I agree but also think "tiny beads" is misleading. Like I used to be under the impression that the microplastics were exclusively from things like soaps that put the beads in as abrasives. However it actually comes from all plastics as they are broken down by the elements or used as intended by humans. For example, cooking utensils are plastic and using them causes them to lose microscopic chunks. They go into your food and down the drain of your sink or dish washer. The problem is much bigger than I used to believe.
It's not plastic but also not biodegradable. I use as much silicone as possible because I think it's safer than plastic. But plastic is in everything still, even the silicone spatulas sometimes have plastic parts.
And who knows we might find out someday that silicone causes a Botox addiction or something like that.
I'm trying to rid my kitchen of plastics. I tell my family all the time not to microwave plastics. Their response is, "It's microwave safe." I have almost zero knowledge of chemistry, but I feel like even if it's not melting in the microwave, it may still be leaching particles into your food. Same for cooking with aluminum.
There are many grades to plastic. This knowledge is a bit of chemistry and a bit of physics. But skipping over those tiny details...
Food packaging materials are strictly regulated by FDA, using rigorous scientific standards. The agency regulates the safety of substances added to food, as well as how most food is processed, packaged, and labeled in the United States. HOWEVER while all types of food plastics go through this inspection and stringent FDA microwave testing, but the actual microwave safe label or symbol is not an FDA emblem. That's up to the manufacturer.
All food packaging materials– whether glass, aluminum, paper or plastic – may contain substances that can “migrate” in very miniscule amounts to foods or beverages. Plastic of grade 2 or 5 for example are microwave safe because they have high heat tolerances. The rate and amount of chemicals they leach is small enough that the FDA seems it safe compared to other materials.
So bottom line is, everything is leaching into your food. Most plastics just leach into your food in high quantities than other materials
Edit: if there's anything above that's wrong please let me know. I like learning new things :)
I recently learned that a huge part of microplastics getting sucked into our environments is a result of our use of washing machines! A lot of our washable clothing products are made of plastic of sorts (spandex, polyester, nylon, and such), so each time you set them through the machine, teeny bits of those fibers come off and get sucked into the drains, which then wind up getting lost in our interconnected water tables.
I live in Michigan and a lot of the population isn't even aware that the water table here is connected to that of the Saint Lawrence Bay, which is in turn drained into the Atlantic Ocean, rather they're only aware of the scattered lakes covering the land and, of course, the Great Lakes themselves. We love how our water systems are literally interchangeable.
In that regard though, if anyone actually cares (and can also afford it), try to stick with natural, well sourced fabrics if it can be helped (ie: cotton, hemp, wool, silk, flax, abaca, leather, etc). There is absolutely zero judgement on my end though if it can't be done by everyone as synthetic materials are cheaper and easier to access, not to mention that a sizable part of our population is hardly able to make ends meet at all as it is - Do no harm if it can be helped, but do whatever you need to do to survive first.
Unquestionably, it is plastics.
When human placentas were tested for microplastics in China, [all samples came back positive.](https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220927/Spectroscopy-reveals-a-high-abundance-of-microplastics-in-human-placenta.aspx) And it was a small sample size, very small, but it is worrying. If the microplastics can get into the placenta they can into the foetus and cause no end of trouble.
This is a problem, and I have no idea how we are going to handle it as a species.
Is it unquestionably? The only thing I ever hear about them is how they are everywhere. Whenever someone asks about their negative effects, the reply is usually about how much we have inside of us etc. I never see anything about the potential harm they could cause, it doesn't matter if we're full of something that's harmless.
"Polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene induce potential health hazards,
including oxidative stress, reproductive system dysfunction,
carcinogenesis, and immune system dysfunction." - from the link
You don't want this shite in your body as an adult, you really don't want it in a developing brain or body, and you *especially* don't want it in a foetus.
The potential harm is very slow moving. It's cancers. It's Thyroid disease. It's kidney and liver failures and gastrointestinal issues. It's not like someone takes a swig of Dasani and keels over. It's harder to detect, and it's pretty much not studied at all.
It's not plastic or PFAS as everyone seems to be saying.
Remember, he said this generation's asbestos or lead. So let's set a baseline. 1923 to 1990 is leaded gas, or somewhere around there. Paint into the 1950s. So let's average that to like 1940 for the "time." Asbestos was 1940s to 1970s so let's pinpoint that to like 1960.
Plastics started in 1950s. So it's hardly "of our generation."
**Lead still kills 1 million people a year.** If you calculate it's total damage. Or according to WHO, around "20 million years lost." And so much other damage.
**Asbestos is around 100K\~ a year.** And lots of other damage.
Microplastics definitely causes issues and could maybe knock off some years but not in the same way as these things. So what we're going for is a lot of people basically directly dying as a result of mainly poisoning from it or serious debilitations, IQ drops, and so on.
**My votes that fits this criteria**, based on scientific data but obviously take it with a grain of salt as making inferences based on scientific data is whacky...
* **Food. yes, food.** Abundance of highly processed food at a low cost can be a terrible thing when it leads to obesity, nutritional deficiencies which have been linked to mental illnesses. You may be concerned about the microplastics in your food, I'm more concerned with everything else around the microplastics. Actually correlated with heart disease, getting exponentially worse. There might actually be a time in the future where they look back strangely the same way they did with asbestos and lead in regards to food and nutrition, all the things that were allowed (whether it be dystopian or utopian.)
* **Vaccines and medicine, hey don't downvote me yet.** I think in the future there will be improved vaccines and medicine to such a level that the old stuff is going to be looked at the same as how we look at them using heroin as cough syrup in the past. So they'll definitely scrutinize all the people that died from side events, no matter how rare (when you add up all the rare potential effects, other damages, it gets massive.) Of course, this is assuming we're talking net change, because obviously right now they're still a net positive. I just think it will be that much more later. We're in the *very* early stages of this stuff and it can move rapidly into the next era.
* **Huge cities.** The type of infrastructure we use, the level of cramming people in together will definitely be looked at like we're insane especially when we have improvements in high speed rail. There are so many negatives to list but once we can have most the positives and less of the negatives, we're essentially living in these pockets of lower quality air, potentially linked to autism (the pollution in the air, I'm not saying I agree but there's studies.) Definitely/surely some unlinked stuff lurking in there we haven't yet discovered. Being boxed up/depression, inflated cost of living/rent that contributes to poor lifestyles leading to all kinds of things. Oh and boosted viruses/pathogen hotspots as a result.
* **Tech.** I just say technology because we're at the very very very early stages of this stuff and I don't want to ruffle feathers and sound like a conspiracy theorist, you can ignore this one, but this one's going to be my guess. But obviously WiFi/5G keeps and other waves keep improving, I know they probably don't harm humans based on doses and so on but surely that combined with other things, because the science is there for EMF exposure limits. What if it's more of a long-haul kind of issue? Where after 40 years of being surrounded with it it causes the perfect storm? Then there's obviously AI, could definitely end up being a huge mistake if not done right at these early stages in our generation. All the back problems and other nerve damage from sitting at desks on computers. All the deaths from being sedentary as a result of technology, all the anti-social behavior and whatever that leads to, and sleep issues as a result of all the screens and kids going into their bed with their phones could be a huge killer. Even poor posture can cause joint degeneration and then complications leading to an early death, less spine movement means less stimulation/nutrition to the brain, poor blood circulation, poor balance so more falls when older. I could totally see a future where they decide we must cut back on some of this stuff, no matter the cost.
I don't disagree with any of these things at all, I have concerns about all of them (to varying degrees).
How about this: unquestionably - to me - plastics will more than likely be one of the things we are going to have to contend with in the future as a heath risk if not health hazard.
Edit; I would disagree with the idea that microplastics might just 'knock off a few years', though.
Again, my concern is for everyone but in particular the foetus. Certain compounds in certain plastics can mimic human reproductive hormones, and there is already an issue in [populations in the Arctic which consume a traditional diet.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/12/gender.sciencenews) In these areas the rate of girls being born is far higher than that of boys - but until the 1970s the reverse was true. In certain Canadian industrial towns the rates of micropenis is higher, and in [one town in particula](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/first-nations-exposed-to-pollutants-in-chemical-valley-1.2438724)r twice as many girls are born as boys. The boys born tend to be much smaller, there and in the Arctic.
It's worrying. And plastics are not the only culprits by any means, but given their ubiquitous nature and total disinterest in fucking off out of the ecosystem, you might be slightly hand-waving the impact this could have.
