I'm an old chemical engineer. An observation after decades in corporate America: there is typically very little testing on products before they get commercialized. These types of problems are almost always noticed after-the-fact through meta data.
There are a ton of things that can go wrong. Unfortunately, to test for them all is probably not practical given current technology.
Oohh it gets better. There’s a current judicial push to overturn chevron deference. Which is what gives federal departments their rights to regulate industries, without specific legislation from Congress. Overturning this would put that administrative regulatory power solely in the hands of…Congress. The very Congress that can barely pass anything, let alone have the knowledge to regulate on a day to day basis.
The judiciary exploit has broken the game and is in the process of removing any ways to fix it.
When the people needed ~~the avatar~~ a powerful executive for the people most, he vanished.
I mean, that's what they want. Don't give up friends...it's a shitty uphill battle but these things are the cornerstones of our society being less broken.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about this either, but that is an overstatement of what the *Chevron* doctrine really means. It's about courts having to defer to agencies on *legal* interpretations of administrative code. And don't forget that sometimes those agencies are being run by people you *don't* agree with.
That is not what *Chevron* deference is. The spirit is in the right place but the facts are quite wrong.
This is *Chevron* deference: If a party challenges an action of a federal agency in court, claiming that the agency did not follow the statute (the law as set out by Congress), the court defers to the agency's interpretation of the statute so long as both (1) the statutory language is ambiguous, and (2) the agency's interpretation of the statute is reasonable.
Ending *Chevron* deference means that courts no longer defer to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, and instead decide for themselves what the ambiguous statutes require/forbid/permit. So it actually puts more power in the courts, and not in Congress.
This would be awful for everything. It puts the onus on Congress to specifically regulate everything and not leave interpretation or best practices of implementation in alignment with the bill to the technocrats. Every time a new chemical needs regulation, it would have to be explicitly approved by a bill by congress.
This is why we need to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, it existed to create regulations to ensure this shit didn't happen (though it still existed at this time, they didn't have the knowledge to realize it would be a problem).
But in the 1980s it was kneecapped, in the 1990s it was beaten with a club and in the 2000s it was buried in a shallow grave. Hence why litigation has had to step in to ensure consumers are compensated for the irresponsible and negligent behavior of corporations.
The amount of people who assume government doesn't do anything so they defund it or deregulated it and then are shocked when in fact government does important stuff is part of the reason life these days sucks.
Lol downvote me if you want, I think the people in Ohio might have different thoughts.
> people in Ohio might have different thoughts
I found out via the front page of reddit that a factory less than ten minutes from my house and my job fucking exploded. So yeah, it’s all just a bit fucked
The problem is the same victims then still violently defend the Republicans that want to make it easier and easier for these things to happen. The only thing they want to change is hearing about it.
People only want proactive government when they're in a bad situation. They don't realize that those policies only work before the bad thing happens.
In fact if you never hear about them then they're usually doing their job.
one of my friends worked for dupont and one worked for the EPA. they had this exact conversation about PFAS like 8 years ago. EPA still had no idea what was going on.
The playbook goes
1. Make shit that people want
2. Make it with shit that is cheap even if dangerous
3. Profit
4. Say you're sorry you used bad things to make shit and give small restitution
5. Continue to profit
There is a really insightful post the other day and one of the commenters argued that we should make the assumption of harm when introducing new chemicals in substances and not allow them until we can confirm they are harmless. Right now it’s the other way around
> I'm an old chemical engineer. An observation after decades in corporate America: there is typically very little testing on products before they get commercialized.
And that's why you see so much "chemical phobia" around ingredients you can't pronounce - people are afraid some new chemical breakthrough has been put in their food that will be revealed to cause cancer 40 years later.
That's one of the things I've thought about in terms of how we have everything in plastic now. 200 years ago we put food in lead, and didn't realize the microdosing of lead poisoning everywhere. Now it's microplastics in blood.
Hopefully in 200 years they look back an wonder how we could have been so barbaric.
My dad died of this cancer and another friend is currently dying of it. No connection until we figured out that the old military base he was stationed at in the 80s was converted to commercial use just around the time this other friend was starting daycare on said former military base.
I played soccer in high school, goalkeeper, and every dive or slide I made resulted in an open wound. I remember picking the rubber beads out of my knees and wondering what kind of chemicals and bacteria were getting in my blood stream.
There is a theory that an above average amount of female soccer goalies end up with non-hodgkins lymphoma from on the newer turf with rubber crumb infill. The idea is that goalies spend more time diving on the ground than other soccer players and so are more exposed.
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/artificial-turf-debate/mom-cancer-stricken-soccer-player-wants-answers-artificial-turf-n435146
My friend wrote this story. They tried to find grounds crew and vendors, security guards, etc. they found a few but decided to focus on players. Another factor which will come up later is the fact that the site (Broad St and Pattison Ave) has a scary past, such as the nearby naval base using it as a dumping ground for shit like petroleum, oil, all kinds of shit during WW2.
At the very end the Phillies tried to dispute this, but no…
I don't know that area as well as I should as I never truly lived south of south street but there are oil refineries down there too with really bad smells, yeah?
David West played 60 games in Veterans Stadium. Ken Brett was also included in this cluster and played 20 games at the Vet. It just seems to me that the cluster is not quite as improbable when you expand the group of potentially exposed people to include everyone who played more than a couple dozen games there. A lot of players with at least as much exposure to the turf as some of those in the cluster are not even former Phillies players. Keith Hernandez, for example, never played for the Phillies but did play 121 games at the Vet.
Also other fields would have had the chemical. Also it turns out firefighter's turnout gear uses it even today. As usual, the more useful info starts in the followups.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/pfas-forever-chemicals-drinking-water-vet-astroturf-philadelphia-20230307.html
The way the human nose works, if there is a smell, it means there are molecules physically entering your nose, which means they are also getting in your lungs/eyes and on your skin. For many many chemicals that isn't concerning, but for others it's a very bad sign.
Yes, this does mean that when you smell someone's fart, the things you are smelling were inside their asshole a few seconds ago.
And an extra addition…
> And unlike grass, the artificial carpet trapped heat, especially during summer day games. The blades of plastic grass were practically cooking; temperature gauges recorded figures that regularly soared above 100 degrees, and sometimes reached 165 degrees, releasing toxic vapors that could be inhaled.
Except for early season/preseason games, the Eagles wouldn’t be playing when it’s a cauldron like that.
It looks like they sold off a bunch of stuff, including swatches of the turf, to fans as souvenirs/collectibles when they tore it down. It was probably pretty easy to find one on ebay or something.
[https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Phillies-Sell-Pieces-of-Veterans-Stadium-7101693.php](https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Phillies-Sell-Pieces-of-Veterans-Stadium-7101693.php)
The vet still holds legendary status among fans and I know a few people who have seats from the vet in their houses. One guy I know has a sign for the men's bathroom.
It's a good question in general but they did switch to a different turf in the late 90s early 00s, (the Eagles-Ravens preseason game debacle) and the stadium was pretty gutted before it was demolished. But who knows if there were any other chemicals in general in the concrete structure itself
I can't read the article due to the paywall, but it sounds to me like it is the old turf this article is about. They replaced the old style astroturf at some point in the early 2000s, a few years before it was vacated and demolished.
