Ames Water 'Forever Chemicals'?

[AuH2O]

Humans. It's always humans that are the problem. We created the institutions and lack of responsibility/liability.

Not really humans. Other countries have better protocols for marketing chemicals, testing drugs, etc. We are the only stupid ******* in the developed world that think it's rational for companies required to maintain growth should be able to market things with minimal long-term trials, or ones they do themselves, where peer review does not include access to all the underlying data.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Not really humans. Other countries have better protocols for marketing chemicals, testing drugs, etc. We are the only stupid ******* in the developed world that think it's rational for companies required to maintain growth should be able to market things with minimal long-term trials, or ones they do themselves, where peer review does not include access to all the underlying data.

Corporatism. Bottom line becomes more important than the public collective agenda. You would be correct that we are among the worst but certainly not alone. China is really bad about this.

 

[CascadeClone]

Science is not the problem. Technology is when not fully tested for the long term.

You find a cure for cancer.
How long term do you test it before it is safe? 2 years? 20 years? 40 years?
What is "safe enough"? If 1 person in 1000 has a bad reaction and dies, is that too many? What about 1 in 10,000? How do you balance that against mortality rates if you DON'T use the cure?

I am not trying to argue a position here, just point out that these are difficult questions to answer and reasonable people can disagree on risk-benefit.

 

[AuH2O]

Corporatism. Bottom line becomes more important than the public collective agenda. You would be correct that we are among the worst but certainly not alone. China is really bad about this.

Corporations are fine in most of the world as well in these areas. Getting a drug or chemical into the market is a totally different ball game for most of the world.

I didn't really count China. They are more like a massive mob organization with expendable humans that also happens to engage in a lot of industry.

 

[AuH2O]

You find a cure for cancer.
How long term do you test it before it is safe? 2 years? 20 years? 40 years?
What is "safe enough"? If 1 person in 1000 has a bad reaction and dies, is that too many? What about 1 in 10,000? How do you balance that against mortality rates if you DON'T use the cure?

I am not trying to argue a position here, just point out that these are difficult questions to answer and reasonable people can disagree on risk-benefit.

Except that is not really what is happening in a vast majority of cases, whether it be consumer product chemicals or pharmaceuticals. More likely we are talking about convenience products that are not necessities with established data that there ARE negative implications.

With pharmaceuticals it is often needing to market new drugs to do the same things established drugs do, often by claiming it relieves some minor side effect. Look at all the number of settlements from these companies. It's usually replacing things that are working because the company needs to have growth, establish new products when patents expire, etc. Much of the detail is hidden as they get settled in civil courts, but people that testify or evaluate these share limited information. These ******* are killing people and they know it.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Corporations are fine in most of the world as well in these areas. Getting a drug or chemical into the market is a totally different ball game for most of the world.

I didn't really count China. They are more like a massive mob organization with expendable humans that also happens to engage in a lot of industry.

They account for like 15% of population (China). I realize that corporations work in other places but American is clearly lost in the woods.

 

[burn587]

If you want a deep dive, Jon Oliver devoted a segment on last week tonight to PFAS. NSFW obviously.



I don’t have time to wade through the entire thing right now, but IIRC there is a woman who basically has to have an entire room full of water filtration set up for her house that gets checked by the city weekly. Scary ****.

 

[ClonesFTW]

Perhaps I've always trusted Ames water quality a bit too much.