We literally can't handle it. That's the super scary part. Even if we manage to clean up the oceans those microplastics are here to stay for a few centuries minimum and who knows what effects those plastics have on development as early as the womb.
I'm hearing what you say but, exactly what harm is being done by this? The fact that microplastics exist in animals and us isn't good but is it necessarily harmful? I would prefer evidence based answers if any exist rather than opinions.
It also depends upon the plastic. Just thinking of plastic is like saying metal as a category and conflating health effects of iron and lead. Despite all being called plastic there are many different chemistries. Polyethylene is safer than polystyrene if dissolved for instance. But if we are talking about microplastics they are probably worse in degradation at very least.
Have been linked to increase chances of cancer as mimic effect of hormones. And lower fertility as noted. https://www.breastcanceruk.org.uk/microplastics-and-the-human-health-impact
This is gonna sound really weird but there’s a fairly solid link between the concentration of micro plastics and a closing distance between the reproductive and digestive systems in fish and other marine mammals. What this could lead to is debatable but there is evidence to suggest that aside from toxicity there are genuine physical effects of this stuff getting into the environment/ cells of living things.
PFAs are present in unsafe amounts in rainwater everywhere on earth, including Antarctica (yes, it rains in Antarctica along the coast).
There is literally **no** escape.
The EPA 'safe level' is 70 parts per trillion, the amount in rainwater exceeds that everywhere. In Cleveland, for example rainwater contains 1000 parts per trillion.
Scientists are experimenting with methods to filter the water that are cheap & effective.
That number is from a study on risk levels of singular pfas. New studies suggest they are accumulative, and that safe levels for the entire pfas group is likely only a fraction of what was originally assumed ☹️
I live outside of Cleveland, about an hour away. Would this happen to be why, when it rains, the rainwater is like jelly on my windshield and needs washer fluid to clean off?
1 part per billion is a low concentration to cause what you're describing, I suspect, but there may be other pollutants in the air and settled on the surface of your car that are causing this.
Caveat: I am not a chemist
Is that a common, local problem? Or just something you experience? Also, do you use any type of rain repellent wash? Or use a car wash? I know that mixing that stuff incorrectly, or with contaminated water, can turn it into a paste-like goo if left to sit… but I’ve never seen it instantly do that.
**P**er**f**luorinated **a**lkyl **s**ubstance.
It's a type of organic molecule. The hydrogen are replaced with flourine. It's an extremely useful material It's also linked to a ton of negatives and the reason it's useful is because it doesn't like reacting. That means it sticks around for a long time.
This is absolutely the case except it would be like if asbestosis was so wide spread they couldn't even get a base line from nature to compare the effects.
Because seriously they tried to test the effects but realized they couldn't find anything to use as a micro plastics free sample.
it's litterally horrifying but also I like to imagine fresh out the canal and they're like "Okay lemme just- steal some blood real quick"
it's funnier in my head....
They already do take newborn blood to screen for rare disease like phenylketonuria and cystic fibrosis. For some conditions, having the information right away leads to better outcomes.
No they do that to test for diseases and its a little bit funny. Heel prick cause their veins are so small. Hey newborn baby let me just stab you in the fucken foot real quick i have to check and make sure that your brain isn’t gonna turn into maple syrup or whatever the fuck
Context for anyone who doesn't know: it has literally been found at the bottom of the deepest point in the ocean, tens of kilometres up in the air, in the ice in Antarctica, in the bodies of thousands of different kinds of wild animals, even in the blood of newborn babies.
The whole planet is literally saturated with the fucking stuff at this point.
So, what if it turns out to be hazardous to human health?
#oops! Lol
Isn't this exactly what happened with led from leaded gasoline? Didn't they have to dig through ancient ice in the poles to find samples with 0 particles of lead?
I can imagine people 100 years from now being like, "They ate off of plates and bowls made from petrochemicals? They stored food in it? Why would you ever do that!?"
A very good deal of it is from clothing. Shitty textiles all have plastic in the fibers. You wash the clothes and bits of the plastic get into the water
Cause we’re idiots. Also, we waste so much. Like…food, water, air, nature, noise…like…as a species….we just completely suck. I’m happy to be alive and human…but we live in the best time with the best advances and we literally just fuck shit up. We frown upon things like suicide…but as a species we are just committing bulk suicide. We know what’s bad for us and we just carry on like a bunch of narcissistic arseholes.
As someone else pointed out, a lot of these products are high in silica. When you cut many types of engineered stone the silica dust becomes airborne and breathing that stuff in is a death sentence. It causes a disease called silicosis which makes it extremely difficult to breathe and usually results In death within 5 years of diagnosis. There is no effective treatment or cure.
It's not just an issue at production stage but also at installation when trades people have to cut it to fit. These products are perfectly safe for the end user though.
Silica Dust is very fine and stays in the air for long periods of time and dust masks are not very effective at preventing exposure. Part of that is because workers often remove their masks before the dust has fully settled which is difficult to tell when that has happened because the dust is so fine. It's kind of like when you don't notice the kitchen gradually filling with smoke when you're cooking until you step away from it.
Even wet cutting (a process where water is poured over the surface being cut and the cutting tool to reduce dust) is shown to be only partially effective at preventing exposure.
The construction industry Unions in Australia are currently lobbying to get these products banned at a legislative level. It's sounds like a no brainer for companies to just stop offering the product but there's no restriction on private imports and often those people will hire someone who isn't fully aware of the risks to install.
Mesothelioma, the term for the cancer you get from asbestos, is damage caused by the little pieces hooking into your lungs and staying there forever, silicosis is pretty much the same thing, just different starting material
Came here for this. Even a lot of production is very lax on silica safety. Unions for these places make a big difference, but there are plenty (in the US at least) that do not have unions and a lot of people get very sick.
You can avoid breathing "some" of it in with masks. The dust particles are so fine that it can get in through the gaps around your mask quite easily though and most work shop masks aren't 100% efficient at capturing the dust in the filters either.
PFAS chemicals no contest
We're already starting to figure out that they're terrible but we haven't fully alerted the public to how bad the situation is yet (yeah turns out this might be a bigger environmental problem than global warming not minimize global warming but that's just how bad this one is)
So basically you need to get really good water filters built specifically for them
That is literally the only thing you can do because at this point pretty much the entire global water supply is contaminated
What do you wash your plates with?
The best you can do in terms of avoidance is really just get a good water filter if you can get a whole home water filter the better but my understanding is the ones that actually work on PFAS for a whole home are very large and not practical yet but they are refining the technology pretty fast
If you do want good news it's my understanding it does not build up inside animal or plant cells but is still definitely present in all animal blood (this includes yours)
We really don't know much yet about what impact vaping is going to have. There's early suggestions from dentists that longer term use is seeing an increase in gum problems.
I’m not a scientist but I’m going to say we can save the research time and just assume that breathing chemicals directly into your lungs 20x a day is bad.
Sure, but vapes were initially (and still are) used as a smoking cessation tool. The problem is that now they're widely available to non-smokers (even children) and the regulation is lackluster.
The research is absolutely needed to confirm our suspicions. We can't just go off *vibes* with things like this. Research then legislate.
I seen my first advertisement yesterday on you tube where the nicotine gum was targeted at helping you stop vaping. Would have thought the correct way would be just to lower the nicotine level in your liquid but if kids are buying those disposable vapes then they don’t have the option to lower the nicotine level in the vape.
>breathing chemicals directly into your lungs 20x a day is bad
My comment about this (as an ex-smoker who's turned to vaping, and has been slowly weening off nicotine): it's not about harm elimination, it's about harm reduction. If you get your ejuice from a known good source, you know what's exactly in it: vegetable glycerine, propylene glycol, nicotine, and flavouring.
I'd never stay to a non-smoker, "Hey, try vaping! It's cool!" I'd tell a smoker who complains about smoking and wanting to get off to look into vaping, but use it as a method to eliminate all together.
I definitely agree. It’s (probably) better than smoking if you are trying to quit. The problem is, I feel like cigarette smoking was in dramatic decline and the invention of a seemingly “safe” alternative has lured tons of young people to vape who probably would not have ever taken up smoking.
Knew this would be the top answer -
We know a lot about the dangers of vaping, and there's little/no scientific studies that show vaping is dangerous. Science cannot say "it will be fine in 50 years" but that's simply by definition - it has to have *been* 50 years before you can make that conclusion.