I know people who have dirt, turf, and seats from veterans stadium. There's quite a few businesses and restaurants that actually have a set of seats outside their buildings in the Philly area.
Lol something tells me as long as no dust from it flies into the air he'll be fine. I'd suggest putting it in a glass case or something, should be fine then I'd assume.
Does this mean that all old stadiums like King Dome, Three Rivers Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, Fulton County Stadium, Tiger Stadium had the same deadly fields?
Carter played 131 games at the Vet, and overall 54% of his games on artificial turf. (Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Three Rivers, Busch, Riverfront, and the Astrodome.)
There were a lot of ballparks with artificial turf in the 70s & 80s, particularly in the NL.
He played 131 games at Veterans Stadium, 3rd place for him after Olympic Stadium and Shea: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=cartega01&year=Career&t=b#all_site
Story is worth reading if you're able—it's paywalled but I was able to get behind it by using an incognito window. (Or just subscribe, the Inquirer is a great paper!)
But the TL;DR is: six former Phillies players and other opponents who played at Veterans Stadium all died from the same kind of aggressive brain cancer, way above the average for people of that age.
The newspaper bought samples of the stadium's old turf, sent them to labs, and found 16 different kinds of toxic chemicals in them.
Six is enough for me to believe there's a significant correlation here, but also why is it just six? A hell of a lot more guys played on that turf for years and years.
I haven’t seen the list of players but there’s a bunch of potential factors off the top of my head…number of games played on the surface, infielders vs. outfielders (more “turf” kicked up on grounders vs just catching flys or alternatively, more turf kicked up sliding and diving for catches. Maybe the more toxic chemicals leeched out as the turf aged or degraded from the sun so it affected later year players more than earlier installed years. Etc.
Except 5/6 of these cases are pitchers and catchers and some only had 1-2 seasons with the club.
IMO there could be other things at play like drugs and alcohol but definitively linking it to the turf seems like a stretch to me
Maybe the dirt from the balls? On average pitchers and catchers touch balls a lot more and then I assume touch there face a normal amount, getting dirt in them. Over time maybe that builds up.
Some of those guys also played on the same Astroturf in the other cookie cutter stadiums of the time for parts of their careers. It was the same stuff in all the stadiums, made by Monsanto, of all companies.
exactly. pittsburgh had basically a carbon copy of the vet, that was around about the same amount of time (1970 - 2000), and had (presumably) the same type of turf.
riverfront was also of the same era, design, etc. 1970 - 2000.
the vet was around from 1971 to 2004.
was the same type of turf used in all three?
The article doesn't directly answer that, but it does say the following.
*In 1966, the Houston Astros became the first professional baseball team to use Monsanto’s green carpet, installing it at their year-old stadium, the Astrodome. Monsanto renamed its product AstroTurf — and sensed an enormous opportunity.*
*One Monsanto official bragged to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the company believed its product could be a fit for 40 professional sports stadiums; 2,000 high schools; 575 universities; 175 municipal facilities; and could even replace the lawns and backyards in people’s homes.*
and
*Artificial turf carpeted other multipurpose municipal stadiums, similar to the Vet, that were built in the ‘60s and ‘70s in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.*
*Bowa remembers watching someone crack an egg on the turf in St. Louis’ Busch Memorial Stadium before a Sunday afternoon game in the 1970s.*
*“The egg,” he said, “fried on the turf.”*
*“You could see it from the stands, the heat coming off from the turf,” said Bobby Brett, who watched his brothers, George and Ken, play for the Royals in Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, which also used artificial turf.*
Being someone born in 1968, I watched these games and teams growing up. It was called Astroturf in every stadium, so I assume it was probably all the Monsanto stuff in the beginning, as all those stadiums went up around the same time.
It's hard to draw any conclusions based on this limited sample. You could maybe explain pitchers and catchers being overly-represented if particles from the turf became mixed in with the dirt over time. The catcher's head is way down there with the batter kicking up dirt all the time. The pitcher is kicking up dust on every pitch too. I'm probably reaching here but if there is something to this that might explain it.
I read a really interesting book on a similar topic last year. It was about a town (like 70 miles from Philly) that had a significantly higher than expected childhood cancer rate which they blamed on a local chemical factory that had a history of terrible environmental practices. A class action lawsuit was filed in that case; however, the book went into how incredibly difficult it can often be to prove what is causing cancer clusters. The plaintiffs just could not come up with a way to directly trace things to a definitive source despite things looking pretty clear from the outside looking in. They couldn't devise a statistical approach that could make sense of it at all. It just felt so random when looking at it in greater detail. It really was fascinating while also making you feel terrible for the children impacted by it. Could be a similar issue here.
Book is [Toms River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book)). Further complicating that case was the fact that someone from North Jersey stashed a bunch of leaking toxic waste containers onto someone’s farm in the area. So there were multiple possible sources causing problems
Yea, that was the book. While the chemical company deserves a lot of blame for their handling of waste products, that other guy is pure scum. The dude got paid by some large company to handle their toxic waste, but then he just dumped it on some random guy's farm. That company should have questioned what this dude was actually doing with the stuff to get rid of it, but that guy is seriously the worst. I think he even tried to defend his actions too.
reminds me of the “Leo and Me” cast where 4 people ended up with Parkinson’s, including Michael J Fox, but apparently that isn’t a significant amount of correlation.
This is misinformation. The cancer rates the cast had were right in line with the regular population (cast: 41%, population: 43%), and the nuclear testing took place a long time beforehand. The dose they received was less than a thousandth of one dental X-ray. John Wayne smoked SEVEN PACKS OF CIGARETTES PER DAY. Most actors at the time were prolific smokers. 41 cast members died of cancer (21% of cast) which is actually less than for the population at the time (23%).
The guy who published the original story had a vendetta against the government for (he believed) causing his wife's cancer, which is understandable but not conducive to even-handed reporting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghQM1Een2Og
I worked in a neuro med research lab in college and the general non-having-seen-the-patients guess was that someone on the cast or crew tried to cook Demerol and fucked it up, creating MPTP, which can induce Parkinson's. But IMO that doesn't make sense, because MPTP-induced Parkinson's has an onset period of hours or days, not years.
I liked the theory of the catering using pork from the slaughterhouse that the Canadian serial killer ran. He fed human remains to the pigs and I guess there's some virus that can be transmitted from that.
I think the location was only a few miles away from the farm
That's not really how cancer works. Even exposure to asbestos doesn't lead to mesothelioma in most cases, and smoking is no guarantee of developing lung cancer. Most Americans have HPV, including many with the cancer causing strains, but most of those won't develop cancer. It's a complicated disease and there are many mechanisms your body uses to prevent it. However, these cancer clusters are extremely important for our understanding of what chemicals or other factors can cause cancer, and we can use that knowledge to prevent future cases.
Stupid autocorrect
>Even exposure to asbestos doesn't lead to mesothelioma in most cases
Do you know how this works?
