11 ms·

Toxins That Threaten Our Brains

131 points by akbarnama 12y ago

sizzle 12y ago
Thanks for sharing, this reminded me of an article[1] in a similar vein. Excerpt: "Today, a novel class of illnesses is on the rise, and neither theory sufficiently explains it. TILT shows how a person can have a toxic exposure and never recover. Exposures trigger a bewildering array of symptoms that many people never trace back to synthetic chemicals in their daily life. They may experience cardiac and neurological abnormalities, headaches, flu-like symptoms, bladder dysfunction, asthma, depression, anxiety, pain, cognitive dysfunction, and sleep disorders" [1]: http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/is-the-world-making-you-sick http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/is-the-world-making-you...
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago
  You don't actually believe that pseudo science bullshit, do you? Please tell me you jest / troll. That article / interview is just full of half-assed science and made up bullshit.
  - sizzle 12y ago
    From the nautilus article: She calls her theory “TILT,” short for Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance. TILT posits that a surprising range of today’s most common chronic conditions are linked to daily exposure to very low doses of synthetic chemicals that have been in mass production since World War II. These include organophosphate pesticides, flame-retardants, formaldehyde, benzene, and tens of thousands of other chemicals." Given this is HN, I would like to believe that you understand what a 'theory' is. I found that it was an interesting theory and nicely parallels with the article from the OP. Whether I believe the theory or not is irrelevant. I'm sharing knowledge cause it's fascinating.
    - BinaryIdiot 12y ago
      It's not sharing knowledge it's spreading "theories" that are well known to be incorrect. Spreading pseudo science, regardless of how much you believe in it, is not a good thing. These people are great at constructing a narrative that everyone would love to believe. Wouldn't it be great if this single thing was the cause of ALL of these aliments? Unfortunately life doesn't work that way but our minds are great at drawing invalid correlations.
      - sizzle 12y ago
        take your pick: knowl·edge ˈnälij ; noun 1.facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. 2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. "the program had been developed without his knowledge" synonyms: awareness, consciousness, realization, cognition, apprehension, perception, appreciation Prove the article wrong if you are so compelled to do so. Part of the reason I share things on HN is for the discussion it creates, which expands my knowledge so I can form educated opinions. I appreciate this aspect of HN, it's why I keep coming back so please, inform me with some links, resources, or research and relieve my of my pseudo-scientific ignorance or stop telling me I'm wrong.
    - vertex-four 12y ago
      The term you're looking for is a hypothesis, not a theory, as far as I can tell, because you've provided no evidence that it is correct by way of double-blind studies, and I am struggling to find anything at all of this "Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance" past "we looked at some graphs and came up with an explanation after the fact". Statistics can be used to explain anything, the trick to avoiding the issue is to come up with the explanation and an independent experiment first. Science doesn't operate on a basis of "I'll make stuff up and make people prove me wrong". A hypothesis is worthless on its own, and is decidedly not knowledge.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Comments written in this tone have the fun property of being even more toxic when they're correct, which I'll stipulate that you are. They have a high valence, because people recognize and relate to the underlying correct argument even though it's hidden behind a cloud of snark. The force they exert realigns the thread towards meanness. And, obviously, they're embarrassing for the correct side of the debate, which has been caricatured. Please, please don't write like this here.
BinaryIdiot 12y ago
Oh good an article about complete bullshit. I haven't read enough bullshit lately. Edit: Oh good the pseudo science crew is here to downvote me. Good lord people read the article; you can tell by the opening paragraph it's complete bullshit. Look at the studies they reference and how shitty their controls are. Good god people try being skeptical for once. Edit2: Today I learned Hacker News is a great venue for spreading pseudo science and quackery. That kinda makes me sad.
- _delirium 12y ago
  > Today I learned Hacker News is a great venue for spreading pseudo science and quackery. On non-programming topics that's always been the case. HN is full of programmers who are not knowledgeable in science, and tend to trust their personal political or cultural beliefs on other subjects where science might be applied. Today's frontpage is actually great because it contains an example of that with both political valences. There's a "left-ish" pseudoscientific story about toxins, and "right-ish" pseudoscientific story about evolutionary psychology. Amazing. We're only missing a thread on weightlifting or nutritional fads to complete the bingo card.
  - pedalpete 12y ago
    I've often found quite the opposite. I've been amazed at how knowledgeable HNers are about random and obscure science and medicine.
    - gus_massa 12y ago
      It's more complicated. For each obscure subject, there are one or two users that are experts or at least have enough knowledge. The problem is that there is a big amount of enthusiastic, that are exited about the new possible result and forget to see that it's almost sure a incorrect result. In some threads the enthusiastic user overhead the experts. A typical subject (without political interest) is faster than light travel. Or in other words: http://xkcd.com/955/ http://xkcd.com/955/
  - ZenoArrow 12y ago
grannyg00se 12y ago