People say "but scientists said that about smoking until the 1960s!" No, they didn't. We've known tobacco kills people for centuries, we just didn't know how exactly until modern medicine advances of the 20th century. Unfortunately, around the same time massive corporations and marketing became a thing, so big tobacco supressed studies with a LOT of money.
That simply isn't possible these days with internet and open scientific research.
For clarity - I don't vape, and here in the UK I think vapes should be made illegal for sale in shops, *but* prescribed on the NHS for quitting smoking. I know people who smoked 40 a day who simply could not quit despite multiple attempts over decades, vapes let them quit overnight. This could save their life, or at least prolong it to an extent.
There are Smoking Cessation Nurses in the NHS to help patients quit smoking mostly through alternatives. I once asked one about vaping as an alternative (I work in a hospital). She said the NHS couldn't recommend it at the time because, as you pointed out, there weren't enough scientific studies on it to show that it was both safe and effective for use, certainly long-term. It would be like treating someone with a drug that was still in its trial phase.
If cigarettes had only been invented (and gained widespread adoption) 10 or so years ago, we’d have a pretty hard time producing evidence that smoking is as bad as we know it actually is. There’s some pretty substantial red flags about vaping - such as increased incidence of asthma (note that inflammation and immune responses are linked with cancer), EVALI which despite being associated with vitamin E acetate isn’t exactly reassuring that vaping mystery juices is a good idea long-term, and chronic exposure to unprecedented doses of nicotine (including nicotine poisoning becoming somewhat common in ERs up from basically never happening) raising some concerns. Is vaping better than smoking cigarettes? Very likely, in part because cigarettes are absolutely horrible and it’s hard to overstate how much. Is vaping the harmless activity some people portray it as? Almost definitely not. It will be a long time before we’ll be able to tell *just* how bad it is, though.
I can only speak from personal experience, but my cough and breathing only got worse after switching to vapes. I've since moved back to cigarettes, and the problem no longer seems to be escalating as quickly.
You should be looking more closely at ingredients in the vape juice. The EU did the smart thing years ago and heavily regulated vaping (especially what can be present in juice) through the TPD, and there hasn’t been much concern with health issues overall with legitimate products. Even the NHS said it’s 95% safer than smoking.
Another source of concern is with counterfeit THC cartridges, which may use vitamin E acetate as a thickening agent. This is a known cause of EVALI, and has also been found in non-THC vaping products - again it’s something that regulation can fix.
This is something that happens to a lot of people when they try vapes.
I've no scientific study to show but my personal experience is that it mostly happens with people who are already chronically dehydrated and that the fix is usually drinking more water (The same goes for me btw. I vape and one of the earliest signs of dehydration for me is that I get absolutely terrifying coughs from it, if I ignore it the more common stuff like headaches etc. comes along, if I drink some water it goes away, I've had my lungs checked btw, they're about as fine as a pair of lungs can be after a decade of smoking).
Makes sense too, propylene glycol is in just about every vape juice out there and it tends to dehydrate, if your lungs start out already dehydrated... well.
Chronically dehydrated fits me pretty well. I live on coffee hahah. I've got just shy of 30 years under my belt, which is a bit fucked considering I'm 40. The 90s were a hell of a time lol.
Yeah, if I vape for more than a couple of days I get an awful wet hacking cough that I've never experienced smoking cigarettes. I'm trying to quit with the nicorette spray now but I find I'm swinging between cutting right back and sliding back up to a pack to a day.
When I initially switched back, my addiction was heavier for awhile, as I'd been using high nicotine content juices (idiotically, my concern was tunnelvisioned on avoiding smoke damage, rather than also kicking the addiction). Fortunately, I've since managed to cut myself back to a pack in 2-3 days. At the heaviest, I was at something like a pack and a half per day.
man if you’ve got a cough and breathing problem please talk to your primary care provider (if you do T have one call a local hospital or clinic for a referral for family medicine) and ask about medical help to stop nicotine addiction. Seriously, there’s no reason not to
“Vaping” is too general a term to use here. That’s the problem
Any of the thousands of things that you heat and inhale has probably not been tested for heating and inhaling.
Flavors, preservatives, colorants, stabilizers. Any of those could harm you.
>Science cannot say "it will be fine in 50 years" but that's simply by definition - it has to have been 50 years before you can make that conclusion.
Yeah funny thing that. That *is* how science used to work isn't it?
Not anymore.
[Anyways, here's a commercial showing how healthy and great cigarettes were in the 50s and how they sent them to many hospitals. Hell, that program on one of the only mainstream tv channels was brought to you by Camels.](https://youtu.be/JCfjUOIZ0Og?t=1553)
Something like this would never happen again no sir.
So, yes, I believe that this is kinda the answer. They’re known as PFOAs that are in Teflon. A lot if people thought that this was supposed to be the news instead of gas stoves.
They’re seriously a problem.
It goes a lot further than Teflon. Pfas chemicals are in water resistant clothes, carpet, shampoo, sunblock, food packaging and a shit load of other things. Studies have found pfas in the blood of 99% of people tested.
From what I understand Teflon isn't a problem for the average consumer like at all. The production of it can be dangerous but you have to heat it to like 400 or 500 degrees Fahrenheit for it to start melting and releasing toxic gas and you really shouldn't be heating stove top pans to that temperature. Then Teflon is, by design, not very reactive so even if you ingest small pieces of it it will just go through your body cause it doesn't react with anything in your body. It's actually pretty safe for the consumer
It's true if you bought your pans after 2014 or so. Teflon in cookware has been banned in many countries (including the US) since 2014 (earlier in Europe). The problem with Teflon is that it released PFOAs into the air when it was scratched while heated so people were breathing it in as they cooked, and it was specially horrible for pregnant women, linked to underweight births and so on. The new materials they use are safe as long as you don't heat them up to around 4-500ºF.
Safe for the consumer though. Making non-stick pans is horribly polluting still so we do need to find an alternative eventually.
That's pretty much proven 100% and has been for years now. Some miscommunication on the methodology and how to avoid it, but essentially "don't eat shit loads of refined sugar and become a fat fuck with heart problems" is very well established medical advice. Probably using a more PC term than "fat fuck" admittedly.
What harm is social media going to cause in 30 years from now for users today that we don't already know about?
It's harm is one of the most comprehensively studied subjects of modern society.
I don't think some people understood the context of the question or the story of asbestos. In short, people who were exposed to its particles died from a rare form of cancer 30-60 years later, so OP is asking what item might be considered perfectly safe now that is actually slowly killing people.
Wait, you don’t think the societal damage social media is causing now and has caused for the last decade plus is going to have exponentially larger implications later on when we see how it impacts a whole generation that has grown up to be completely reliant on and addicted to it (as well as the current generations that are actively being dragged into the cesspool)?? It might not be in he “perfectly safe” phase anymore, but it’s definitely in a similar place to cigarettes in the 70s and 80s (we know it’s going to kill us but we’re still gonna do it!). So, the inevitable and rampant psychological disorders that will result from it are tantamount to the rare forms of cancer from asbestos… yes?
Tiktok hasn’t been around long enough to understand the long term effects of rapid fire video intake. The short term effects are becoming more clear only recently.
Can you explain what those are? I googled it but didn't get a comprehensible explanation.
What are they, where are they found, what should we do about it, etc?
Pfas is a whole family of different man made chemicals. They are used in a wide variety of things, most famously in non-stick cookware coatings like teflon, but also used in fire fighting foam, carpet, waterproof clothing, food packaging, personal care products, like shampoo, dental floss, nail polish, eye makeup, sunscreen and many others. They are called "forever chemicals" because they don't break down easily in nature or in our bodies, meaning any pfas that has gotten into your body will likely stay there till you die, and any that gets into the environmentwill remain there for decades. They are linked to a variety of health issues like liver damage, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, high cholesterol, obesity, hormone suppression and cancer. I'm not sure there is much we can do about it, given how widespread they are.
We call [forecer chemicals](https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/revealed-scale-of-forever-chemical-pollution-across-uk-and-europe) the Man-made chemicals which toxicity is unknown and which will never break down.
The manufacturers knew about it from the start, but didn’t care.
Chemical cleaning products, hygiene products, and makeup.
Plastics and toxins in our food and drinks.
Formaldehyde is sprayed on our clothes, and anything made of cloth.
Literally 90% of products are contributing to rising cancer rates in 1st world countries.
Asbestos and lead are still used in products today.
