microplastics are bad. Glyphosate maybe is bad. I identify as a mild/moderate environmentalist (while also a mild/moderate yimby; I don’t see a necessary contradiction). But to be more explicit, I think there’s an undercurrent of Blood and Soil at work in the USA today, it’s seen a little bit explicitly in MAHA, and I’m worried, a lot, about the future political implications, where the real damage we’ve done to the environment becomes an excuse for… more bad things.
- luxuryballs 11mo agosounds like you accidentally consumed media poisoned with FUD and propaganda, having a federal department of health or food for your nation is nationalist, running it properly and keeping it away from corporate influence is anti-fascist, the modern day fascism is when corruption steers the health department away from serving the people’s health and instead locking it towards allowing “big pharma” to dictate regulations and review for their own benefit at the expense of the people’s taxes and health, the irony is watching the people trying to dismantle this fascism being called fascists
- jonstewart 11mo agoI did read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, it’s true.
- 11mo ago
- foofoo12 11mo ago> This was lead poisoning. ... Nobody knew. Good article. But just to note, lead was already a known poison at the time when it was added to gasoline. Significant concerns were raised. Production was even halted for a while in the US due to health incidents.
- ants_everywhere 11mo agoLead had been a known poison for nearly 2000 years when it was added to gasoline. The guy who owned the patent for leaded gasoline and who promoted its use even got lead poisoning himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
- jihadjihad 11mo ago> Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".
- davnicwil 11mo agoit's incredibly surprising to me that lead was added to gasoline specifically at all. I'd always assumed it was some expensive-to-remove byproduct of manufacture or something, so they left it in to save costs despite the risks. Why did this happen?
- SuperNinKenDo 11mo agoWhen I was a baby we lived virtually directly under the Sydney Harvour Bridge, I got lead poisoning as a result of runoff from the bridge. The combination of leaded petrol and leaded paint runoff poisoned the soil in playgrounds and the area more generally. My case and probably those of others lead to a huge cleanup of the bridge. My life has been absolutetly plagued with chronic health and "developmental" problems. Neurodivergence and other conditions litter my family tree, but they seem to effect me much more severely than they do most of my relatives. I often find myself wondering these days if my life would have featured significantly less hardship were it not for the lead poisoning.
- OgsyedIE 11mo agoEqually as large and interesting is the industry of targeting and subverting consumer watchdog groups. Wirecutter's infiltration and takeover is a fascinating example.
- kragen 11mo agoI was appalled to see that apparently Which? has a website funded by affiliate marketing links.
- hackeman300 11mo agoWhere can I read more about Wirecutter's infiltration? Disappointed to hear since I largely trusted their reviews
- xnx 11mo ago> Wirecutter's infiltration and takeover Where can I find details on this?
- Havoc 11mo agoOne of those things where it’s important to make a concerted effort to limit risk. …but then also to stop worrying after reasonable steps were taken because it’s an endless rabbit hole
- noduerme 11mo agoAmazon is so completely irresponsible for their marketplace that recently, shopping for a glass oral thermometer (because the digital ones suck) I stumbled on reviews with photos showing products that had no mercury inside and actual blobs of mercury stuck to the tip that goes in your mouth. These were still for sale. I feel like even 10 years ago, online marketplaces would have taken measures to prevent stuff like this. From that perspective, all of these services that rate products still place all the onus on the individual consumer. What would be really "luxury" in the modern context would be an online marketplace that vetted every product and whose primary product was trust, as opoosed to logistics and convenience. I'd much rather pay $150/yr for a service that vetted its products and took a week to deliver them, than to have a bunch of worthless or dangerous junk delivered the next day.
- hammock 11mo agoWhy are they even selling mercury thermometers for oral use when an alcohol one (the red liquid) does fine
- noduerme 11mo agoI wondered that as well, but they are. I've started to think there's an organized effort by a government with a lot of state-owned enterprises to actually dispose of toxic waste by shipping it to gullible American consumers. Not that it isn't also poisoning people there.
- stefs 11mo agowell, the chinese outsourced hog farms (pork production) to the U.S. because the farms are considered too toxic and environmentally destructive for them.
- mrob 11mo agoMercury has higher thermal conductivity than alcohol. The temperature reading stabilizes faster with mercury.
- Arainach 11mo ago>Only a business with this as its core competency is capable of the breadth and depth required for this Herculean task. It doesn't have to be a business, and it absolutely should not be. Preventing poisoning of people, animals, and the environment is something capitalism has proven utterly incapable of, and in fact (literally) violently opposed to. This is the kind of thing that needs to be done at the government level. The goal is societal benefit, not profit.