Dow knowingly spreads poison, pays a fine, withdraws a product from household use, and that product continues to be used in farming? I had to stop reading.
- tomphoolery 12y ago
  I mean, it's the same company that made agent orange... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange (in case anyone isn't aware) Along with everyone's best friend, Monsanto! Lying to the masses to make some profit off of poison you peddle is kinda part of Dow's "DNA" as a company...
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Let's not stop there, it's the same country that made agent orange!
- srean 12y ago
  ...And greenwash them away by grandiose ad campaigns such as "human element" where they portray themselves as a part of the (humanitarian) solution to potable water. If they really cared a tiddly bit about devastating human costs caused by their wholly owned subsidiaries, they would have at least spent a miniscule fraction of what they spend on such ad campaigns to actually clean up their mess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster The particular example I have in mind is the Bhopal disaster, and contamination of Bhopal's groundwater caused by the same company but prior to the disaster. Notably they dont shy away from claiming any of the assets of their wholly owned subsidiary Union Carbide, but none of their liabilities. 20,000 have died because of these causes, more have been disabled beyond the capacity to earn livelihood wages, but they do zilch about it. Well, not quite correct, they spend billions in ad campaigns, sponsor olympics and get a free pass. While Chernobyl rules the roost in western media as a prominent example of an industrial disaster (fits the narrative of "look how bad Russian technology is" very nicely) few if at all recall Bhopal although it is a tragedy of as epic proportions, I would argue that its (official) human cost was more. I have not started on Nemagon or dioxins.
microcolonel 12y ago
Could be safe in agricultural use even if it wasn't safe enough in household use. Best not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cheap food with /almost no/ risk of developing a condition or losing functions of the body is better than expensive food with a marginal reduction in risk. Even if we were "missing out on" 41,000,000 IQ points(this alone sounds arbitrary and unprovable) in the U.S., that would be 0.2 IQ points roughly per person... I'm not even sure that's statistically significant by any definition. Then again, maybe I'm just dead wrong about that and I need to shut up and hop on the hysteria bandwagon. I certainly don't like that Dow conspired to suppress completed research, although it is also abhorrible that people gave in to that pressure, probably through paltry bribes.
- jaekwon 12y ago
  > Could be safe in agricultural use Didn't we find that some pesticide(s) is/are (partially) responsible for bee colony collapse disorder?
  - Houshalter 12y ago
    I don't think so, since many of the pesticides being blamed have been in use long before CCD appeared.
    - jonnathanson 12y ago
      Neonicotinoids, the class of chemical pesticides most commonly blamed for CCD, were introduced into widespread use around the time CCD appeared. I don't think anybody has definitely proven causation (and see the various posts, even today, about problems in deriving causation from correlation). But there appears to be neurobiological evidence for some link between the way the pesticides work and the way bees behave. As far as likely suspects for the cause of CCD go, it's high on the list.
  - kaitai 12y ago
    Yes, neonicotinoids are implicated. They are certainly not the only factor, as your (partially) points out, but the evidence seems to indicate that they weaken bees in ways that interact with mites and climate stresses to lead to colony collapse.
scythe 12y ago
Hm. I'm only going to talk about fluoride, because it's the easiest to pick on: yes, China does have dangerously high levels of fluoride in groundwater in some areas. Those levels are much higher than the levels added to water in Western countries, and, in fact, Western countries already implement policies to limit the concentration of fluoride that makes it into drinking water (so in, e.g., Colorado Springs, fluoride is removed): http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104912/ http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104912/ >Opportunities for epidemiological studies depend on the existence of comparable population groups exposed to different levels of fluoride from drinking water. Such circumstances are difficult to find in many industrialized countries, because fluoride concentrations in community water are usually no higher than 1 mg/L, even when fluoride is added to water supplies as a public health measure to reduce tooth decay. [emphasis added] Additionally, as even this week's Chicken Little proclaims: > “Not at all,” Landrigan said. “I think it’s very good to have in toothpaste.” --- of course! Do you really think that nobody studied the addition of fluoride to toothpaste when it was first adopted? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD002278/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD002278... > "Seventy-four studies were included." The end. Fluoride is not a routine risk to neural health in developed countries.
- judk 12y ago
  Not saying that fluoride is necessarily bad, but brushing and spitting toothpaste is different from drinking gallons of fluoridated water each week.
  - eqdw 12y ago
    That statement is meaningless unless you know how much fluoride is in the water
SAI_Peregrinus 12y ago