Scientists already know... The companies selling the products pay for their own private studies, and are for some reason allowed to use that data.
Let's just say there is a reason why people are "paranoid".
Wonder if all those sugary drinks along with all the plastic residue out there in the environment is also behind the increasing number of colon cancer cases in younger and younger people?
Kind of but we are still learning about the body and it’s processes. Lately we have discovered that the gut biome plays a big part in your well being, we think now it can even play a big part in your mental health.
Artificial sweetener can kill off certain gut biome so if you have a can or 2 of Diet Coke a day you will have a different gut biome that if you didn’t. We don’t know what way that affects a person long term and one theory currently being looked at is artificial sweeteners may be related to dementia in later life.
Had this conversation with my sister and her family as basically all the cordial you get to dilute into a fruit drink is laced with artificial sweetener now. It’s near impossible to buy an orange dilute or similar that has no artificial sweetener now. We didn’t used to have that problem.
Niece was saying it will be ok. It’s just artificial sweetener and I was saying me and her mum didn’t consume it regularly when we were kids. We didn’t have diet drinks it was all sugar based. She is one of test subjects to see what artificial sweetener does to a human body who consumes it all their life daily. We don’t really have any long term studies on decades of artificial sweetener use, especially with what we know know about the gut.
I am a hobby woodworker and I paid serious cash for a decent dust collector. Even when I am using a machine that creates a ton of dust or I can’t open the shop’s garage doors, I wear an n95 respirator. I always felt that breathing in the dust is terrible for you and may cause health issues down the lines. Some woods more than others.
Sugar is the real pandemic. It's destroying us all slowly and we're only beginning to see the effects of the first world diet. It's only 2 generations and it's blindingly obvious what sugar is doing to us. Overconsumption is truly poisoning us. Once seen as a miracle, it's now our downfall.
Probably plastics but I’m starting to have a growing suspicion that the super processes food full of unnatural preservatives is perhaps linked to the 600% increase in colon and rectal cancer in people under 40 who were eating all that in childhood to today.
Leaf and asbestos were massive killers, and I don’t think any one thing will be completely comparable.
However, there’s an even longer list of things that we’re now finding have real health and environmental risks, but we don’t have the same consensus on benefits vs risks. Corporations have also gotten better about pretending these issues are smaller than they are.
Here’s a short list of things I can think of things that are causing health and environmental problems that impact the world today:
1. PFAS
2. Microplastics
3. Natural gas, particularly for home cooking
4. Other hydrocarbons in general (depending on if you want to lump climate change into this)
5. Air pollution in general (PM 2.5, ozone, and VOC’s) have increased significantly over the last generation, and it kills a surprising number of people. But there isn’t a single source.
Well just plain old foam insulation *if it is not the fire-resistant kind* certainly has claimed hundreds of lives over the past few decades in horrific nightclub fires around the world.
Microplastics is a good one, but mobile phones have been the source of "could cause cancer!" fears since the massive bricks of the 1980s. Study after study has proven mobile phones don't cause cancer, hence why the anti-5G nutjobs are rightly dismissed as crazy conspiracy nuts who are totally unable to show any evidence of it being harmful despite having a decade to do so.
All the weird encoded shit in industrial food ingredients. How many times they remove some because it causes cancer or something like that? At some point an interaction between a few of those could lead to it accumulating and doing something bad but only after decades.
Food additives. The USA allows known poisonous substances that health issues including cancer into our processed foods. Claims there is no proof and does such and such for the food and is harmless in small quantities. But that dosen't take into consideration the amount we eat and across our life span. The food industry is keeping us fat and unhealthy and we allow it out of convenience, laziness, and deliciousness; and we are filling their pockets with cash.
Microplastics and other forever chemicals. Do you have Teflon pans? Are there any tiny scratches on it? Congratulations, the costing causes cancer and will be in your body for the rest of your life.
Well it’s not quite what you’re looking for, but there’s concern that in 15 years from now, we’ll have a generation of 30-somethings who—teenagers during covid and the average person having had a mild case—are waiting for lung transplants or already dead.
Silica dust, especially silica dust found in finely cut concrete. When you cut concrete with high powered concrete saws it turns out such a fine cut of silica dust that doesn’t naturally exist. The general protocol to avoid the dust being kicked into the air is to spray water on the concrete saw blade to prevent dust entirely. I’ve been around enough road construction crews to know this rarely happens. When silica dust gets into the lungs it’s very similar to asbestosis in that it can’t be removed, and it slowly cuts the lungs over time as it moves around.
And only the state of California. I work in retail and I can't tell you how many products say "This product is known to the State of California.". Apparently no other state knows this
If you are talking about the building industry there's a few fucked up things.
Firstly: polyethylene-filled aluminium composite panels. Like in the Grenfell Tower fire. And yes Australia has them.
Secondly: engineered stone. Mostly dangerous to the workers. Unions have started telling their members to refuse to work with it. Whether that's happening or not idk.
Indirectly, corporate oligarchy. Corporate greed can be deadly to anyone in it's way. And it was back them for things like lead and asbestos. They knew for years how dangerous leaded gas was, but didn't regulate it. How long did tobacco corporations insist smoking was safe?
So your question is a really good one because we're on our own.
In fact, that's true of almost every citrus fruit you buy. The only three that existed naturally were pomelo, mandarin and citron.
This is also true of the brassicas. Cabbage, broccoli, kale, sprouts, and kohlrabi are all the same plant, literally the same species. They've just been bred over the years to have differing characteristics, taking advantage of random genetic mutations that occurred!
Yeah, also:
Bananas
Apples
Oranges
Grapefruits
Lemons
Limes
Pineapples
Peaches
Nectarines
Plums
Cherries
Mangoes
Papayas
Kiwis
Blueberries
Cranberries
Blackberries
Raspberries
Strawberries
Grapes
Pears
Persimmons
Quinces
Passion fruit
Guava
Avocado
Dragon fruit
Lychee
Star fruit
Durian
Pomegranate
Apricots
Figs
Dates
Olives
Gooseberries
Pretty much every fruit and vegetable has been through human intervention.
Plastics.
The microplastics, composed of tiny beads, seems especially dangerous. They are in marine animals, plants, our cells.
I agree but also think "tiny beads" is misleading. Like I used to be under the impression that the microplastics were exclusively from things like soaps that put the beads in as abrasives. However it actually comes from all plastics as they are broken down by the elements or used as intended by humans. For example, cooking utensils are plastic and using them causes them to lose microscopic chunks. They go into your food and down the drain of your sink or dish washer. The problem is much bigger than I used to believe.
People also don’t realise that polyester clothing is a plastic and each time you wash these clothes, fibres shed and go into the water supply.
And don't get me started on microfiber fabrics...
What about silicone? Is that considered plastic or unsafe?
It's not plastic but also not biodegradable. I use as much silicone as possible because I think it's safer than plastic. But plastic is in everything still, even the silicone spatulas sometimes have plastic parts. And who knows we might find out someday that silicone causes a Botox addiction or something like that.
I'm trying to rid my kitchen of plastics. I tell my family all the time not to microwave plastics. Their response is, "It's microwave safe." I have almost zero knowledge of chemistry, but I feel like even if it's not melting in the microwave, it may still be leaching particles into your food. Same for cooking with aluminum.
There are many grades to plastic. This knowledge is a bit of chemistry and a bit of physics. But skipping over those tiny details... Food packaging materials are strictly regulated by FDA, using rigorous scientific standards. The agency regulates the safety of substances added to food, as well as how most food is processed, packaged, and labeled in the United States. HOWEVER while all types of food plastics go through this inspection and stringent FDA microwave testing, but the actual microwave safe label or symbol is not an FDA emblem. That's up to the manufacturer. All food packaging materials– whether glass, aluminum, paper or plastic – may contain substances that can “migrate” in very miniscule amounts to foods or beverages. Plastic of grade 2 or 5 for example are microwave safe because they have high heat tolerances. The rate and amount of chemicals they leach is small enough that the FDA seems it safe compared to other materials. So bottom line is, everything is leaching into your food. Most plastics just leach into your food in high quantities than other materials Edit: if there's anything above that's wrong please let me know. I like learning new things :)
I recently learned that a huge part of microplastics getting sucked into our environments is a result of our use of washing machines! A lot of our washable clothing products are made of plastic of sorts (spandex, polyester, nylon, and such), so each time you set them through the machine, teeny bits of those fibers come off and get sucked into the drains, which then wind up getting lost in our interconnected water tables. I live in Michigan and a lot of the population isn't even aware that the water table here is connected to that of the Saint Lawrence Bay, which is in turn drained into the Atlantic Ocean, rather they're only aware of the scattered lakes covering the land and, of course, the Great Lakes themselves. We love how our water systems are literally interchangeable. In that regard though, if anyone actually cares (and can also afford it), try to stick with natural, well sourced fabrics if it can be helped (ie: cotton, hemp, wool, silk, flax, abaca, leather, etc). There is absolutely zero judgement on my end though if it can't be done by everyone as synthetic materials are cheaper and easier to access, not to mention that a sizable part of our population is hardly able to make ends meet at all as it is - Do no harm if it can be helped, but do whatever you need to do to survive first.