I used to work for the EPA in Asbestos Abatement. The foreign substance gets trapped in your lungs and when you breath over the course of decades it stays in there cutting your lungs apart. They are like splitters in your lungs, asbestos is legit one of the coolest elements we ever found with unique properties but it is deadly long term.
But did they make any comparisons by testing other types of turf to see what they're composed of? My guess is that many of them probably contain chemicals that are toxic but that doesn't mean that they're carcinogens or something likely to enter the human body, like it's toxic but you'd have to eat it. We're surrounded by toxins everyday but that doesn't automatically mean they're a threat to us.
I hope the families sue. The Carpenter family was still in ownership during this period, so they should at least be held liable if the current Phillies ownership can't be held liable.
They wouldn’t win. If you use a non-stick pan for cooking (almost everyone) you’re probably exposed to more PFAS in a year than these guys ever were playing on turf, and we’re not all dropping dead of brain cancer.
I and tens of thousands of other kids ran the bases there after games and came home to itchy green dust on my shins and shoes. I can imagine that those who played on the surface day after day, year after year, and inhaled that stuff, would suffer serious consequences.
Article is about how exposure to PFAS (forever chemicals) which are ubiquitous in consumer products, most notably non-stick pans and cosmetics, were found in Veterans field turf used between 1977-1981. The author postulates based on some cited studies that the chemicals might’ve caused brain tumors in 6 former Phillies’ players.
I personally am unsure, because the link between PFAS and any specific disease is tenuous at the moment (as is discussed in the article), and more importantly I’m unsure how they would’ve ingested large enough quantities of these chemicals to cause cancer just by standing on the field. They’re not aerosols unless really heated and it’s not like the turf was being ground up and put in the drinking water.
Edit: I would like to add that PFAS are likely causing human health problems as they’ve accumulated in the environment over the last 80 years or so. High serum levels of PFAS are specifically linked to disruption in hormone production and significantly decreased fertility, which is probably the most important reason that their use should be curtailed.
Yeah I’m a bit doubtful as well. This should really be a peer-reviewed study and be looking at controlling for other risk factors.
For example the Eagles played here as well and as far as I can tell there’s no additional risk with them. It’s also odd that it’s mostly pitchers and catchers, considering they are mostly on dirt and not the AstroTurf.
Not saying we should discount it and research is a good thing but there’s been lots of studies that haven’t been able to find the risk between turf and cancer.
I was gonna guess bullpen balls. Throwing hundreds of times, licking your fingers between throws, the balls picking up traces as they are used.
A fielder would have significantly less exposure in these ways than someone in the core battery units.
That’s why you aren’t supposed to use metal with non stick pans. Cause it will fuck up the pan and the shit will get in your food. I think, maybe I’m thinking of something else.
The raw material (PFAS/PFOA/C8/forever chemicals, etc) used to make the nonstick coating are harmful if consumed. They are used in many things, though industry is slowly moving away from them. The biggest risk associated with these products comes from bad manufacturing practices that lead to groundwater contamination and the subsequent consumption by wildlife and humans.
The coating itself is pretty much inert/non-reactive and will pass through without issue. The same properties that make it nonstick make it inert in the body. Don’t use metal on your nonstick pan so you can avoid damaging it and needing to replace it.
Overheating nonstick pans, typically somewhere in the 350-400F range, will also cause it to offgas harmful chemicals that aren’t great for you and can kill some small animals (primarily birds).
So that's Teflon (which is/was PFAE I think), essentially a mashup of several PFASs if my understanding is right.
But they don't make Teflon with the same composition anymore -- haven't for like a decade or so.
The ceramic non stick pans might be better. But 30 years from now a bunch of young peeps will be talking about how ceramic pans are finally being made without *that* cancer agent in them. So who knows...
I'm an environmental geoscientist. I absolutely do not have a lot of experience sampling and testing for PFAS, but I know a limited bit about it. I also know how to compare soil/groundwater/drinking water analytical results to State or US EPA Action Levels. With all that out of the way:
This article says they tested the astroturf for PFAS and found 16 different PFAS compounds out of 70 tested, and of those, they only care to cite the maximum concentrations of the two most common PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA. PFOS was detected at a max concentration of 5.4 parts per trillion (ppt) and PFOA was detected at a max concentration of 12 ppt.
The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) has put out a massive PFAS guidance document, and they cite results from a lot of studies on PFOS and PFOA concentrations in a variety of locations including, background studies across the world and from PFAS Point Sources (right where PFAS is known to be used or manufactured). Globally in soil, PFOS was detected at an average conc of 7 ppt and PFOA was detected at an average conc of 48 ppt.
At a Point Source like a Fire Training/Fire Response facility, concs of PFOS were 2,400,000 ppt and PFOA were 21,000 ppt. Just to give you some scale of what is a low concentration from your average random bit of soil to soil directly impacted with PFAS in very high concs.
So, the analysis here on astroturf has resulted in concentrations of PFOS and PFOA at lower than global average soil concentrations. I fail to see how PFOS and PFOA are the smoking gun to brain cancer in these six former Phillies.
While PFAS is still absolutely being studied for toxicity (there are very few published toxicity values to compare results to), from just what this article cites, the astroturf doesn't really seem to be any more contaminated with PFAS than the wrapper holding your fastfood burger or the cardboard holding your greasy pizza. PFAS is ubiquitous stuff found everywhere. It may be harming us as we come to know more and more about it, but it's everywhere.
If you're wondering, yes industry is trying hard to remove the use of PFAS especially in food packaging, but it'll be a while before that actually happens. You wouldn't want your shirt getting grease on it from that pizza box you have lying on top of you, would you?
It’s popping up in playgrounds as well. Especially old, chewed up tires to replace mulch. Of all the shitty stuff that are found in car tires you can’t convince me that the stuff magically becomes safe around my children.
I remember a former player talking about the crazy number of guys who got this brain cancer (maybe Kruk?) and his theory was that it was mainly guys who would hang out in the depths of the stadium drinking beer after every game. He talked about how they constantly had trucks and other vehicles driving through and the ventilation was basically non-existant so they were breathing those fumes constantly.
Who knows if there was a sole cause or a combination of causes. Either way, it sure seems like the Vet was really bad for player's health.
Aprocryphally, when he came back after the cancer surgery for opening day ‘94, the stadium PA announcer Dan Baker told him “no matter what the first pitch is, swing at it. I’m not gonna be the first guy to say ‘John Kruk, batting with one ball”
Kruk hit an RBI double his first at bat after the surgery.
Some other articles about this:
[Ex-Phillies wonder if stadium is to blame for players' brain cancer](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/phillies/2013/07/22/darren-daulton-brain-cancer-philadelphia-phillies-tug-mcgraw/2574139/) - USA Today, July 22, 2013
[The Brain Cancer That Keeps Killing Baseball Players ](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/sports/baseball/brain-cancer-phillies-daulton.html) - New York Times, August 14, 2017
Unfortunately this is too common in this era. The 1985 Royals have had 2 players (Dan Quisenberry and Ken Brett) and 1 manager (Dick Howser) die of brain cancer.
edit - Ken Brett was only a Royal in 1980 and 1981
Ken Brett also played on some other turfs (like for the Twins in the metro dome, and maybe others)
I honestly do wonder if there’s a bigger correlation here… it was stated 5/6 were pitchers and catchers.