- pnathan 11mo agoThe solution here is the Government regulating and managing the situation. It has been recognized for a century - if not more - that the onus is on the State. The FDA, FTC, EPA, etc should be involved here.
- anon7000 11mo agoIt’s true. It’s also great that we have companies that want to do better. All it takes is a board & executive who don’t care for public good, but only for short term profit, and the entire mission of the company goes up in flames. And since profit is essentially the only thing that executives & boards are allowed to care about, it’s essentially inevitable unless the company founders stay laser focused on their mission, never take on arbitrary investors, and even consider PBCs. VC-backed companies in the tech space have an especially horrid track record on this stuff. I was reading about how cool Blueprint seems as a company, but couldn’t help thinking “at least until they get bought out or fucked by investors” Which is exactly why the government should be involved. Companies simply do not have incentives to protect humans in almost any way without the government stepping in. It’ll always be cheaper to fuck humans over, and always more expensive to do right by them.
- mr_johnson22 11mo agoIf the incentives of private business are what got us in this health crisis, why should private business be trusted to get us out of it?
- k9294 11mo agoIncentives. I use consumerlab because trust is their product, if they break their trust once - they will ruin their business. I inclined to trust the business which earns money from me - this means they are aligned with value I get and there is little incentive to break the trust and a high stakes to keep the trust when you get paid to be trustworthy. I trust more the greedy capitalists than politicians in this question because I don't understand incentives of the latter. At least the business model is fairly transparent - you can check the company and how it makes money, in reverse incentives of the governments and their officials is broken - to get elected, get rich, get power, not lose job and keep producing new laws and regulations because if you want to keep your job you can't say “Everything is working, the best thing I can do right now is to monitor the system, collect the data and do nothing for a few years”.
- IlikeKitties 11mo ago> All the exhaust fumes pooled and hung in the air there. And these were the 1970s: literally all the gasoline was leaded.1 This was lead poisoning. Over the years, the children were getting brain damage. And if you live in a city today it's only marginally better. Remember that everyone selfishly driving their car is choosing to poison you rather than dealing with public transport. They give you lung cancer from their exhaust and microplastics in the brain from their tires. And if that wasn't enough, year after year the cars get bigger and survivability for pedestrians in an accent, especially children becomes less likely the larger the car. The inconvenient truth is that car drivers are horrible humans causing harm to their direct environment they themselves have to life in but we as a society deem that totally a-ok. And the Road accidents every year? Necessary and unavoidable of course. But then the same people argue about gun control. The double-think is astounding.
- avidiax 11mo agoThe prisoner isn't a horrible human because he solves his dilemma by defecting.
- tasuki 11mo agoDisagreed. For me, I make a conscious attempt not to use a car unless it's actually warranted. I often go weeks without driving at all. Many people have the opposite approach: they take every possible opportunity to drive.
- pjc50 11mo agoNo, I'm fairly sure he is, and this is an important question for societies to inculcate in people.
- weregiraffe 11mo agoWhat's worse, damage from lead or damage from constant obsession about lead?
- garretraziel 11mo agoDamage from lead.
- lkuty 11mo agoThis raises the interesting point of finding a balance between knowing/searching and letting go when it comes to health. Lead is a major one but obession about health can lead to anxiety, stress. I think that finding the major factors that affect health is what matters (sunlight, sleep, walking, cooking with stainless steel, etc.) and letting go of all the minor details. This is an issue that has been close to my heart for years, and my perspective on it has changed over time. Anxiety can be a real problem.
- anal_reactor 11mo agoAt some point you're bound to reach the point of diminishing returns
- lccerina 11mo agoDamage from lead. The 'obsession' here is that the right level of lead in any product should be ZERO. There should be international pacts, like what was done for gases destroying the ozone layer, to remove lead entirely from products
- pjc50 11mo agoLead is actually dangerous. Arguably the panic from things which are .. much less well evidenced, shall we say, causes people to overlook the real problems.
- gurghet 11mo agoi live in Europe and the public discourse around this is always very high and i don't think we have 1/10 of the problems in the article, but maybe I'm lulu
- k9294 11mo agoI live in EU, and oh boy you are wrong. Same crap on the shelves, same crap on marketplaces, same supplements brands, etc etc (I live in Portugal).