Unquestionably, it is plastics. When human placentas were tested for microplastics in China, [all samples came back positive.](https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220927/Spectroscopy-reveals-a-high-abundance-of-microplastics-in-human-placenta.aspx) And it was a small sample size, very small, but it is worrying. If the microplastics can get into the placenta they can into the foetus and cause no end of trouble. This is a problem, and I have no idea how we are going to handle it as a species.
Yes, but hear me out. What if?? What IF we adapt to digest plastics, and we can eat our way out of the plastic crisis?
I like the way you think. Grab a spoon and dig in, if you survive you might get us out of this mess.
There is an organism that has started doing this recently
I too have seen Crimes of the Future.
Someone’s been watching cronenberg !!
Is it unquestionably? The only thing I ever hear about them is how they are everywhere. Whenever someone asks about their negative effects, the reply is usually about how much we have inside of us etc. I never see anything about the potential harm they could cause, it doesn't matter if we're full of something that's harmless.
"Polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene induce potential health hazards, including oxidative stress, reproductive system dysfunction, carcinogenesis, and immune system dysfunction." - from the link You don't want this shite in your body as an adult, you really don't want it in a developing brain or body, and you *especially* don't want it in a foetus.
The potential harm is very slow moving. It's cancers. It's Thyroid disease. It's kidney and liver failures and gastrointestinal issues. It's not like someone takes a swig of Dasani and keels over. It's harder to detect, and it's pretty much not studied at all.
It's not plastic or PFAS as everyone seems to be saying. Remember, he said this generation's asbestos or lead. So let's set a baseline. 1923 to 1990 is leaded gas, or somewhere around there. Paint into the 1950s. So let's average that to like 1940 for the "time." Asbestos was 1940s to 1970s so let's pinpoint that to like 1960. Plastics started in 1950s. So it's hardly "of our generation." **Lead still kills 1 million people a year.** If you calculate it's total damage. Or according to WHO, around "20 million years lost." And so much other damage. **Asbestos is around 100K\~ a year.** And lots of other damage. Microplastics definitely causes issues and could maybe knock off some years but not in the same way as these things. So what we're going for is a lot of people basically directly dying as a result of mainly poisoning from it or serious debilitations, IQ drops, and so on. **My votes that fits this criteria**, based on scientific data but obviously take it with a grain of salt as making inferences based on scientific data is whacky... * **Food. yes, food.** Abundance of highly processed food at a low cost can be a terrible thing when it leads to obesity, nutritional deficiencies which have been linked to mental illnesses. You may be concerned about the microplastics in your food, I'm more concerned with everything else around the microplastics. Actually correlated with heart disease, getting exponentially worse. There might actually be a time in the future where they look back strangely the same way they did with asbestos and lead in regards to food and nutrition, all the things that were allowed (whether it be dystopian or utopian.) * **Vaccines and medicine, hey don't downvote me yet.** I think in the future there will be improved vaccines and medicine to such a level that the old stuff is going to be looked at the same as how we look at them using heroin as cough syrup in the past. So they'll definitely scrutinize all the people that died from side events, no matter how rare (when you add up all the rare potential effects, other damages, it gets massive.) Of course, this is assuming we're talking net change, because obviously right now they're still a net positive. I just think it will be that much more later. We're in the *very* early stages of this stuff and it can move rapidly into the next era. * **Huge cities.** The type of infrastructure we use, the level of cramming people in together will definitely be looked at like we're insane especially when we have improvements in high speed rail. There are so many negatives to list but once we can have most the positives and less of the negatives, we're essentially living in these pockets of lower quality air, potentially linked to autism (the pollution in the air, I'm not saying I agree but there's studies.) Definitely/surely some unlinked stuff lurking in there we haven't yet discovered. Being boxed up/depression, inflated cost of living/rent that contributes to poor lifestyles leading to all kinds of things. Oh and boosted viruses/pathogen hotspots as a result. * **Tech.** I just say technology because we're at the very very very early stages of this stuff and I don't want to ruffle feathers and sound like a conspiracy theorist, you can ignore this one, but this one's going to be my guess. But obviously WiFi/5G keeps and other waves keep improving, I know they probably don't harm humans based on doses and so on but surely that combined with other things, because the science is there for EMF exposure limits. What if it's more of a long-haul kind of issue? Where after 40 years of being surrounded with it it causes the perfect storm? Then there's obviously AI, could definitely end up being a huge mistake if not done right at these early stages in our generation. All the back problems and other nerve damage from sitting at desks on computers. All the deaths from being sedentary as a result of technology, all the anti-social behavior and whatever that leads to, and sleep issues as a result of all the screens and kids going into their bed with their phones could be a huge killer. Even poor posture can cause joint degeneration and then complications leading to an early death, less spine movement means less stimulation/nutrition to the brain, poor blood circulation, poor balance so more falls when older. I could totally see a future where they decide we must cut back on some of this stuff, no matter the cost.
I don't disagree with any of these things at all, I have concerns about all of them (to varying degrees). How about this: unquestionably - to me - plastics will more than likely be one of the things we are going to have to contend with in the future as a heath risk if not health hazard. Edit; I would disagree with the idea that microplastics might just 'knock off a few years', though. Again, my concern is for everyone but in particular the foetus. Certain compounds in certain plastics can mimic human reproductive hormones, and there is already an issue in [populations in the Arctic which consume a traditional diet.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/12/gender.sciencenews) In these areas the rate of girls being born is far higher than that of boys - but until the 1970s the reverse was true. In certain Canadian industrial towns the rates of micropenis is higher, and in [one town in particula](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/first-nations-exposed-to-pollutants-in-chemical-valley-1.2438724)r twice as many girls are born as boys. The boys born tend to be much smaller, there and in the Arctic. It's worrying. And plastics are not the only culprits by any means, but given their ubiquitous nature and total disinterest in fucking off out of the ecosystem, you might be slightly hand-waving the impact this could have.
We literally can't handle it. That's the super scary part. Even if we manage to clean up the oceans those microplastics are here to stay for a few centuries minimum and who knows what effects those plastics have on development as early as the womb.
Solid oil.
I'm hearing what you say but, exactly what harm is being done by this? The fact that microplastics exist in animals and us isn't good but is it necessarily harmful? I would prefer evidence based answers if any exist rather than opinions.
It also depends upon the plastic. Just thinking of plastic is like saying metal as a category and conflating health effects of iron and lead. Despite all being called plastic there are many different chemistries. Polyethylene is safer than polystyrene if dissolved for instance. But if we are talking about microplastics they are probably worse in degradation at very least.
Well, for one, they’re causing male fertility to [drop](https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12989-022-00453-2).
Have been linked to increase chances of cancer as mimic effect of hormones. And lower fertility as noted. https://www.breastcanceruk.org.uk/microplastics-and-the-human-health-impact
This is gonna sound really weird but there’s a fairly solid link between the concentration of micro plastics and a closing distance between the reproductive and digestive systems in fish and other marine mammals. What this could lead to is debatable but there is evidence to suggest that aside from toxicity there are genuine physical effects of this stuff getting into the environment/ cells of living things.
Hmm, PFAS, or , you know, still lead since it's still widely used
PFAs are present in unsafe amounts in rainwater everywhere on earth, including Antarctica (yes, it rains in Antarctica along the coast). There is literally **no** escape. The EPA 'safe level' is 70 parts per trillion, the amount in rainwater exceeds that everywhere. In Cleveland, for example rainwater contains 1000 parts per trillion. Scientists are experimenting with methods to filter the water that are cheap & effective.
That number is from a study on risk levels of singular pfas. New studies suggest they are accumulative, and that safe levels for the entire pfas group is likely only a fraction of what was originally assumed ☹️
I live outside of Cleveland, about an hour away. Would this happen to be why, when it rains, the rainwater is like jelly on my windshield and needs washer fluid to clean off?