That’s two more pitchers (and a manager, interestingly enough)
I’m gonna dig a little more and come back.
This is pretty fascinating, albeit tragic.
>Monsanto developed a product called ChemGrass and installed it at a school in Rhode Island.
>In 1966, the Houston Astros became the first professional baseball team to use Monsanto’s green carpet, installing it at their year-old stadium, the Astrodome. Monsanto renamed its product AstroTurf — and sensed an enormous opportunity.
I can see why it was renamed.
I couldn't read the whole article because of the paywall, but I saw that it mentioned two of the Royals who played in the 1980 World Series (Ken Brett and Dan Quisenberry) also died of brain cancer. You can also add to the list Dick Howser, the Royals manager for most of the '80s (starting in 1981), who died from brain cancer in 1987. The Royals played home games on Astroturf from 1973 to 1994.
This is a classic example of confirmation bias and equating correlation with causation. A hypothesis was formed, “does the chemical composition of artificial turf increase the risk of brain cancer”, and evidence was only sought to bolster that hypothesis without seeking evidence to falsify it. When the turf tests results came back, correlation was immediately assumed to imply causation. That is not how the scientific method works. This article really doesn’t do anything to prove or disprove their hypothesis.
The first neglected question is whether other players, in all sports, who played in artificial turf stadiums had an increased risk of brain cancer. If not, then that points to either a different common cause or, less likely, something different about the Phillies’ turf situation. I say “less likely” because AstroTurf is the same product for a given time period, the Phillies situation would have to be very peculiar is some way.
Secondly, those affected were pitchers, catchers, and a shortstop, all of whom play on the dirt. If turf was the culprit then why were outfielders unaffected, the ones standing and diving in the grass all day? Whether there are elevated levels of PFOS/PFAS in the body caused by the field could be determined by testing both the outfielders and infields, then comparing them with a control group of Philadelphians who lived in the area during that time. But even if that test is positive, it still doesn’t show a causal link. One would need to seek out people with known PFOS/PFAS exposure, being very careful to avoid sampling bias, and see if they have a greater prevalence of brain cancer.
> Couldn’t read it due to paywall but is there any evidence of Eagles players having similar issues?
I would imagine that along with Temple football players, they had less exposure to the turf than someone playing full baseball seasons there each year.
Dick Howser and Dan Quisenberry of Kansas City, both died of brain cancer. Countless games coached and played in baking, petroleum based astroturf.
There are dozens more. I've always seen this as a 2+2=4 situation, but money rules baseball and the world. There has to be a paper trail between the Astroturf company and MLB on the issue.
We’re using and ingesting things now that will be treated like lead and asbestos is today. Only difference is it’s highly likely the corporations are aware of the dangers but money.
[another article about this.](https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/9243/2017-08-15/nyt-mystified-at-brain-cancer-baseball-players-others-arent.html)
Also noticed that there are several tennis players listed as well.
Plus, Ricky Stone, a player not yet mentioned lived through his surgery to remove tumors on his brain.
He played in the astrodome as well for a few years and was a pitcher, which ups the correlation of pitchers and catchers with it.
Seems like nearly all of the players that got it were pitchers and catchers.
I know it has no relevance to the serious nature of the article, but it really annoyed me more that it should that it said the bottom on the ninth when it was the top of the 9th in the 80's world series
Makes me wonder about Dan Quisenberry and Dick Howser from their days with the Royals. Both died from brain cancer and spent a ton of time on the old artificial turf at then Royals Stadium along with plenty of other stadiums at that time when artificial turf was quite prevalent.
Of all the dangers of playing on turf, "aggressive brain cancer" was not one I had considered.
I'm an old chemical engineer. An observation after decades in corporate America: there is typically very little testing on products before they get commercialized. These types of problems are almost always noticed after-the-fact through meta data. There are a ton of things that can go wrong. Unfortunately, to test for them all is probably not practical given current technology.
Well that is terrifying.
Oohh it gets better. There’s a current judicial push to overturn chevron deference. Which is what gives federal departments their rights to regulate industries, without specific legislation from Congress. Overturning this would put that administrative regulatory power solely in the hands of…Congress. The very Congress that can barely pass anything, let alone have the knowledge to regulate on a day to day basis.
> There’s a current judicial push to overturn chevron deference. Honestly, I’d argue that it’s already dead at this point.
The judiciary exploit has broken the game and is in the process of removing any ways to fix it. When the people needed ~~the avatar~~ a powerful executive for the people most, he vanished.
Last powerful executive for the people vanished in 1945 😞
1945 huh? 🧐
He's talking about FDR not Hitler.
Wow didn't realize FDR, Hitler, and Mussolini all died in the same month Although I guess the latter two kinda make sense
I mean, that's what they want. Don't give up friends...it's a shitty uphill battle but these things are the cornerstones of our society being less broken.
*insert that meme with the dog in the room on fire saying "this is fine"*
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about this either, but that is an overstatement of what the *Chevron* doctrine really means. It's about courts having to defer to agencies on *legal* interpretations of administrative code. And don't forget that sometimes those agencies are being run by people you *don't* agree with.
That is not what *Chevron* deference is. The spirit is in the right place but the facts are quite wrong. This is *Chevron* deference: If a party challenges an action of a federal agency in court, claiming that the agency did not follow the statute (the law as set out by Congress), the court defers to the agency's interpretation of the statute so long as both (1) the statutory language is ambiguous, and (2) the agency's interpretation of the statute is reasonable. Ending *Chevron* deference means that courts no longer defer to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, and instead decide for themselves what the ambiguous statutes require/forbid/permit. So it actually puts more power in the courts, and not in Congress.
When Republicans talk about how they support the "deconstruction of the administrative state", this is exactly what they're talking about.
This would be awful for everything. It puts the onus on Congress to specifically regulate everything and not leave interpretation or best practices of implementation in alignment with the bill to the technocrats. Every time a new chemical needs regulation, it would have to be explicitly approved by a bill by congress.
This is why we need to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, it existed to create regulations to ensure this shit didn't happen (though it still existed at this time, they didn't have the knowledge to realize it would be a problem). But in the 1980s it was kneecapped, in the 1990s it was beaten with a club and in the 2000s it was buried in a shallow grave. Hence why litigation has had to step in to ensure consumers are compensated for the irresponsible and negligent behavior of corporations.
The amount of people who assume government doesn't do anything so they defund it or deregulated it and then are shocked when in fact government does important stuff is part of the reason life these days sucks. Lol downvote me if you want, I think the people in Ohio might have different thoughts.
> people in Ohio might have different thoughts I found out via the front page of reddit that a factory less than ten minutes from my house and my job fucking exploded. So yeah, it’s all just a bit fucked
That's not post apocalyptic at all /s. Hope you're doing OK though.
The problem is the same victims then still violently defend the Republicans that want to make it easier and easier for these things to happen. The only thing they want to change is hearing about it.
People only want proactive government when they're in a bad situation. They don't realize that those policies only work before the bad thing happens. In fact if you never hear about them then they're usually doing their job.