The problem with many of these is that, as in everything else, the dose makes the poison. Fluoride is a perfect example: too little and your bones are weak & tooth decay sets in easily, too much and you get fluoridosis. Just the right amount (which is a reasonably large range) and you're healthy. Maganese is the same, it's an essential trace nutrient for pretty much all living things, and you'll die without it, but too much will kill you. The most dangerous agricultural pesticides are the neonicotinoids, and they're used in organic farming. They tend to decay quickly, so if the food is properly managed and they're not applied too late they won't be found in the food. Now, not everything that is dangerous is necessary. There's no benefit from eating mercury, for example, but there are always safe exposure levels. Some compounds bio-accumulate, so the safe exposure levels have to be set for a lifetime. Most organic mercury compounds are of this sort, and due to their extreme toxicity the safe exposure levels are very low.
- vixin 12y ago
  I think you mean 'subject to further studies, we think that .... x and y levels of these substances are safe'.
- platz 12y ago
  I think lead is especially nasty in that even small doses have been shown to have proportionately damaging effects.
- dools 12y ago
  Which organic certification are you referring to which allows the use of neonicotinoids? Looking through the Australian ones it doesn't appear any of them would allow the use of neonicotinoids[1] but I have the feeling I don't know enough about it to say so conclusively ... [1]http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/about/contact/aco http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/about/contact/aco
  - VLM 12y ago
    Doesn't appear to be allowed per USDA regs either. Eventually we're going to pinpoint OP by a process of elimination. http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7 http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f10... If that fails, for a negative perspective, go to eCFR, chapter 7 Ag, part 205 USDA organic program, 205.602 "Nonsynthetic substances prohibited for use in organic crop production" lists (i) Tobacco dust (nicotine sulfate). Which is probably close enough to OPs claim. Or for a positive perspective 205.601 "Synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production" section (e) "As insecticides (including acaricides or mite control)" and that lists 10 allowable bug killers none of which seem to be neonicotinoids. By negative and positive I don't mean some electrical thing but words like "can if you want" vs "no you will not". Either way (edited: Both ways...) no nicotinoids on USDA labeled produce in the USA. State regs are only allowed to be stricter than fed. So "Thats OK in California but not Wisconsin" is outright a non-starter if its already forbidden by USDA. Now if you mean in practice, like if a chemist ran tests on randomly purchased organic produce in the USA, I'd say hell yes you'll find it in organic produce. There's like 50 layers of middlemen and shippers in the food industry, you have a personal relationship with none of them (I buy beef from a family friend and bought vegetables from a great uncle who retired into being a gentleman farmer, that's "different" than driving to a local food store), and all of them have a huge financial interest in taking visually identical apples from "Chemical McWasteland's Industrial Farm" and putting them in boxes from "Sunshine Unicorn Organic Farm". How many layers of middlemen would make about a buck a pound or more by merely accidentally selling non-organic food as organic? And how corrupt is this country? In practice the primary effect of buying and eating organic produce is almost certainly feeling better while making corrupt individuals wealthier, even if theoretically health benefits could be available from organic produce. So the TLDR is legally wrong in the USA at the fed level both by being specifically forbidden AND by not listed as permitted, yet is also probably right that if you buy an "organic" apple at a convenience store, it probably isn't due to corruption.
jamesash 12y ago
A long but very shallow article. - interviewed authors of paper that used the phrase, "silent pandemic" when claiming widespread behavioural and cognitive problems as a result of 12 compounds. Evidence presented in the article itself? "Rates of diagnosis of [autism] and ADHD are increasing..." [diagnosis is not necessarily preponderance], an increase in "subclinical decrements in brain function" [as measured how?] , and "genetic factors account for no more than 30-40% of brain development disorders" [based on what exactly?] From this thin stuff the authors then get plenty of column space to expound on their opinions. Re: the IQ experiments. If Bellinger's own lead-IQ model is correct [from the linked Environ Health Perspect. Jul 2005; 113(7): 894–89] , a decrease in blood lead concentration from >10 ug/kg [1970's] to 1.8 ug/kg [2009] should have resulted in 3 point increase in IQ scores. Where's any discussion of this? - FMRI reveals effects of methyl mercury in 3 [?] adolescents. How can you possibly determine loss of IQ points due to methyl mercury exposure on this set while controlling for other factors? Talk about small sample size. -The article asks, "Impressive as all this research investment is, the larger question remains: Why are we looking at these hazards now—instead of before we introduced these chemicals into the world?" 80k chemicals mentioned as being on "the market" although what this means isn't specified. "It would cost $5 million and 5 years per chemical to run the full battery of tests" according to quoted researcher. 400 billion dollars if done on the full set. 1) Who pays? 2) Why would any chemical company have a research presence in the USA if their product had a several year lead time for rollout due to testing requirements?
- SeanDav 12y ago
  So all you have done is try to shoot down the article, without attempting to replace it with any concrete suggestions of your own. Every argument has flaws and costs but you seem to be aiming at "do nothing" or nothing that will scare away the profits and technology, health cost be damned.
- ern 12y ago
  If Bellinger's own lead-IQ model is correct...decrease in blood lead concentration..should have resulted in a 3 point increase in IQ scores This is an interesting point. I haven't seen an explanation for the Flynn Effect continuing as blood lead levels rose through the 20th century. If IQ levels would have risen faster without lead then the increases should have been even more substantial since lead levels dropped.