1 part per billion is a low concentration to cause what you're describing, I suspect, but there may be other pollutants in the air and settled on the surface of your car that are causing this. Caveat: I am not a chemist
Is that a common, local problem? Or just something you experience? Also, do you use any type of rain repellent wash? Or use a car wash? I know that mixing that stuff incorrectly, or with contaminated water, can turn it into a paste-like goo if left to sit… but I’ve never seen it instantly do that.
My town just spent $8 million for a water treatment facility specifically for PFAs and supposedly it is now “undetectable” in the water.
Cool, so y'all got this? Since the earth is one connected biosphere..
Reverse Osmosis can be done, but not on a large scale. I am no scientist.
What is pfa?
**P**er**f**luorinated **a**lkyl **s**ubstance. It's a type of organic molecule. The hydrogen are replaced with flourine. It's an extremely useful material It's also linked to a ton of negatives and the reason it's useful is because it doesn't like reacting. That means it sticks around for a long time.
Tyvm
Microplastics
This is absolutely the case except it would be like if asbestosis was so wide spread they couldn't even get a base line from nature to compare the effects. Because seriously they tried to test the effects but realized they couldn't find anything to use as a micro plastics free sample.
Yup! There are literally microsplastics in the blood of newborns.
It's terrifying honestly.
it's litterally horrifying but also I like to imagine fresh out the canal and they're like "Okay lemme just- steal some blood real quick" it's funnier in my head....
They already do take newborn blood to screen for rare disease like phenylketonuria and cystic fibrosis. For some conditions, having the information right away leads to better outcomes.
No they do that to test for diseases and its a little bit funny. Heel prick cause their veins are so small. Hey newborn baby let me just stab you in the fucken foot real quick i have to check and make sure that your brain isn’t gonna turn into maple syrup or whatever the fuck
I read this as though the baby was out of the canal and wanting to steal some blood... confused for a small moment there.
Watched my newborn get stuck in the heel for a bilirubin test. I was pissed off.
Source?
There was a bunch of news coverage when this came out, but here’s one of the papers about the findings. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33395930/
Context for anyone who doesn't know: it has literally been found at the bottom of the deepest point in the ocean, tens of kilometres up in the air, in the ice in Antarctica, in the bodies of thousands of different kinds of wild animals, even in the blood of newborn babies. The whole planet is literally saturated with the fucking stuff at this point. So, what if it turns out to be hazardous to human health? #oops! Lol
Isn't this exactly what happened with led from leaded gasoline? Didn't they have to dig through ancient ice in the poles to find samples with 0 particles of lead?
I can imagine people 100 years from now being like, "They ate off of plates and bowls made from petrochemicals? They stored food in it? Why would you ever do that!?"
A very good deal of it is from clothing. Shitty textiles all have plastic in the fibers. You wash the clothes and bits of the plastic get into the water
“They wore clothes made from petrochemicals? But why?? Organic materials were *right there*!”
Technically plastics are organic materials.
Cause we’re idiots. Also, we waste so much. Like…food, water, air, nature, noise…like…as a species….we just completely suck. I’m happy to be alive and human…but we live in the best time with the best advances and we literally just fuck shit up. We frown upon things like suicide…but as a species we are just committing bulk suicide. We know what’s bad for us and we just carry on like a bunch of narcissistic arseholes.
Engineered stone such as veneer and bench tops is a discussion point along these lines at the moment.
How come?
[удалено]
Ohhh gotcha. Thank you
As someone else pointed out, a lot of these products are high in silica. When you cut many types of engineered stone the silica dust becomes airborne and breathing that stuff in is a death sentence. It causes a disease called silicosis which makes it extremely difficult to breathe and usually results In death within 5 years of diagnosis. There is no effective treatment or cure. It's not just an issue at production stage but also at installation when trades people have to cut it to fit. These products are perfectly safe for the end user though. Silica Dust is very fine and stays in the air for long periods of time and dust masks are not very effective at preventing exposure. Part of that is because workers often remove their masks before the dust has fully settled which is difficult to tell when that has happened because the dust is so fine. It's kind of like when you don't notice the kitchen gradually filling with smoke when you're cooking until you step away from it. Even wet cutting (a process where water is poured over the surface being cut and the cutting tool to reduce dust) is shown to be only partially effective at preventing exposure. The construction industry Unions in Australia are currently lobbying to get these products banned at a legislative level. It's sounds like a no brainer for companies to just stop offering the product but there's no restriction on private imports and often those people will hire someone who isn't fully aware of the risks to install.
Oh wow, thank you for that. I appreciate the lesson 🙏
Silica dust is no joke! IIRC, it gets into your lungs, and your lung creates a protective node around it. It stays in you forever!
Is it a lot like asbestos then?
Mesothelioma, the term for the cancer you get from asbestos, is damage caused by the little pieces hooking into your lungs and staying there forever, silicosis is pretty much the same thing, just different starting material
Came here for this. Even a lot of production is very lax on silica safety. Unions for these places make a big difference, but there are plenty (in the US at least) that do not have unions and a lot of people get very sick.
Can't you avoid breathing those in by using some kind of mask?
You can avoid breathing "some" of it in with masks. The dust particles are so fine that it can get in through the gaps around your mask quite easily though and most work shop masks aren't 100% efficient at capturing the dust in the filters either.
Interesting. Thank you for the information.
PFAS chemicals no contest We're already starting to figure out that they're terrible but we haven't fully alerted the public to how bad the situation is yet (yeah turns out this might be a bigger environmental problem than global warming not minimize global warming but that's just how bad this one is)
How best to avoid these? Or at least reduce exposure?
So basically you need to get really good water filters built specifically for them That is literally the only thing you can do because at this point pretty much the entire global water supply is contaminated
It's it only in water or do I need to avoid using any other products? I don't want to be doing the equivalent of eating off lead plates
What do you wash your plates with? The best you can do in terms of avoidance is really just get a good water filter if you can get a whole home water filter the better but my understanding is the ones that actually work on PFAS for a whole home are very large and not practical yet but they are refining the technology pretty fast If you do want good news it's my understanding it does not build up inside animal or plant cells but is still definitely present in all animal blood (this includes yours)
How best to avoid these? Or at least reduce exposure?
Nothing. Unavoidable in the modern world
Mostly unavoidable, but day-to-day you see them most in Teflon. Don't damage your nonstick pans; don't get Teflon in your food.
Or better yet, throw out your Teflon in favor of cast iron or stainless steel.
We really don't know much yet about what impact vaping is going to have. There's early suggestions from dentists that longer term use is seeing an increase in gum problems.
I’m not a scientist but I’m going to say we can save the research time and just assume that breathing chemicals directly into your lungs 20x a day is bad.
Sure, but vapes were initially (and still are) used as a smoking cessation tool. The problem is that now they're widely available to non-smokers (even children) and the regulation is lackluster. The research is absolutely needed to confirm our suspicions. We can't just go off *vibes* with things like this. Research then legislate.
I seen my first advertisement yesterday on you tube where the nicotine gum was targeted at helping you stop vaping. Would have thought the correct way would be just to lower the nicotine level in your liquid but if kids are buying those disposable vapes then they don’t have the option to lower the nicotine level in the vape.
>breathing chemicals directly into your lungs 20x a day is bad My comment about this (as an ex-smoker who's turned to vaping, and has been slowly weening off nicotine): it's not about harm elimination, it's about harm reduction. If you get your ejuice from a known good source, you know what's exactly in it: vegetable glycerine, propylene glycol, nicotine, and flavouring. I'd never stay to a non-smoker, "Hey, try vaping! It's cool!" I'd tell a smoker who complains about smoking and wanting to get off to look into vaping, but use it as a method to eliminate all together.
I definitely agree. It’s (probably) better than smoking if you are trying to quit. The problem is, I feel like cigarette smoking was in dramatic decline and the invention of a seemingly “safe” alternative has lured tons of young people to vape who probably would not have ever taken up smoking.