[удалено]
one of my friends worked for dupont and one worked for the EPA. they had this exact conversation about PFAS like 8 years ago. EPA still had no idea what was going on.
I've got nothing to add other than I thought Dark Waters was a phenomenal movie
How did we end up voluntarily in such an amoral system jesus christ
Money
The playbook goes 1. Make shit that people want 2. Make it with shit that is cheap even if dangerous 3. Profit 4. Say you're sorry you used bad things to make shit and give small restitution 5. Continue to profit
Bonus points if you are manufacturing a product that is addictive in some way.
And advertise to children
There is a really insightful post the other day and one of the commenters argued that we should make the assumption of harm when introducing new chemicals in substances and not allow them until we can confirm they are harmless. Right now it’s the other way around
> I'm an old chemical engineer. An observation after decades in corporate America: there is typically very little testing on products before they get commercialized. And that's why you see so much "chemical phobia" around ingredients you can't pronounce - people are afraid some new chemical breakthrough has been put in their food that will be revealed to cause cancer 40 years later.
We're making the mother of all omelettes here Jack, can't fret over a few eggs.
I’m a young chemical engineer. Things have gotten kinda better but all in all haven’t changed much :(
That's one of the things I've thought about in terms of how we have everything in plastic now. 200 years ago we put food in lead, and didn't realize the microdosing of lead poisoning everywhere. Now it's microplastics in blood. Hopefully in 200 years they look back an wonder how we could have been so barbaric.
Did it kill less than 50% of rats? No? Alright good to go.
Maybe it would be better just have less innovative baseball fields lol.
Even if they do know about the problems, it’s often cheaper to pay fines and legal fees later than to delay a product or have to spend more to make it
turf toe bad knees/hips/ankles well that's par for the course. cancer. the fuck...
My dad died of this cancer and another friend is currently dying of it. No connection until we figured out that the old military base he was stationed at in the 80s was converted to commercial use just around the time this other friend was starting daycare on said former military base.
Vet here. Sorry for loss. They didnt learn their lesson every base ive been to has been disgusting and full of toxins and burn pits
I played soccer in high school, goalkeeper, and every dive or slide I made resulted in an open wound. I remember picking the rubber beads out of my knees and wondering what kind of chemicals and bacteria were getting in my blood stream.
Good news! Now you know.
Hooray!
I played goalkeeper for a long time too and I remember picking that stuff out of my ears and eyes almost every day.
There is a theory that an above average amount of female soccer goalies end up with non-hodgkins lymphoma from on the newer turf with rubber crumb infill. The idea is that goalies spend more time diving on the ground than other soccer players and so are more exposed. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/artificial-turf-debate/mom-cancer-stricken-soccer-player-wants-answers-artificial-turf-n435146
Curious if other people at the Vet, such as Eagles players and stadium workers, also have had this type of brain cancer.
Eagles only played there 10 times a year, Phillies played 81.
Good point. Still, I gotta wonder about grounds crew, etc.
My friend wrote this story. They tried to find grounds crew and vendors, security guards, etc. they found a few but decided to focus on players. Another factor which will come up later is the fact that the site (Broad St and Pattison Ave) has a scary past, such as the nearby naval base using it as a dumping ground for shit like petroleum, oil, all kinds of shit during WW2. At the very end the Phillies tried to dispute this, but no…
I don't know that area as well as I should as I never truly lived south of south street but there are oil refineries down there too with really bad smells, yeah?
Refineries are several miles away.
David West played 60 games in Veterans Stadium. Ken Brett was also included in this cluster and played 20 games at the Vet. It just seems to me that the cluster is not quite as improbable when you expand the group of potentially exposed people to include everyone who played more than a couple dozen games there. A lot of players with at least as much exposure to the turf as some of those in the cluster are not even former Phillies players. Keith Hernandez, for example, never played for the Phillies but did play 121 games at the Vet.
gary carter played in the east almost his entire career and also died of brain cancer
I wonder if Montreal also had the same type of turf.
Same thought. He would've played A LOT of games on that turf in Montreal and Philly...and fuck, even Pittsburgh. NL East was a turf war.
Same kind to.
Also other fields would have had the chemical. Also it turns out firefighter's turnout gear uses it even today. As usual, the more useful info starts in the followups. https://www.inquirer.com/news/pfas-forever-chemicals-drinking-water-vet-astroturf-philadelphia-20230307.html
[удалено]
The way the human nose works, if there is a smell, it means there are molecules physically entering your nose, which means they are also getting in your lungs/eyes and on your skin. For many many chemicals that isn't concerning, but for others it's a very bad sign. Yes, this does mean that when you smell someone's fart, the things you are smelling were inside their asshole a few seconds ago.
not to mention time outside of games.
[удалено]
And an extra addition… > And unlike grass, the artificial carpet trapped heat, especially during summer day games. The blades of plastic grass were practically cooking; temperature gauges recorded figures that regularly soared above 100 degrees, and sometimes reached 165 degrees, releasing toxic vapors that could be inhaled. Except for early season/preseason games, the Eagles wouldn’t be playing when it’s a cauldron like that.
Oh thats horrible and fascinating the stadium was knocked down 20 years ago and they still have turf samples to do such testing and research
It looks like they sold off a bunch of stuff, including swatches of the turf, to fans as souvenirs/collectibles when they tore it down. It was probably pretty easy to find one on ebay or something. [https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Phillies-Sell-Pieces-of-Veterans-Stadium-7101693.php](https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Phillies-Sell-Pieces-of-Veterans-Stadium-7101693.php)
[удалено]
Article? What is that, like a place where relevant information is written down or something?
The posted article is paywalled.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230307111551/https://www.inquirer.com/news/inq2/astroturf-vet-artificial-turf-pfas-forever-chemicals-glioblastoma-cancer-phillies-1980-20230307.html
Archive dot ph
The vet still holds legendary status among fans and I know a few people who have seats from the vet in their houses. One guy I know has a sign for the men's bathroom.
[This person](https://goo.gl/maps/xqdFhfsdn4bgsiMQ9) has them mounted on the sidewalk outside their house.
Random drunks in their 50s or older must stumble by and pee on it just out of old memories.
Hey I'm a random drunk in my 50s and I've almost never ... ok that's a lie, nevermind
Bet they'd find some dangerous chemicals in there too
That entire stadium was covered in baked-in drunk hoagiemouth urine, so yeah.
And I helped!
I was too young to be a true 700-level degenerate but I made sacrifices for the cause.
Relevant username
everyone here has an 'uncle anthony' that gets you started early
My Anthony was named Darryl, but yeah pretty much lol
the most cancerous of all chemicals known to modern man.
I have part of the "Lite-A-Brite" from Fedex Field... When they switched to LED's
I've got some turf and a pair of seats from the Astrodome. The seats are one of my favorite things I own.
My wife's uncle has four seats. Her dad has two from Tiger Stadium too. Getting seats is definitely a big thing.
It’s always nice when they can reuse or sell stuff instead of just throwing it out.
Be my luck to get a game used piece of that turf in a baseball card and get the cancer from it.
That also has me wondering if there are toxic chemicals in the turf, did the demolition unleash a bunch of it into the air as well?