msane 12y ago
The Atlantic has great brand capital, which for some reason doesn't erode much when they regularly print sensational clickbait like this, or do things like print PR stories for the Church of Scientology (http://archive.today/vca4i http://archive.today/vca4i). I'd take this article and most of what they print with a grain of salt.
jqm 12y ago
This article rambled and jumped around and was too sensationalistic for my taste. Not that it didn't contain some good points but it was unduly alarmist in tone and kept lumping all chemicals in one class. Lead is a different case from fluoride is a different case from agricultural pesticides (themselves many different classes of compounds...some more harmful than others). Certainly there are toxins in our environment and this is an issue. Well known toxins like lead have no place in our biological system. But this is not a new realization. Measures have been taken to address lead, maybe more are needed, I don't know, but people can't freely disperse lead in the environment anymore. (Except NRA members of course). The article contained a dash of conspiracy for good measure and appeared about as scientific as a 1980's anti-recreational drug commercial...."This is your brain on fluoride!". Exactly the same type of hysteria (albeit from a different political spectrum) as well. Here is reality...we can't live this lifestyle without chemicals so there will be some trade offs. That's the bottom line. Want to use plastic and drive a car and buy raspberry pi's? Then there are going to be some toxins. Maybe things have been too lax and more research and regulation should occur. No argument. But all chemicals and all pesticides are not evil and we are going to need some for the foreseeable future.
Jekyll 12y ago
Regardless of these 'toxins' - I'm sure if you evaluated the toxicity and exposure to chemicals in an average household it would be probably exceed that of industrial labs in the past. Think deodorants, washing-up liquid, detergents, hand-washes, shampoos riddled with obscure-and-difficult-to-pronounce ingredients, cleaning liquids such as bleach. Forget the risk of being exposed to manganese within a steel can - we are already actively polluting our households and probably breathing in higher amounts of nasty chemicals hidden in household products than the examples mentioned in the article.
- slapshot 12y ago
  I think you severely underestimate the fatality and occupational exposure rate in old industrial labs. Here's a classic pre-OSHA example of producing tetraethyl lead with no containment whatsoever (1924): http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2011/08/24/at-the-door-of-the-loony-gas-building/ http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2011/08/24/at-the-doo... Madam Curie's papers are still radioactive due to lack of containment (early 1900s): http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1107/Marie-Curie-Why-her-papers-are-still-radioactive http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1107/Marie... Herea re the "Radium Girls" who would lick radium-laced paintbrushes to make watches (1917): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls And don't forget that nearly all heat-related surfaces in old labs were insulated with asbestos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Industrial_era http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Industrial_era Don't forget the countless people who played with mercury as pranks (!) in old labs, nevermind the fact that old lab thermometers used to be made of the stuff and that it was used in countless experiments of yore (today, a broken mercury thermometer will evacuate a school or lab): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)#Historic_uses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)#Historic_uses Etc. Unless you've got a small lead factory, asbestos, some radioactive liquids, and a bottle of mercury laying around your house, I'm quite certain that it is quite a bit safer than "industrial labs in the past."
cel1ne 12y ago
What threatens personal health is mostly stress and sugar. So start exercising, lower your pace every now and then and stop drinking soft-drinks. And even this isn't entirely correct since people get older and older nowadays. Why is there so much fear about personal health when the situation actually keeps getting better?
- buttscicles 12y ago
  I'd imagine it's due to us actually being able to discover what effect things have on our bodies in ways we've never been able to before.
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Frty-one million IQ points. That’s what Dr. David Bellinger determined Americans have collectively forfeited as a result of exposure to lead, mercury, and organophosphate pesticides. " Okay, I bailed. It's rare that a lede is so bad that I'll bail -- usually I just don't click on stuff that looks like crap. But this looked interesting. Why did I bail? First, IQ points are not cumulative. It's not like you can add them all up and get anything at all useful. It's not even like we could come to a reasonable agreement that IQ points are a useful metric, but I'll just let that go. More to the point, the question isn't society overall, it's individual choice. Would you trade the loss of 2 or 3 IQ points for better food, a modern world, access to transportation, and so on? I would -- in a heartbeat. It wouldn't even be a tough decision to make. Live to 80 in a modern world full of modern conveniences while being a tiny bit less bright? Count me in. So I went into scan mode for the rest of the article. For all I know, it looked good. But I'm left believing what I already believe: Yes, there probably are some statistical clusters that warrant societal intervention. Perhaps poor people living in a lead-infested housing project next to a chemical factory. But to use terms like "Silent Pandemic" is to be terribly irresponsible. Alarmist even. It does not describe the problem in enough detail for the reader to know what to do about it, and it's just a cry for attention. Sorry. No so much.

