Re:Phthalates, Toxic Plastic Additives, Are Everywhere: What...
by zug_zug on Thursday June 13, 2024 @12:14PM
(#40671499)
One thing this article does that I don't agree with is presume that there are binary safe/unsafe limits that are objectively correct.
I don't know the exact numbers, but when I looked into once, I realized a huge number of chemicals that are deemed safe are later deemed unsafe or the "safe" dose is lowered by a factor of 10, 100, 1000 or even more.
And that's not too surprising because the FDA/EPA doesn't have any method (nor do they even attempt) to look at long-term (e.g. multi-year) effects of chemicals. They try a very high dose for a short period of time and hope that's a sufficient indicator.
And even if they did try to look, suppose a chemical caused anxiety, depression, and a 5 point IQ reduction... would we even notice this in rats?
I don't know the exact numbers, but when I looked into once, I realized a huge number of chemicals that are deemed safe are later deemed unsafe or the "safe" dose is lowered by a factor of 10, 100, 1000 or even more.
And that's not too surprising because the FDA/EPA doesn't have any method (nor do they even attempt) to look at long-term (e.g. multi-year) effects of chemicals. They try a very high dose for a short period of time and hope that's a sufficient indicator.
And even if they did try to look, suppose a chemical caused anxiety, depression, and a 5 point IQ reduction... would we even notice this in rats?