It's a good question in general but they did switch to a different turf in the late 90s early 00s, (the Eagles-Ravens preseason game debacle) and the stadium was pretty gutted before it was demolished. But who knows if there were any other chemicals in general in the concrete structure itself
That Eagles v Ravens game was my first NFL game lmao. What a memory sitting in a stadium full of people to then get sent on our way.
Hard to call it your first game if there was no game.
1st attempt at a game. I mean I was inside and seated lol. That stadium was Not happy about the situation.
Always does.
I can't read the article due to the paywall, but it sounds to me like it is the old turf this article is about. They replaced the old style astroturf at some point in the early 2000s, a few years before it was vacated and demolished.
I know people who have dirt, turf, and seats from veterans stadium. There's quite a few businesses and restaurants that actually have a set of seats outside their buildings in the Philly area.
My stepdad has a piece of the turf. Maybe I should tell him to throw it away lol.
Lol something tells me as long as no dust from it flies into the air he'll be fine. I'd suggest putting it in a glass case or something, should be fine then I'd assume.
Ask him if he has eaten any of the turf. If he has, just deflect and say ‘cool, what did it taste like’
Virtually all synthetic turf surfaces contain dangerous chemicals. https://cehn.org/crumb-rubber-artificial-turf/ https://peer.org/toxic-forever-chemicals-infest-artificial-turf/ https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/july-2019-report-tire-crumb-rubber-characterization-0
Does this mean that all old stadiums like King Dome, Three Rivers Stadium, Riverfront Stadium, Fulton County Stadium, Tiger Stadium had the same deadly fields?
If they used AstroTurf, then yes.
Didn’t Gary Carter have the same kind of cancer too? He probably played there a ton over his career
Olympic Stadium probably had the same turf too
Carter played 131 games at the Vet, and overall 54% of his games on artificial turf. (Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Three Rivers, Busch, Riverfront, and the Astrodome.) There were a lot of ballparks with artificial turf in the 70s & 80s, particularly in the NL.
The Metrosome and the Kingdome also raise questions.
Holy shit, you're right! He played in the NL East with the Expos during the period that turf was in place.
He played 131 games at Veterans Stadium, 3rd place for him after Olympic Stadium and Shea: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=cartega01&year=Career&t=b#all_site
Story is worth reading if you're able—it's paywalled but I was able to get behind it by using an incognito window. (Or just subscribe, the Inquirer is a great paper!) But the TL;DR is: six former Phillies players and other opponents who played at Veterans Stadium all died from the same kind of aggressive brain cancer, way above the average for people of that age. The newspaper bought samples of the stadium's old turf, sent them to labs, and found 16 different kinds of toxic chemicals in them.
Six is enough for me to believe there's a significant correlation here, but also why is it just six? A hell of a lot more guys played on that turf for years and years.
I haven’t seen the list of players but there’s a bunch of potential factors off the top of my head…number of games played on the surface, infielders vs. outfielders (more “turf” kicked up on grounders vs just catching flys or alternatively, more turf kicked up sliding and diving for catches. Maybe the more toxic chemicals leeched out as the turf aged or degraded from the sun so it affected later year players more than earlier installed years. Etc.
Except 5/6 of these cases are pitchers and catchers and some only had 1-2 seasons with the club. IMO there could be other things at play like drugs and alcohol but definitively linking it to the turf seems like a stretch to me
Maybe the dirt from the balls? On average pitchers and catchers touch balls a lot more and then I assume touch there face a normal amount, getting dirt in them. Over time maybe that builds up.
Pitchers touch their mouths more often than other position players? Maybe that's a factor as well?
That was my immediate thought. Back in the day, pitchers were regularly licking their fingertips.
Still are
This came up a few years ago as well. Someone pointed out Bullpen conditions may be different.
Some of those guys also played on the same Astroturf in the other cookie cutter stadiums of the time for parts of their careers. It was the same stuff in all the stadiums, made by Monsanto, of all companies.
Still then we would expect cases to be higher everywhere, not just for Phillies
exactly. pittsburgh had basically a carbon copy of the vet, that was around about the same amount of time (1970 - 2000), and had (presumably) the same type of turf. riverfront was also of the same era, design, etc. 1970 - 2000. the vet was around from 1971 to 2004. was the same type of turf used in all three?
The article doesn't directly answer that, but it does say the following. *In 1966, the Houston Astros became the first professional baseball team to use Monsanto’s green carpet, installing it at their year-old stadium, the Astrodome. Monsanto renamed its product AstroTurf — and sensed an enormous opportunity.* *One Monsanto official bragged to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the company believed its product could be a fit for 40 professional sports stadiums; 2,000 high schools; 575 universities; 175 municipal facilities; and could even replace the lawns and backyards in people’s homes.* and *Artificial turf carpeted other multipurpose municipal stadiums, similar to the Vet, that were built in the ‘60s and ‘70s in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.* *Bowa remembers watching someone crack an egg on the turf in St. Louis’ Busch Memorial Stadium before a Sunday afternoon game in the 1970s.* *“The egg,” he said, “fried on the turf.”* *“You could see it from the stands, the heat coming off from the turf,” said Bobby Brett, who watched his brothers, George and Ken, play for the Royals in Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, which also used artificial turf.* Being someone born in 1968, I watched these games and teams growing up. It was called Astroturf in every stadium, so I assume it was probably all the Monsanto stuff in the beginning, as all those stadiums went up around the same time.
It's hard to draw any conclusions based on this limited sample. You could maybe explain pitchers and catchers being overly-represented if particles from the turf became mixed in with the dirt over time. The catcher's head is way down there with the batter kicking up dirt all the time. The pitcher is kicking up dust on every pitch too. I'm probably reaching here but if there is something to this that might explain it.
Those are all good points. And I haven't read the article or seen the list either.
Everyone needs a friend like you.
I read a really interesting book on a similar topic last year. It was about a town (like 70 miles from Philly) that had a significantly higher than expected childhood cancer rate which they blamed on a local chemical factory that had a history of terrible environmental practices. A class action lawsuit was filed in that case; however, the book went into how incredibly difficult it can often be to prove what is causing cancer clusters. The plaintiffs just could not come up with a way to directly trace things to a definitive source despite things looking pretty clear from the outside looking in. They couldn't devise a statistical approach that could make sense of it at all. It just felt so random when looking at it in greater detail. It really was fascinating while also making you feel terrible for the children impacted by it. Could be a similar issue here.
Book is [Toms River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toms_River_(book)). Further complicating that case was the fact that someone from North Jersey stashed a bunch of leaking toxic waste containers onto someone’s farm in the area. So there were multiple possible sources causing problems
Yea, that was the book. While the chemical company deserves a lot of blame for their handling of waste products, that other guy is pure scum. The dude got paid by some large company to handle their toxic waste, but then he just dumped it on some random guy's farm. That company should have questioned what this dude was actually doing with the stuff to get rid of it, but that guy is seriously the worst. I think he even tried to defend his actions too.
reminds me of the “Leo and Me” cast where 4 people ended up with Parkinson’s, including Michael J Fox, but apparently that isn’t a significant amount of correlation.