131 points by akbarnama 12y ago

Thanks for sharing, this reminded me of an article[1] in a similar vein. Excerpt: "Today, a novel class of illnesses is on the rise, and neither theory sufficiently explains it. TILT shows how a person can have a toxic exposure and never recover. Exposures trigger a bewildering array of symptoms that many people never trace back to synthetic chemicals in their daily life. They may experience cardiac and neurological abnormalities, headaches, flu-like symptoms, bladder dysfunction, asthma, depression, anxiety, pain, cognitive dysfunction, and sleep disorders" [1]: http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/is-the-world-making-you-sick http://nautil.us/issue/15/turbulence/is-the-world-making-you...

BinaryIdiot 12y ago
You don't actually believe that pseudo science bullshit, do you? Please tell me you jest / troll. That article / interview is just full of half-assed science and made up bullshit.
- sizzle 12y ago
  From the nautilus article: She calls her theory “TILT,” short for Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance. TILT posits that a surprising range of today’s most common chronic conditions are linked to daily exposure to very low doses of synthetic chemicals that have been in mass production since World War II. These include organophosphate pesticides, flame-retardants, formaldehyde, benzene, and tens of thousands of other chemicals." Given this is HN, I would like to believe that you understand what a 'theory' is. I found that it was an interesting theory and nicely parallels with the article from the OP. Whether I believe the theory or not is irrelevant. I'm sharing knowledge cause it's fascinating.
  - BinaryIdiot 12y ago
    It's not sharing knowledge it's spreading "theories" that are well known to be incorrect. Spreading pseudo science, regardless of how much you believe in it, is not a good thing. These people are great at constructing a narrative that everyone would love to believe. Wouldn't it be great if this single thing was the cause of ALL of these aliments? Unfortunately life doesn't work that way but our minds are great at drawing invalid correlations.
    - sizzle 12y ago
      take your pick: knowl·edge ˈnälij ; noun 1.facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. 2. awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. "the program had been developed without his knowledge" synonyms: awareness, consciousness, realization, cognition, apprehension, perception, appreciation Prove the article wrong if you are so compelled to do so. Part of the reason I share things on HN is for the discussion it creates, which expands my knowledge so I can form educated opinions. I appreciate this aspect of HN, it's why I keep coming back so please, inform me with some links, resources, or research and relieve my of my pseudo-scientific ignorance or stop telling me I'm wrong.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    The term you're looking for is a hypothesis, not a theory, as far as I can tell, because you've provided no evidence that it is correct by way of double-blind studies, and I am struggling to find anything at all of this "Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance" past "we looked at some graphs and came up with an explanation after the fact". Statistics can be used to explain anything, the trick to avoiding the issue is to come up with the explanation and an independent experiment first. Science doesn't operate on a basis of "I'll make stuff up and make people prove me wrong". A hypothesis is worthless on its own, and is decidedly not knowledge.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Comments written in this tone have the fun property of being even more toxic when they're correct, which I'll stipulate that you are. They have a high valence, because people recognize and relate to the underlying correct argument even though it's hidden behind a cloud of snark. The force they exert realigns the thread towards meanness. And, obviously, they're embarrassing for the correct side of the debate, which has been caricatured. Please, please don't write like this here.

BinaryIdiot 12y ago

Oh good an article about complete bullshit. I haven't read enough bullshit lately. Edit: Oh good the pseudo science crew is here to downvote me. Good lord people read the article; you can tell by the opening paragraph it's complete bullshit. Look at the studies they reference and how shitty their controls are. Good god people try being skeptical for once. Edit2: Today I learned Hacker News is a great venue for spreading pseudo science and quackery. That kinda makes me sad.

_delirium 12y ago
> Today I learned Hacker News is a great venue for spreading pseudo science and quackery. On non-programming topics that's always been the case. HN is full of programmers who are not knowledgeable in science, and tend to trust their personal political or cultural beliefs on other subjects where science might be applied. Today's frontpage is actually great because it contains an example of that with both political valences. There's a "left-ish" pseudoscientific story about toxins, and "right-ish" pseudoscientific story about evolutionary psychology. Amazing. We're only missing a thread on weightlifting or nutritional fads to complete the bingo card.
- pedalpete 12y ago
  I've often found quite the opposite. I've been amazed at how knowledgeable HNers are about random and obscure science and medicine.
  - gus_massa 12y ago
    It's more complicated. For each obscure subject, there are one or two users that are experts or at least have enough knowledge. The problem is that there is a big amount of enthusiastic, that are exited about the new possible result and forget to see that it's almost sure a incorrect result. In some threads the enthusiastic user overhead the experts. A typical subject (without political interest) is faster than light travel. Or in other words: http://xkcd.com/955/ http://xkcd.com/955/
- ZenoArrow 12y ago

grannyg00se 12y ago

Dow knowingly spreads poison, pays a fine, withdraws a product from household use, and that product continues to be used in farming? I had to stop reading.