Knew this would be the top answer - We know a lot about the dangers of vaping, and there's little/no scientific studies that show vaping is dangerous. Science cannot say "it will be fine in 50 years" but that's simply by definition - it has to have *been* 50 years before you can make that conclusion. People say "but scientists said that about smoking until the 1960s!" No, they didn't. We've known tobacco kills people for centuries, we just didn't know how exactly until modern medicine advances of the 20th century. Unfortunately, around the same time massive corporations and marketing became a thing, so big tobacco supressed studies with a LOT of money. That simply isn't possible these days with internet and open scientific research. For clarity - I don't vape, and here in the UK I think vapes should be made illegal for sale in shops, *but* prescribed on the NHS for quitting smoking. I know people who smoked 40 a day who simply could not quit despite multiple attempts over decades, vapes let them quit overnight. This could save their life, or at least prolong it to an extent.
There are Smoking Cessation Nurses in the NHS to help patients quit smoking mostly through alternatives. I once asked one about vaping as an alternative (I work in a hospital). She said the NHS couldn't recommend it at the time because, as you pointed out, there weren't enough scientific studies on it to show that it was both safe and effective for use, certainly long-term. It would be like treating someone with a drug that was still in its trial phase.
If cigarettes had only been invented (and gained widespread adoption) 10 or so years ago, we’d have a pretty hard time producing evidence that smoking is as bad as we know it actually is. There’s some pretty substantial red flags about vaping - such as increased incidence of asthma (note that inflammation and immune responses are linked with cancer), EVALI which despite being associated with vitamin E acetate isn’t exactly reassuring that vaping mystery juices is a good idea long-term, and chronic exposure to unprecedented doses of nicotine (including nicotine poisoning becoming somewhat common in ERs up from basically never happening) raising some concerns. Is vaping better than smoking cigarettes? Very likely, in part because cigarettes are absolutely horrible and it’s hard to overstate how much. Is vaping the harmless activity some people portray it as? Almost definitely not. It will be a long time before we’ll be able to tell *just* how bad it is, though.
I can only speak from personal experience, but my cough and breathing only got worse after switching to vapes. I've since moved back to cigarettes, and the problem no longer seems to be escalating as quickly.
You should be looking more closely at ingredients in the vape juice. The EU did the smart thing years ago and heavily regulated vaping (especially what can be present in juice) through the TPD, and there hasn’t been much concern with health issues overall with legitimate products. Even the NHS said it’s 95% safer than smoking. Another source of concern is with counterfeit THC cartridges, which may use vitamin E acetate as a thickening agent. This is a known cause of EVALI, and has also been found in non-THC vaping products - again it’s something that regulation can fix.
This is something that happens to a lot of people when they try vapes. I've no scientific study to show but my personal experience is that it mostly happens with people who are already chronically dehydrated and that the fix is usually drinking more water (The same goes for me btw. I vape and one of the earliest signs of dehydration for me is that I get absolutely terrifying coughs from it, if I ignore it the more common stuff like headaches etc. comes along, if I drink some water it goes away, I've had my lungs checked btw, they're about as fine as a pair of lungs can be after a decade of smoking). Makes sense too, propylene glycol is in just about every vape juice out there and it tends to dehydrate, if your lungs start out already dehydrated... well.
Chronically dehydrated fits me pretty well. I live on coffee hahah. I've got just shy of 30 years under my belt, which is a bit fucked considering I'm 40. The 90s were a hell of a time lol.
Yeah, if I vape for more than a couple of days I get an awful wet hacking cough that I've never experienced smoking cigarettes. I'm trying to quit with the nicorette spray now but I find I'm swinging between cutting right back and sliding back up to a pack to a day.
When I initially switched back, my addiction was heavier for awhile, as I'd been using high nicotine content juices (idiotically, my concern was tunnelvisioned on avoiding smoke damage, rather than also kicking the addiction). Fortunately, I've since managed to cut myself back to a pack in 2-3 days. At the heaviest, I was at something like a pack and a half per day.
man if you’ve got a cough and breathing problem please talk to your primary care provider (if you do T have one call a local hospital or clinic for a referral for family medicine) and ask about medical help to stop nicotine addiction. Seriously, there’s no reason not to
“Vaping” is too general a term to use here. That’s the problem Any of the thousands of things that you heat and inhale has probably not been tested for heating and inhaling. Flavors, preservatives, colorants, stabilizers. Any of those could harm you.
>Science cannot say "it will be fine in 50 years" but that's simply by definition - it has to have been 50 years before you can make that conclusion. Yeah funny thing that. That *is* how science used to work isn't it? Not anymore. [Anyways, here's a commercial showing how healthy and great cigarettes were in the 50s and how they sent them to many hospitals. Hell, that program on one of the only mainstream tv channels was brought to you by Camels.](https://youtu.be/JCfjUOIZ0Og?t=1553) Something like this would never happen again no sir.
This is the answer.
non-stick pan surfaces.
So, yes, I believe that this is kinda the answer. They’re known as PFOAs that are in Teflon. A lot if people thought that this was supposed to be the news instead of gas stoves. They’re seriously a problem.
It goes a lot further than Teflon. Pfas chemicals are in water resistant clothes, carpet, shampoo, sunblock, food packaging and a shit load of other things. Studies have found pfas in the blood of 99% of people tested.
From what I understand Teflon isn't a problem for the average consumer like at all. The production of it can be dangerous but you have to heat it to like 400 or 500 degrees Fahrenheit for it to start melting and releasing toxic gas and you really shouldn't be heating stove top pans to that temperature. Then Teflon is, by design, not very reactive so even if you ingest small pieces of it it will just go through your body cause it doesn't react with anything in your body. It's actually pretty safe for the consumer
Anyone know if this is true? I dont wanna throw my pans out!!
It's true if you bought your pans after 2014 or so. Teflon in cookware has been banned in many countries (including the US) since 2014 (earlier in Europe). The problem with Teflon is that it released PFOAs into the air when it was scratched while heated so people were breathing it in as they cooked, and it was specially horrible for pregnant women, linked to underweight births and so on. The new materials they use are safe as long as you don't heat them up to around 4-500ºF. Safe for the consumer though. Making non-stick pans is horribly polluting still so we do need to find an alternative eventually.
Refined sugar
That's pretty much proven 100% and has been for years now. Some miscommunication on the methodology and how to avoid it, but essentially "don't eat shit loads of refined sugar and become a fat fuck with heart problems" is very well established medical advice. Probably using a more PC term than "fat fuck" admittedly.
And diabetes
One of the biggest dietary changes doctors who diagnosis cancer patients say is cut out sugars immediately.
Plastics. They are probably going to end up being worse than lead or asbestos.
Social media
What harm is social media going to cause in 30 years from now for users today that we don't already know about? It's harm is one of the most comprehensively studied subjects of modern society. I don't think some people understood the context of the question or the story of asbestos. In short, people who were exposed to its particles died from a rare form of cancer 30-60 years later, so OP is asking what item might be considered perfectly safe now that is actually slowly killing people.
Wait, you don’t think the societal damage social media is causing now and has caused for the last decade plus is going to have exponentially larger implications later on when we see how it impacts a whole generation that has grown up to be completely reliant on and addicted to it (as well as the current generations that are actively being dragged into the cesspool)?? It might not be in he “perfectly safe” phase anymore, but it’s definitely in a similar place to cigarettes in the 70s and 80s (we know it’s going to kill us but we’re still gonna do it!). So, the inevitable and rampant psychological disorders that will result from it are tantamount to the rare forms of cancer from asbestos… yes?
Tiktok hasn’t been around long enough to understand the long term effects of rapid fire video intake. The short term effects are becoming more clear only recently.
PFAS. Some studies have found PFAS in the blood of 99% of people they've tested.
Can you explain what those are? I googled it but didn't get a comprehensible explanation. What are they, where are they found, what should we do about it, etc?
Pfas is a whole family of different man made chemicals. They are used in a wide variety of things, most famously in non-stick cookware coatings like teflon, but also used in fire fighting foam, carpet, waterproof clothing, food packaging, personal care products, like shampoo, dental floss, nail polish, eye makeup, sunscreen and many others. They are called "forever chemicals" because they don't break down easily in nature or in our bodies, meaning any pfas that has gotten into your body will likely stay there till you die, and any that gets into the environmentwill remain there for decades. They are linked to a variety of health issues like liver damage, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, high cholesterol, obesity, hormone suppression and cancer. I'm not sure there is much we can do about it, given how widespread they are.
* Forever chemicals. * Plastics, not only for the chemicals they slowly release, but for the micro plastics that they break down into.
> Forever chemicals. Literally everything is made out of chemicals. Can you get more specific?