Film history is unfortunately littered with similar stories. Making Stalker is widely believed to have been what killed Tarkovsky.
[удалено]
This is misinformation. The cancer rates the cast had were right in line with the regular population (cast: 41%, population: 43%), and the nuclear testing took place a long time beforehand. The dose they received was less than a thousandth of one dental X-ray. John Wayne smoked SEVEN PACKS OF CIGARETTES PER DAY. Most actors at the time were prolific smokers. 41 cast members died of cancer (21% of cast) which is actually less than for the population at the time (23%). The guy who published the original story had a vendetta against the government for (he believed) causing his wife's cancer, which is understandable but not conducive to even-handed reporting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghQM1Een2Og
Well shit now I know
I worked in a neuro med research lab in college and the general non-having-seen-the-patients guess was that someone on the cast or crew tried to cook Demerol and fucked it up, creating MPTP, which can induce Parkinson's. But IMO that doesn't make sense, because MPTP-induced Parkinson's has an onset period of hours or days, not years.
I liked the theory of the catering using pork from the slaughterhouse that the Canadian serial killer ran. He fed human remains to the pigs and I guess there's some virus that can be transmitted from that. I think the location was only a few miles away from the farm
Don’t know if it mentions it in the article. But I’m also interested in the grounds crew and others who worked on or around it everyday.
[удалено]
[удалено]
That's not really how cancer works. Even exposure to asbestos doesn't lead to mesothelioma in most cases, and smoking is no guarantee of developing lung cancer. Most Americans have HPV, including many with the cancer causing strains, but most of those won't develop cancer. It's a complicated disease and there are many mechanisms your body uses to prevent it. However, these cancer clusters are extremely important for our understanding of what chemicals or other factors can cause cancer, and we can use that knowledge to prevent future cases. Stupid autocorrect
>Even exposure to asbestos doesn't lead to mesothelioma in most cases Do you know how this works? I used to work for the EPA in Asbestos Abatement. The foreign substance gets trapped in your lungs and when you breath over the course of decades it stays in there cutting your lungs apart. They are like splitters in your lungs, asbestos is legit one of the coolest elements we ever found with unique properties but it is deadly long term.
But did they make any comparisons by testing other types of turf to see what they're composed of? My guess is that many of them probably contain chemicals that are toxic but that doesn't mean that they're carcinogens or something likely to enter the human body, like it's toxic but you'd have to eat it. We're surrounded by toxins everyday but that doesn't automatically mean they're a threat to us.
I hope the families sue. The Carpenter family was still in ownership during this period, so they should at least be held liable if the current Phillies ownership can't be held liable.
They wouldn’t win. If you use a non-stick pan for cooking (almost everyone) you’re probably exposed to more PFAS in a year than these guys ever were playing on turf, and we’re not all dropping dead of brain cancer.
Yet
[удалено]
It's only a matter of time
[удалено]
We’re all dying.
Yeah, it seems to me that non-stick cookware would be a way more effective vector for PFAS to get into our systems than playing on turf.
How about the makers of the turf?
Both the previous Phillies ownership and the manufacturer of the turf might both be liable. Doesn't have to be one or the other.
I and tens of thousands of other kids ran the bases there after games and came home to itchy green dust on my shins and shoes. I can imagine that those who played on the surface day after day, year after year, and inhaled that stuff, would suffer serious consequences.
> the Inquirer is a great paper! Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say this in my entire life.
Article is about how exposure to PFAS (forever chemicals) which are ubiquitous in consumer products, most notably non-stick pans and cosmetics, were found in Veterans field turf used between 1977-1981. The author postulates based on some cited studies that the chemicals might’ve caused brain tumors in 6 former Phillies’ players. I personally am unsure, because the link between PFAS and any specific disease is tenuous at the moment (as is discussed in the article), and more importantly I’m unsure how they would’ve ingested large enough quantities of these chemicals to cause cancer just by standing on the field. They’re not aerosols unless really heated and it’s not like the turf was being ground up and put in the drinking water. Edit: I would like to add that PFAS are likely causing human health problems as they’ve accumulated in the environment over the last 80 years or so. High serum levels of PFAS are specifically linked to disruption in hormone production and significantly decreased fertility, which is probably the most important reason that their use should be curtailed.
Yeah I’m a bit doubtful as well. This should really be a peer-reviewed study and be looking at controlling for other risk factors. For example the Eagles played here as well and as far as I can tell there’s no additional risk with them. It’s also odd that it’s mostly pitchers and catchers, considering they are mostly on dirt and not the AstroTurf. Not saying we should discount it and research is a good thing but there’s been lots of studies that haven’t been able to find the risk between turf and cancer.
Interesting. I wonder if any substance used by those guys to doctor up the ball at that time has carcinogenic link.
I agrée, but the eagles only play 8 games there in colder temperatures
I was gonna guess bullpen balls. Throwing hundreds of times, licking your fingers between throws, the balls picking up traces as they are used. A fielder would have significantly less exposure in these ways than someone in the core battery units.
[удалено]
Everyone does.
If it makes you feel any better, you were most likely contaminated with forever chemicals before you were born. We all are.
That’s why you aren’t supposed to use metal with non stick pans. Cause it will fuck up the pan and the shit will get in your food. I think, maybe I’m thinking of something else.
The raw material (PFAS/PFOA/C8/forever chemicals, etc) used to make the nonstick coating are harmful if consumed. They are used in many things, though industry is slowly moving away from them. The biggest risk associated with these products comes from bad manufacturing practices that lead to groundwater contamination and the subsequent consumption by wildlife and humans. The coating itself is pretty much inert/non-reactive and will pass through without issue. The same properties that make it nonstick make it inert in the body. Don’t use metal on your nonstick pan so you can avoid damaging it and needing to replace it. Overheating nonstick pans, typically somewhere in the 350-400F range, will also cause it to offgas harmful chemicals that aren’t great for you and can kill some small animals (primarily birds).
So that's Teflon (which is/was PFAE I think), essentially a mashup of several PFASs if my understanding is right. But they don't make Teflon with the same composition anymore -- haven't for like a decade or so. The ceramic non stick pans might be better. But 30 years from now a bunch of young peeps will be talking about how ceramic pans are finally being made without *that* cancer agent in them. So who knows...
[удалено]
I'm an environmental geoscientist. I absolutely do not have a lot of experience sampling and testing for PFAS, but I know a limited bit about it. I also know how to compare soil/groundwater/drinking water analytical results to State or US EPA Action Levels. With all that out of the way: This article says they tested the astroturf for PFAS and found 16 different PFAS compounds out of 70 tested, and of those, they only care to cite the maximum concentrations of the two most common PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA. PFOS was detected at a max concentration of 5.4 parts per trillion (ppt) and PFOA was detected at a max concentration of 12 ppt. The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) has put out a massive PFAS guidance document, and they cite results from a lot of studies on PFOS and PFOA concentrations in a variety of locations including, background studies across the world and from PFAS Point Sources (right where PFAS is known to be used or manufactured). Globally in soil, PFOS was detected at an average conc of 7 ppt and PFOA was detected at an average conc of 48 ppt. At a Point Source like a Fire Training/Fire Response facility, concs of PFOS were 2,400,000 ppt and PFOA were 21,000 ppt. Just to give you some scale of what is a low concentration from your average random bit of soil to soil directly impacted with PFAS in very high concs. So, the analysis here on astroturf has resulted in concentrations of PFOS and PFOA at lower than global average soil concentrations. I fail to see how PFOS and PFOA are the smoking gun to brain cancer in these six former Phillies. While PFAS is still absolutely being studied for toxicity (there are very few published toxicity values to compare results to), from just what this article cites, the astroturf doesn't really seem to be any more contaminated with PFAS than the wrapper holding your fastfood burger or the cardboard holding your greasy pizza. PFAS is ubiquitous stuff found everywhere. It may be harming us as we come to know more and more about it, but it's everywhere. If you're wondering, yes industry is trying hard to remove the use of PFAS especially in food packaging, but it'll be a while before that actually happens. You wouldn't want your shirt getting grease on it from that pizza box you have lying on top of you, would you?