tomphoolery 12y ago
I mean, it's the same company that made agent orange... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange (in case anyone isn't aware) Along with everyone's best friend, Monsanto! Lying to the masses to make some profit off of poison you peddle is kinda part of Dow's "DNA" as a company...
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Let's not stop there, it's the same country that made agent orange!
srean 12y ago
...And greenwash them away by grandiose ad campaigns such as "human element" where they portray themselves as a part of the (humanitarian) solution to potable water. If they really cared a tiddly bit about devastating human costs caused by their wholly owned subsidiaries, they would have at least spent a miniscule fraction of what they spend on such ad campaigns to actually clean up their mess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster The particular example I have in mind is the Bhopal disaster, and contamination of Bhopal's groundwater caused by the same company but prior to the disaster. Notably they dont shy away from claiming any of the assets of their wholly owned subsidiary Union Carbide, but none of their liabilities. 20,000 have died because of these causes, more have been disabled beyond the capacity to earn livelihood wages, but they do zilch about it. Well, not quite correct, they spend billions in ad campaigns, sponsor olympics and get a free pass. While Chernobyl rules the roost in western media as a prominent example of an industrial disaster (fits the narrative of "look how bad Russian technology is" very nicely) few if at all recall Bhopal although it is a tragedy of as epic proportions, I would argue that its (official) human cost was more. I have not started on Nemagon or dioxins.

microcolonel 12y ago

Could be safe in agricultural use even if it wasn't safe enough in household use. Best not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Cheap food with /almost no/ risk of developing a condition or losing functions of the body is better than expensive food with a marginal reduction in risk. Even if we were "missing out on" 41,000,000 IQ points(this alone sounds arbitrary and unprovable) in the U.S., that would be 0.2 IQ points roughly per person... I'm not even sure that's statistically significant by any definition. Then again, maybe I'm just dead wrong about that and I need to shut up and hop on the hysteria bandwagon. I certainly don't like that Dow conspired to suppress completed research, although it is also abhorrible that people gave in to that pressure, probably through paltry bribes.

jaekwon 12y ago
> Could be safe in agricultural use Didn't we find that some pesticide(s) is/are (partially) responsible for bee colony collapse disorder?
- Houshalter 12y ago
  I don't think so, since many of the pesticides being blamed have been in use long before CCD appeared.
  - jonnathanson 12y ago
    Neonicotinoids, the class of chemical pesticides most commonly blamed for CCD, were introduced into widespread use around the time CCD appeared. I don't think anybody has definitely proven causation (and see the various posts, even today, about problems in deriving causation from correlation). But there appears to be neurobiological evidence for some link between the way the pesticides work and the way bees behave. As far as likely suspects for the cause of CCD go, it's high on the list.
- kaitai 12y ago
  Yes, neonicotinoids are implicated. They are certainly not the only factor, as your (partially) points out, but the evidence seems to indicate that they weaken bees in ways that interact with mites and climate stresses to lead to colony collapse.

scythe 12y ago

Hm. I'm only going to talk about fluoride, because it's the easiest to pick on: yes, China does have dangerously high levels of fluoride in groundwater in some areas. Those levels are much higher than the levels added to water in Western countries, and, in fact, Western countries already implement policies to limit the concentration of fluoride that makes it into drinking water (so in, e.g., Colorado Springs, fluoride is removed): http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104912/ http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1104912/ >Opportunities for epidemiological studies depend on the existence of comparable population groups exposed to different levels of fluoride from drinking water. Such circumstances are difficult to find in many industrialized countries, because fluoride concentrations in community water are usually no higher than 1 mg/L, even when fluoride is added to water supplies as a public health measure to reduce tooth decay. [emphasis added] Additionally, as even this week's Chicken Little proclaims: > “Not at all,” Landrigan said. “I think it’s very good to have in toothpaste.” --- of course! Do you really think that nobody studied the addition of fluoride to toothpaste when it was first adopted? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD002278/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD002278... > "Seventy-four studies were included." The end. Fluoride is not a routine risk to neural health in developed countries.

judk 12y ago
Not saying that fluoride is necessarily bad, but brushing and spitting toothpaste is different from drinking gallons of fluoridated water each week.
- eqdw 12y ago
  That statement is meaningless unless you know how much fluoride is in the water

SAI_Peregrinus 12y ago

The problem with many of these is that, as in everything else, the dose makes the poison. Fluoride is a perfect example: too little and your bones are weak & tooth decay sets in easily, too much and you get fluoridosis. Just the right amount (which is a reasonably large range) and you're healthy. Maganese is the same, it's an essential trace nutrient for pretty much all living things, and you'll die without it, but too much will kill you. The most dangerous agricultural pesticides are the neonicotinoids, and they're used in organic farming. They tend to decay quickly, so if the food is properly managed and they're not applied too late they won't be found in the food. Now, not everything that is dangerous is necessary. There's no benefit from eating mercury, for example, but there are always safe exposure levels. Some compounds bio-accumulate, so the safe exposure levels have to be set for a lifetime. Most organic mercury compounds are of this sort, and due to their extreme toxicity the safe exposure levels are very low.

