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The main point to take away from this is that very few things can be said to be all bad or all good in chemistry. The dose makes the poison.

by buddylw 12y ago

andreasvc 12y ago
That is a trite truism which does not illuminate anything. The main problem is that unlike for food, there are no regulations in place requiring chemicals in products to be proven safe for humans. What happens is that decades after a chemical has been introduced, concerns might be raised, and the industry launches a big PR campaign to try to cover up the findings (I believe this very article is an instance of this).
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  I would actually say that the main problem is that the sentence "The main problem is that unlike for food, there are no regulations in place requiring chemicals in products to be proven safe for humans" is incoherent. The very concept of "chemicals in products" that are made out of chemicals and nothing but chemicals makes no sense. Food is either safe, or it is not. Insisting we test "chemicals" rather than "foods" is like insisting we test "cows" rather than "beef". That is: beef as it is delivered to you in the store contains both industrially manufactured, extremely complex, highly artificial, poorly quality-controlled cows, and a few simple, refined, relatively pure substances. Calling out the latter as "poisonous" (which everything is in some dose under some circumstances) while ignoring that cows, world-wide, kill hundreds of people every year makes no sense. Or rather: it makes no sense to be concerned that a steak will be deadly because it contains a constituent (cow) that is deadly. I'm not against testing of foods as they come out of the factory--and I agree that people in industry, like people in government and people in labour unions and people pretty much everywhere are not above lying to make something that is unacceptably dangerous to most people appear acceptably safe--but I am against this kind of focus on constituents that are completely unrelated to the form they are found in foods, be they a pure chemical like bromine or an animal species like cows. It makes no more sense to be concerned about bromine in foods than it does to be concerned about cows in food. It does make sense to be concerned about food safety, but looking at the components of the constituents tells us nothing about food safety, so as soon as you seen someone wringing their hands about "bromine" rather than the specific bromine compound in the specific quantities used in a specific food product, you know they don't care about food safety.
  - andreasvc 12y ago
    Your reasoning seems quite confused, and you do not present any support whatsoever for the accusation that my claim is incoherent. You seem to be arguing against they very idea of reductionism, that we cannot isolate compounds that are harmful from what they are part of ("foods" in your example). There are countless cases where we have done this; quicksilver, lead, and other heavy metals come to mind, lots of carcinogenic substances &c. &c. > Or rather: it makes no sense to be concerned that a steak will be deadly because it contains a constituent (cow) that is deadly. It makes a lot of sense. If a cow has been fed with food that was contaminated with a carcinogenic substance, the resulting beef will be unsafe. Your comment focuses on food safety, but my main point was to stress that food safety is already regulated thoroughly, while the use of chemicals such as discussed in the article is not regulated at all.

The main point to take away from this is that very few things can be said to be all bad or all good in chemistry. The dose makes the poison.

by buddylw 12y ago

The main point to take away from this is that very few things can be said to be all bad or all good in chemistry. The dose makes the poison.

andreasvc 12y ago

That is a trite truism which does not illuminate anything. The main problem is that unlike for food, there are no regulations in place requiring chemicals in products to be proven safe for humans. What happens is that decades after a chemical has been introduced, concerns might be raised, and the industry launches a big PR campaign to try to cover up the findings (I believe this very article is an instance of this).

tjradcliffe 12y ago
I would actually say that the main problem is that the sentence "The main problem is that unlike for food, there are no regulations in place requiring chemicals in products to be proven safe for humans" is incoherent. The very concept of "chemicals in products" that are made out of chemicals and nothing but chemicals makes no sense. Food is either safe, or it is not. Insisting we test "chemicals" rather than "foods" is like insisting we test "cows" rather than "beef". That is: beef as it is delivered to you in the store contains both industrially manufactured, extremely complex, highly artificial, poorly quality-controlled cows, and a few simple, refined, relatively pure substances. Calling out the latter as "poisonous" (which everything is in some dose under some circumstances) while ignoring that cows, world-wide, kill hundreds of people every year makes no sense. Or rather: it makes no sense to be concerned that a steak will be deadly because it contains a constituent (cow) that is deadly. I'm not against testing of foods as they come out of the factory--and I agree that people in industry, like people in government and people in labour unions and people pretty much everywhere are not above lying to make something that is unacceptably dangerous to most people appear acceptably safe--but I am against this kind of focus on constituents that are completely unrelated to the form they are found in foods, be they a pure chemical like bromine or an animal species like cows. It makes no more sense to be concerned about bromine in foods than it does to be concerned about cows in food. It does make sense to be concerned about food safety, but looking at the components of the constituents tells us nothing about food safety, so as soon as you seen someone wringing their hands about "bromine" rather than the specific bromine compound in the specific quantities used in a specific food product, you know they don't care about food safety.
- andreasvc 12y ago
  Your reasoning seems quite confused, and you do not present any support whatsoever for the accusation that my claim is incoherent. You seem to be arguing against they very idea of reductionism, that we cannot isolate compounds that are harmful from what they are part of ("foods" in your example). There are countless cases where we have done this; quicksilver, lead, and other heavy metals come to mind, lots of carcinogenic substances &c. &c. > Or rather: it makes no sense to be concerned that a steak will be deadly because it contains a constituent (cow) that is deadly. It makes a lot of sense. If a cow has been fed with food that was contaminated with a carcinogenic substance, the resulting beef will be unsafe. Your comment focuses on food safety, but my main point was to stress that food safety is already regulated thoroughly, while the use of chemicals such as discussed in the article is not regulated at all.