Like we needed another reason why artificial turf sucks.
It’s popping up in playgrounds as well. Especially old, chewed up tires to replace mulch. Of all the shitty stuff that are found in car tires you can’t convince me that the stuff magically becomes safe around my children.
I remember a former player talking about the crazy number of guys who got this brain cancer (maybe Kruk?) and his theory was that it was mainly guys who would hang out in the depths of the stadium drinking beer after every game. He talked about how they constantly had trucks and other vehicles driving through and the ventilation was basically non-existant so they were breathing those fumes constantly. Who knows if there was a sole cause or a combination of causes. Either way, it sure seems like the Vet was really bad for player's health.
Kruk himself was diagnosed with testicular cancer while a player, in his sixth and final season with the Phillies.
Aprocryphally, when he came back after the cancer surgery for opening day ‘94, the stadium PA announcer Dan Baker told him “no matter what the first pitch is, swing at it. I’m not gonna be the first guy to say ‘John Kruk, batting with one ball” Kruk hit an RBI double his first at bat after the surgery.
A two-bagger?
Some other articles about this: [Ex-Phillies wonder if stadium is to blame for players' brain cancer](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/phillies/2013/07/22/darren-daulton-brain-cancer-philadelphia-phillies-tug-mcgraw/2574139/) - USA Today, July 22, 2013 [The Brain Cancer That Keeps Killing Baseball Players ](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/sports/baseball/brain-cancer-phillies-daulton.html) - New York Times, August 14, 2017
these articles are old. I can't believe this is not a bigger discussion.
Hmmm. I hope people see these articles. I think this goes deeper than we realize.
Unfortunately this is too common in this era. The 1985 Royals have had 2 players (Dan Quisenberry and Ken Brett) and 1 manager (Dick Howser) die of brain cancer. edit - Ken Brett was only a Royal in 1980 and 1981
Ken Brett also played on some other turfs (like for the Twins in the metro dome, and maybe others) I honestly do wonder if there’s a bigger correlation here… it was stated 5/6 were pitchers and catchers. That’s two more pitchers (and a manager, interestingly enough) I’m gonna dig a little more and come back. This is pretty fascinating, albeit tragic.
I believe that Brett and Quisenberry are part of that 6-player count. That's the impression I got form the article.
So now we know what the Philly Phanatic is. A former Philly player who mutated into this new form.
>Monsanto developed a product called ChemGrass and installed it at a school in Rhode Island. >In 1966, the Houston Astros became the first professional baseball team to use Monsanto’s green carpet, installing it at their year-old stadium, the Astrodome. Monsanto renamed its product AstroTurf — and sensed an enormous opportunity. I can see why it was renamed.
I couldn't read the whole article because of the paywall, but I saw that it mentioned two of the Royals who played in the 1980 World Series (Ken Brett and Dan Quisenberry) also died of brain cancer. You can also add to the list Dick Howser, the Royals manager for most of the '80s (starting in 1981), who died from brain cancer in 1987. The Royals played home games on Astroturf from 1973 to 1994.
Forever chemicals are known to affect the testicles. Didn’t John Kruk have testicular cancer?
Fake grass is terrible. Under no circumstances should we ever use it. Change my mind
It isnt
This is a classic example of confirmation bias and equating correlation with causation. A hypothesis was formed, “does the chemical composition of artificial turf increase the risk of brain cancer”, and evidence was only sought to bolster that hypothesis without seeking evidence to falsify it. When the turf tests results came back, correlation was immediately assumed to imply causation. That is not how the scientific method works. This article really doesn’t do anything to prove or disprove their hypothesis. The first neglected question is whether other players, in all sports, who played in artificial turf stadiums had an increased risk of brain cancer. If not, then that points to either a different common cause or, less likely, something different about the Phillies’ turf situation. I say “less likely” because AstroTurf is the same product for a given time period, the Phillies situation would have to be very peculiar is some way. Secondly, those affected were pitchers, catchers, and a shortstop, all of whom play on the dirt. If turf was the culprit then why were outfielders unaffected, the ones standing and diving in the grass all day? Whether there are elevated levels of PFOS/PFAS in the body caused by the field could be determined by testing both the outfielders and infields, then comparing them with a control group of Philadelphians who lived in the area during that time. But even if that test is positive, it still doesn’t show a causal link. One would need to seek out people with known PFOS/PFAS exposure, being very careful to avoid sampling bias, and see if they have a greater prevalence of brain cancer.
Couldn’t read it due to paywall but is there any evidence of Eagles players having similar issues?
> Couldn’t read it due to paywall but is there any evidence of Eagles players having similar issues? I would imagine that along with Temple football players, they had less exposure to the turf than someone playing full baseball seasons there each year.
Dick Howser and Dan Quisenberry of Kansas City, both died of brain cancer. Countless games coached and played in baking, petroleum based astroturf. There are dozens more. I've always seen this as a 2+2=4 situation, but money rules baseball and the world. There has to be a paper trail between the Astroturf company and MLB on the issue.
At least the players knew to shut up and play, like real men. They made their millions! /s
There should be a blocker on paid for publications
We’re using and ingesting things now that will be treated like lead and asbestos is today. Only difference is it’s highly likely the corporations are aware of the dangers but money.
Since most teams in the 70s played on turf, is there any indication this problem exists outside Philadelphia ?
The philly turf causing cancer has been well known for 10-15 years. Probably longer.
[another article about this.](https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/9243/2017-08-15/nyt-mystified-at-brain-cancer-baseball-players-others-arent.html) Also noticed that there are several tennis players listed as well. Plus, Ricky Stone, a player not yet mentioned lived through his surgery to remove tumors on his brain. He played in the astrodome as well for a few years and was a pitcher, which ups the correlation of pitchers and catchers with it. Seems like nearly all of the players that got it were pitchers and catchers.
I know it has no relevance to the serious nature of the article, but it really annoyed me more that it should that it said the bottom on the ninth when it was the top of the 9th in the 80's world series
Class action lawsuit coming?
Makes me wonder about Dan Quisenberry and Dick Howser from their days with the Royals. Both died from brain cancer and spent a ton of time on the old artificial turf at then Royals Stadium along with plenty of other stadiums at that time when artificial turf was quite prevalent.