vixin 12y ago
I think you mean 'subject to further studies, we think that .... x and y levels of these substances are safe'.
platz 12y ago
I think lead is especially nasty in that even small doses have been shown to have proportionately damaging effects.
dools 12y ago
Which organic certification are you referring to which allows the use of neonicotinoids? Looking through the Australian ones it doesn't appear any of them would allow the use of neonicotinoids[1] but I have the feeling I don't know enough about it to say so conclusively ... [1]http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/about/contact/aco http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/about/contact/aco
- VLM 12y ago
  Doesn't appear to be allowed per USDA regs either. Eventually we're going to pinpoint OP by a process of elimination. http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f1025eb0e6b67cadf9d3b40&rgn=div6&view=text&node=7:3.1.1.9.32.7&idno=7 http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=9874504b6f10... If that fails, for a negative perspective, go to eCFR, chapter 7 Ag, part 205 USDA organic program, 205.602 "Nonsynthetic substances prohibited for use in organic crop production" lists (i) Tobacco dust (nicotine sulfate). Which is probably close enough to OPs claim. Or for a positive perspective 205.601 "Synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production" section (e) "As insecticides (including acaricides or mite control)" and that lists 10 allowable bug killers none of which seem to be neonicotinoids. By negative and positive I don't mean some electrical thing but words like "can if you want" vs "no you will not". Either way (edited: Both ways...) no nicotinoids on USDA labeled produce in the USA. State regs are only allowed to be stricter than fed. So "Thats OK in California but not Wisconsin" is outright a non-starter if its already forbidden by USDA. Now if you mean in practice, like if a chemist ran tests on randomly purchased organic produce in the USA, I'd say hell yes you'll find it in organic produce. There's like 50 layers of middlemen and shippers in the food industry, you have a personal relationship with none of them (I buy beef from a family friend and bought vegetables from a great uncle who retired into being a gentleman farmer, that's "different" than driving to a local food store), and all of them have a huge financial interest in taking visually identical apples from "Chemical McWasteland's Industrial Farm" and putting them in boxes from "Sunshine Unicorn Organic Farm". How many layers of middlemen would make about a buck a pound or more by merely accidentally selling non-organic food as organic? And how corrupt is this country? In practice the primary effect of buying and eating organic produce is almost certainly feeling better while making corrupt individuals wealthier, even if theoretically health benefits could be available from organic produce. So the TLDR is legally wrong in the USA at the fed level both by being specifically forbidden AND by not listed as permitted, yet is also probably right that if you buy an "organic" apple at a convenience store, it probably isn't due to corruption.

jamesash 12y ago

A long but very shallow article. - interviewed authors of paper that used the phrase, "silent pandemic" when claiming widespread behavioural and cognitive problems as a result of 12 compounds. Evidence presented in the article itself? "Rates of diagnosis of [autism] and ADHD are increasing..." [diagnosis is not necessarily preponderance], an increase in "subclinical decrements in brain function" [as measured how?] , and "genetic factors account for no more than 30-40% of brain development disorders" [based on what exactly?] From this thin stuff the authors then get plenty of column space to expound on their opinions. Re: the IQ experiments. If Bellinger's own lead-IQ model is correct [from the linked Environ Health Perspect. Jul 2005; 113(7): 894–89] , a decrease in blood lead concentration from >10 ug/kg [1970's] to 1.8 ug/kg [2009] should have resulted in 3 point increase in IQ scores. Where's any discussion of this? - FMRI reveals effects of methyl mercury in 3 [?] adolescents. How can you possibly determine loss of IQ points due to methyl mercury exposure on this set while controlling for other factors? Talk about small sample size. -The article asks, "Impressive as all this research investment is, the larger question remains: Why are we looking at these hazards now—instead of before we introduced these chemicals into the world?" 80k chemicals mentioned as being on "the market" although what this means isn't specified. "It would cost $5 million and 5 years per chemical to run the full battery of tests" according to quoted researcher. 400 billion dollars if done on the full set. 1) Who pays? 2) Why would any chemical company have a research presence in the USA if their product had a several year lead time for rollout due to testing requirements?