- coppsilgold 11mo agoBloodletting is a solution. Donate blood as frequently as they allow you. Plasma donation works even better (higher frequency) if you trust the machines and the process. Sadly, it's not a complete solution as some harmful substances bio-accumulate in other tissues. A benefit may be had regardless as some substances leach back into the blood if the concentration gradient is sufficient.
- 4gotunameagain 11mo agoSource?
- M95D 11mo ago2 millennia of bloodletting medical practice. /s
- coppsilgold 11mo agoAside from the fact that dilution of blood is obviously dilution of any and all substances in the blood? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35394514/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35394514/
- kgabis 11mo ago<vampire typing comment above meme />
- missingdays 11mo agoWhat makes you think it's a solution? If the logic is "get rid of your bad blood, let your body make some good blood instead", why would the body make the good blood if all we consume is full of plastic anyways?
- coppsilgold 11mo agoEven by that logic you should still dilute your blood, because if you don't you will accumulate plastic faster... You will see a benefit for any and all harmful substances for which blood tests exist. Because the blood test implies blood levels being a proxy for the substance so it either accumulates there or leaches into it.
- rao-v 11mo agoThe reality is that poison is dose dependent, and we’ve mostly identified all the dangerous things and their doses. That lead in the bottle and the formaldehyde in your cheap clothes is bad … but not in a way that will detectably cause you harm or impair your life
- Cthulhu_ 11mo agoI'm pretty confident that thanks to us getting rid of a lot of stuff already (lead, etc), we're now more able to detect other stuff that is causing issues (like microplastics, although there was a lot less of that in the 70's)
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoThe problem is the supply chain is now so compromised by many little players that pop up, sell cheap stuff, vanish.
- tasuki 11mo agoDon't forget the poisons we've known for ages and yet overconsume: sugar, alcohol, ...
- jimnotgym 11mo ago>Is the furniture I sit in every day made with harmful substances? If I made you a chair out of wood and finished it with pure linseed oil, do you promise not to complain that it needs repainting regularly? If I make you a cushion out of horse hair and canvas, do you promise not to complain that it is uncomfortable and not flame retardant? Will you be ok that you can't wipe off stains like you could with your old one? The convenience of modern materials is what drives this, as much as the profit motive
- lccerina 11mo ago"This will be a big business" No. It shouldn't be a "business", it should be laws that are enforced fast, education, public shaming of companies putting poison in their products. Volatile Organic compounds in paint were known to be poisonous since 17th century (see Bernardino Ramazzini's works). Just listen to the goddamn scientists for once. You can't solve a problem caused by capitalism corner cutting with more capitalism.
- slhck 11mo agoThe Austrian consumer protection association has just released results on tests of headphones: https://vki.at/Presse/PA-Kopfhoerer-2025 https://vki.at/Presse/PA-Kopfhoerer-2025 (German article), and found that 40% contained possibly harmful chemicals, including the parts that touch your body. It's wild. I have children, and I spent a great time researching foods, bottles, toys, etc., but I would've never thought much about doubting the (big brand) consumer electronics that we all use every day.
- timr 11mo agoThat article is a classic example of a prevalent error in this line of commentary: indiscriminately taking a "possibly harmful chemical", translating it to a totally different context (say, touching it instead of eating it), and then assuming that any interaction with the chemical is therefore bad. The article specifically calls out pthalates and bisphenols (both common in plastics), but there's absolutely no reason to believe -- unless you're regularly eating your headphones -- that this is a problem.
- slhck 11mo agoTotally agree with you - the dermal exposure is a different pathway, and that could be more clearly mentioned. The fact that these materials are present are not automatically hazards (but they do state that!). I also wouldn't automatically assume that the products marked as red are not safe to use. For me it's just interesting to see that some manufacturers can do without, or less of those components.
- timr 11mo agoWell, plastics generally require plasticizers. The Bisphenol A kerfuffle has largely resulted in the use of different plasticizers, which has in turn caused the sort of people who are fearful of chemicals to expand their definitions of “harmful” to include those new chemicals. It’s a never-ending cycle, but the evidence never really gets any better.
- Amezarak 11mo ago
- 6510 11mo agoI'm no nutritional expert but from what I understand: If you look at traditional food people ate very different around the world but by some miracle all of those traditional diets cover all angles of nutrition. It seems to suggest that in the long run only cultures who eat a complete diet survive. You can of course survive for a really long time with all kinds of deficiencies but apparently time will catch up. How this happens I don't know but it isn't actually important. The point I wanted to make is that poison isn't even required. Unless you have experimental success after perhaps thousands of years of trial and error we would have to actively monitor and adjust everything with an iron fist. Specially this idea that anything goes unless harm is proven needs to go. There is an enormous amount of low hanging fruit but to do the entire job entirely will be a humongous undertaking.