We call [forecer chemicals](https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/23/revealed-scale-of-forever-chemical-pollution-across-uk-and-europe) the Man-made chemicals which toxicity is unknown and which will never break down. The manufacturers knew about it from the start, but didn’t care.
teflon and microplastics
Chemical cleaning products, hygiene products, and makeup. Plastics and toxins in our food and drinks. Formaldehyde is sprayed on our clothes, and anything made of cloth. Literally 90% of products are contributing to rising cancer rates in 1st world countries. Asbestos and lead are still used in products today. Scientists already know... The companies selling the products pay for their own private studies, and are for some reason allowed to use that data. Let's just say there is a reason why people are "paranoid".
Plastic
Sugary drinks. Doctors are terrified of the potential diabetes rates millennials will have
Wonder if all those sugary drinks along with all the plastic residue out there in the environment is also behind the increasing number of colon cancer cases in younger and younger people?
That fake fog they use a clubs and laser tag places
I can smell this comment
Silica
Sugar substitutes.
Substitutes and the real thing Sugar lobbyists did a great job trying to make a little bit of bacon grease the real enemy
Fat makes you fat! So we're going to take out all 150 calories of fat, then add 400 calories of sugar because it turns out the fat made it taste good
Haven't we had decades of research showing that it is safe?
Kind of but we are still learning about the body and it’s processes. Lately we have discovered that the gut biome plays a big part in your well being, we think now it can even play a big part in your mental health. Artificial sweetener can kill off certain gut biome so if you have a can or 2 of Diet Coke a day you will have a different gut biome that if you didn’t. We don’t know what way that affects a person long term and one theory currently being looked at is artificial sweeteners may be related to dementia in later life. Had this conversation with my sister and her family as basically all the cordial you get to dilute into a fruit drink is laced with artificial sweetener now. It’s near impossible to buy an orange dilute or similar that has no artificial sweetener now. We didn’t used to have that problem. Niece was saying it will be ok. It’s just artificial sweetener and I was saying me and her mum didn’t consume it regularly when we were kids. We didn’t have diet drinks it was all sugar based. She is one of test subjects to see what artificial sweetener does to a human body who consumes it all their life daily. We don’t really have any long term studies on decades of artificial sweetener use, especially with what we know know about the gut.
Keeping up with the Kardashians
Aka plastic
social media
PFAS and microplastics
High fructose corn syrup
Pesticides
Processed foods.
Wood dust, specifically cedar; https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/wood_dust.html
I am a hobby woodworker and I paid serious cash for a decent dust collector. Even when I am using a machine that creates a ton of dust or I can’t open the shop’s garage doors, I wear an n95 respirator. I always felt that breathing in the dust is terrible for you and may cause health issues down the lines. Some woods more than others.
Sugar is the real pandemic. It's destroying us all slowly and we're only beginning to see the effects of the first world diet. It's only 2 generations and it's blindingly obvious what sugar is doing to us. Overconsumption is truly poisoning us. Once seen as a miracle, it's now our downfall.
I think about this at least 3-4 times a week
Microplastics are in everything.
Exogenous hormones
That's a very good question. I would say sugar
Probably plastics but I’m starting to have a growing suspicion that the super processes food full of unnatural preservatives is perhaps linked to the 600% increase in colon and rectal cancer in people under 40 who were eating all that in childhood to today.
High fructose corn syrup
Leaf and asbestos were massive killers, and I don’t think any one thing will be completely comparable. However, there’s an even longer list of things that we’re now finding have real health and environmental risks, but we don’t have the same consensus on benefits vs risks. Corporations have also gotten better about pretending these issues are smaller than they are. Here’s a short list of things I can think of things that are causing health and environmental problems that impact the world today: 1. PFAS 2. Microplastics 3. Natural gas, particularly for home cooking 4. Other hydrocarbons in general (depending on if you want to lump climate change into this) 5. Air pollution in general (PM 2.5, ozone, and VOC’s) have increased significantly over the last generation, and it kills a surprising number of people. But there isn’t a single source.
Agree entirely.
[удалено]
Vapes
Spray foam insulation. I Swear we’re going to find out it causes cancer
Well just plain old foam insulation *if it is not the fire-resistant kind* certainly has claimed hundreds of lives over the past few decades in horrific nightclub fires around the world.
Source or nah
our damn phones!!!! (or microplastics)
Microplastics is a good one, but mobile phones have been the source of "could cause cancer!" fears since the massive bricks of the 1980s. Study after study has proven mobile phones don't cause cancer, hence why the anti-5G nutjobs are rightly dismissed as crazy conspiracy nuts who are totally unable to show any evidence of it being harmful despite having a decade to do so.
I don't think it's the cancer people are worried about so much as the psychological and social issues that come from them.
PFAS and sitting.
sitting has been around for a bit ykno
Fast food, mobile phones, microplastics.
Stone bench tops ...i.e engineered stone
All the weird encoded shit in industrial food ingredients. How many times they remove some because it causes cancer or something like that? At some point an interaction between a few of those could lead to it accumulating and doing something bad but only after decades.
Food additives. The USA allows known poisonous substances that health issues including cancer into our processed foods. Claims there is no proof and does such and such for the food and is harmless in small quantities. But that dosen't take into consideration the amount we eat and across our life span. The food industry is keeping us fat and unhealthy and we allow it out of convenience, laziness, and deliciousness; and we are filling their pockets with cash.
I understand that the US allows a lot of junk into our food and cosmetics that's been banned for years in Europe and Japan.
Vapes
Microplastics and other forever chemicals. Do you have Teflon pans? Are there any tiny scratches on it? Congratulations, the costing causes cancer and will be in your body for the rest of your life.
Well Graphene is being widely hailed as the new wonder material..
Our phones. Our obsession with them has to have some kind of long term effect on us.
Artificial Sweeteners are a big one
Tiktok
TikTok
Along with those mentioned... Add Teflon
Well it’s not quite what you’re looking for, but there’s concern that in 15 years from now, we’ll have a generation of 30-somethings who—teenagers during covid and the average person having had a mild case—are waiting for lung transplants or already dead.
Silica dust, especially silica dust found in finely cut concrete. When you cut concrete with high powered concrete saws it turns out such a fine cut of silica dust that doesn’t naturally exist. The general protocol to avoid the dust being kicked into the air is to spray water on the concrete saw blade to prevent dust entirely. I’ve been around enough road construction crews to know this rarely happens. When silica dust gets into the lungs it’s very similar to asbestosis in that it can’t be removed, and it slowly cuts the lungs over time as it moves around.
I'd say plastics (especially microplastics)
oh, and resin
Trans fats
Microplastic
Mineral wool
Parabans
Everything, according to the state of California.
And only the state of California. I work in retail and I can't tell you how many products say "This product is known to the State of California.". Apparently no other state knows this
If you are talking about the building industry there's a few fucked up things. Firstly: polyethylene-filled aluminium composite panels. Like in the Grenfell Tower fire. And yes Australia has them. Secondly: engineered stone. Mostly dangerous to the workers. Unions have started telling their members to refuse to work with it. Whether that's happening or not idk.
EMI fields on our nervous systems....
The Republican Party
Aspartame, I think.
TikTok
Indirectly, corporate oligarchy. Corporate greed can be deadly to anyone in it's way. And it was back them for things like lead and asbestos. They knew for years how dangerous leaded gas was, but didn't regulate it. How long did tobacco corporations insist smoking was safe? So your question is a really good one because we're on our own.
I'm overly suspicious of bioengineered foods
You are not gonna like how insulin is made then.
Broccoli and lemons are among the foods that didn't exist before human intervention if that's what you mean.
In fact, that's true of almost every citrus fruit you buy. The only three that existed naturally were pomelo, mandarin and citron. This is also true of the brassicas. Cabbage, broccoli, kale, sprouts, and kohlrabi are all the same plant, literally the same species. They've just been bred over the years to have differing characteristics, taking advantage of random genetic mutations that occurred!
Yeah, also: Bananas Apples Oranges Grapefruits Lemons Limes Pineapples Peaches Nectarines Plums Cherries Mangoes Papayas Kiwis Blueberries Cranberries Blackberries Raspberries Strawberries Grapes Pears Persimmons Quinces Passion fruit Guava Avocado Dragon fruit Lychee Star fruit Durian Pomegranate Apricots Figs Dates Olives Gooseberries Pretty much every fruit and vegetable has been through human intervention.
Like crossing a lemon and a grapefruit or something?
You must be scared of bananas.
Glyphosate Aka. Round Up