SeanDav 12y ago
So all you have done is try to shoot down the article, without attempting to replace it with any concrete suggestions of your own. Every argument has flaws and costs but you seem to be aiming at "do nothing" or nothing that will scare away the profits and technology, health cost be damned.
ern 12y ago
If Bellinger's own lead-IQ model is correct...decrease in blood lead concentration..should have resulted in a 3 point increase in IQ scores This is an interesting point. I haven't seen an explanation for the Flynn Effect continuing as blood lead levels rose through the 20th century. If IQ levels would have risen faster without lead then the increases should have been even more substantial since lead levels dropped.

msane 12y ago

The Atlantic has great brand capital, which for some reason doesn't erode much when they regularly print sensational clickbait like this, or do things like print PR stories for the Church of Scientology (http://archive.today/vca4i http://archive.today/vca4i). I'd take this article and most of what they print with a grain of salt.

jqm 12y ago

This article rambled and jumped around and was too sensationalistic for my taste. Not that it didn't contain some good points but it was unduly alarmist in tone and kept lumping all chemicals in one class. Lead is a different case from fluoride is a different case from agricultural pesticides (themselves many different classes of compounds...some more harmful than others). Certainly there are toxins in our environment and this is an issue. Well known toxins like lead have no place in our biological system. But this is not a new realization. Measures have been taken to address lead, maybe more are needed, I don't know, but people can't freely disperse lead in the environment anymore. (Except NRA members of course). The article contained a dash of conspiracy for good measure and appeared about as scientific as a 1980's anti-recreational drug commercial...."This is your brain on fluoride!". Exactly the same type of hysteria (albeit from a different political spectrum) as well. Here is reality...we can't live this lifestyle without chemicals so there will be some trade offs. That's the bottom line. Want to use plastic and drive a car and buy raspberry pi's? Then there are going to be some toxins. Maybe things have been too lax and more research and regulation should occur. No argument. But all chemicals and all pesticides are not evil and we are going to need some for the foreseeable future.

Jekyll 12y ago

Regardless of these 'toxins' - I'm sure if you evaluated the toxicity and exposure to chemicals in an average household it would be probably exceed that of industrial labs in the past. Think deodorants, washing-up liquid, detergents, hand-washes, shampoos riddled with obscure-and-difficult-to-pronounce ingredients, cleaning liquids such as bleach. Forget the risk of being exposed to manganese within a steel can - we are already actively polluting our households and probably breathing in higher amounts of nasty chemicals hidden in household products than the examples mentioned in the article.

slapshot 12y ago
I think you severely underestimate the fatality and occupational exposure rate in old industrial labs. Here's a classic pre-OSHA example of producing tetraethyl lead with no containment whatsoever (1924): http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2011/08/24/at-the-door-of-the-loony-gas-building/ http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2011/08/24/at-the-doo... Madam Curie's papers are still radioactive due to lack of containment (early 1900s): http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1107/Marie-Curie-Why-her-papers-are-still-radioactive http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1107/Marie... Herea re the "Radium Girls" who would lick radium-laced paintbrushes to make watches (1917): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls And don't forget that nearly all heat-related surfaces in old labs were insulated with asbestos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Industrial_era http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Industrial_era Don't forget the countless people who played with mercury as pranks (!) in old labs, nevermind the fact that old lab thermometers used to be made of the stuff and that it was used in countless experiments of yore (today, a broken mercury thermometer will evacuate a school or lab): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)#Historic_uses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)#Historic_uses Etc. Unless you've got a small lead factory, asbestos, some radioactive liquids, and a bottle of mercury laying around your house, I'm quite certain that it is quite a bit safer than "industrial labs in the past."

cel1ne 12y ago

What threatens personal health is mostly stress and sugar. So start exercising, lower your pace every now and then and stop drinking soft-drinks. And even this isn't entirely correct since people get older and older nowadays. Why is there so much fear about personal health when the situation actually keeps getting better?

buttscicles 12y ago
I'd imagine it's due to us actually being able to discover what effect things have on our bodies in ways we've never been able to before.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago

Frty-one million IQ points. That’s what Dr. David Bellinger determined Americans have collectively forfeited as a result of exposure to lead, mercury, and organophosphate pesticides. " Okay, I bailed. It's rare that a lede is so bad that I'll bail -- usually I just don't click on stuff that looks like crap. But this looked interesting. Why did I bail? First, IQ points are not cumulative. It's not like you can add them all up and get anything at all useful. It's not even like we could come to a reasonable agreement that IQ points are a useful metric, but I'll just let that go. More to the point, the question isn't society overall, it's individual choice. Would you trade the loss of 2 or 3 IQ points for better food, a modern world, access to transportation, and so on? I would -- in a heartbeat. It wouldn't even be a tough decision to make. Live to 80 in a modern world full of modern conveniences while being a tiny bit less bright? Count me in. So I went into scan mode for the rest of the article. For all I know, it looked good. But I'm left believing what I already believe: Yes, there probably are some statistical clusters that warrant societal intervention. Perhaps poor people living in a lead-infested housing project next to a chemical factory. But to use terms like "Silent Pandemic" is to be terribly irresponsible. Alarmist even. It does not describe the problem in enough detail for the reader to know what to do about it, and it's just a cry for attention. Sorry. No so much.