- omgbear 11mo agoI wonder how much this is causing the worldwide swing toward authoritarianism. Lead exposure can cause lower conscientiousness, lower agreeableness, and higher neuroticism.[1] Especially considering the age of people who actually vote and who the politicians in power are (at least in the U.S.) [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8307752/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8307752/
- Thorrez 11mo agoIs lead exposure going up or down? I assume it's going down, because lead gasoline was banned, lead paint was banned, and the lead that was in the environment due to those 2 source is slowly being cleaned up. I at least assume lead exposure now is lower than when leaded gas was primarily used. In the US it started to be phased out in 1973 and finished in 1996.
- omgbear 11mo agoDown a lot now, but likely peaked in the 70s -- Kids growing up then are likely 50-60 which are the higher turnout voting brackets. There's a lagging effect from lead exposure, so it's difficult to pinpoint when those exposed would be most impacted. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-vote-and-how-do-voting-rates-vary-state/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-vote-and-ho...
- tim333 11mo agoGiven almost anything can do something bad to you I've got a rule of thumb not to worry much about things unless they can quantify how many years they take off your life. There are still quite a lot of those around - smoking, air pollution and obesity being some of the top ones that can do >10 years. I'm not to bad on smoking and air pollution but could lose a pound or two. I figure central London has dropped from a couple of years off to maybe a couple of months over the time I've been around here.
- benabbott 11mo agoClimate change seems to be a topic that's "OK" to be skeptical about because you can't see it right now, today, with your own eyes. I wonder if folks who aren't so keen on the idea of climate change would be more open to the idea of population-level poisoning? These two issues seem to get lumped in the same bucket but it does seem that population-level poisoning seems to be more of an acute threat. Lead, asbestos, microplastics, PFAs, pesticides... Who knows what these will do over generations, and there is certainly more chemical poisons we've introduced into our environment that we haven't even discovered.
- fpsvogel 11mo agoIn my experience, in the US, harmful chemicals in products are a lot more credible than climate change, to people who listen to the Right. An example that has been in the news: pregnant women taking Tylenol. For whatever reason, a “natural” lifestyle is more compatible with American conservative politics than an environmentally responsible lifestyle. I think the two can easily overlap, but the former would have to emphasized for it to get any traction with that audience. EDIT: Replace “for whatever reason” with “due to the influence of the fossil fuel industry”
- tokioyoyo 11mo agoI'm curious, how many more years do we need to get decent data points to have a controller experiment between "people who min/maxed their health" vs an average person? Life expectancy here in Tokyo is 81/87 years (for men/women), and if constant chase for the "peak health" results in the same average... I'm not sure if it's worth it other than the general 80/20 rule of suggestions?
- ahstilde 11mo agoI totally agree. I actually started Wyndly (https://www.wyndly.com/ https://www.wyndly.com/) because I realized I was poisoning myself with antihistamines every single day for my allergies. I did the research, and antihistamines are know to cause anxiety, depression, weight gain, and brain fog! I applied for YC. We got in! And now we're chipping away at this corner of human health: treating the root cause of allergies with protein exposure therapy (allergy immunotherapy) instead of covering up allergy symptoms with ineffective (and, it turns out, dangerous) antihistamines.
- antonchekhov 11mo agoA former coworker who was a serious gun enthusiast experienced dangerously high levels of lead in his bloodstream - he had chronic headaches and other bodily pains. He visited shooting ranges several times per week, and also packed (assembled? made? I'm not sure the nomenclature) his own bullets. His doctors believe he aspirated atomized lead particulate doing so much shooting practice, and/or bullet manufacture. He underwent chelation therapy (a protocol involving taking certain medications that bind to heavy metals in the blood, and the patient excretes it out via urination) to reduce lead levels.
- LorenPechtel 11mo agoThe risk would mostly be from the range, not the reloading. The problem is bullets are intended to scrape pretty hard against the barrel to get them spinning. That inevitably causes lead dust and indoor ranges can be pretty dangerous because of it.
- MetroWind 11mo agoThis is probably the most 1st world thing I've read this year.
- astrostl 11mo ago> In Germany, there’s a popular nonprofit which tests consumer goods for safety and publishes the results. In the USA too: https://www.consumerreports.org/about-us/what-we-do/ https://www.consumerreports.org/about-us/what-we-do/