This article is not great, it reads too much like scaremongering. But the underlying problem of PFOA/PFOS is real. The article fails to mention that most chemical companies have been phasing out these chemicals for several years.
There is a pretty good movie about this topic, Dark Waters. The movie is well informed, largely accurate, and more factual than this article. The main protagonist of the movie is actually Robert Billott, the author of this article.
How much fucking scarier can it get than carcinogens, mutagens, and birth defect causing chemicals being spread througout our entire food and water supply while any attempts to inform about it are systematically supressed?
If you are not scared, you must be blessed with not having seen anyone in your life get cancer.
It was definitely scaremongering, not to be confused with informing the public. The article lacked all of the basic information that would be of use to the reader.
Carcinogenicity alone means nothing. Sunshine is carcinogenic too for god's sake as many naturally occurring thing in the environment.
“the dose makes the poison”
We should not load ourselves unnecessarily but be realistic still not overusing strong scaring tactics regardless of circumstances as we will be powerless handling more serious cases presenting themselves. There is difference between going hysterical and being cautious.
What do you mean by "unnecessarily"? How are you quantifying the risk and what is the certainty where it becomes worth addressing across 7+ billion people?
You haven't demonstrated that this is "hysteria" and your own blasé attitude is worth imitating.
What will constitute unnecessary load was not the topic here, obviously, but the overusing of strong and scary style for an already very serious topic.
The side comment - in favor of the comment replied btw. - about avoiding adverse effect if possible is a side comment only. What is unnecessary load is highly context dependent, obviously, to be a comment space enough to discuss reliably, depending on the situation, please do not stress this derailment of issue.
Also demonstrating if the level of hysteria reached, really? : ) Come on! Do you know some scientific method to accurately and objectively measure it so it will not be an individual/group human perception? I don't think so.
Consider this as it really is: a strong perception from the public. Thank you.
The "bad" part of the word "scaremongering" is the "mongering" part.
It's fine to be scared of things, and talking about scary things, but when you intentionally work to scare people for profit, that's a pretty shitty thing to do. At that point, you're no longer informing the public, you're trying to provoke a disproportionate and often irrational response for your own financial gain.
Isn’t it only a bad thing to do if the person has no reason to be scared? If there is a fire in the building, I want someone to tell me, not shut up because of a desire to avoid scaremongering.
It's pretty easy to tell people about a fire in the building without trying to make money in the process. That's what "mongering" means. Fearmongering means trying to make money by selling fear.
It is a fallacy however to assume that because someone is telling you something and getting paid to do so, that the being paid part is the only reason they are doing it. If you already believed that a car is the most valuable asset a person in America is likely to need, you would be more likely to become a car salesman than someone who is fundamentally opposed to the idea of cars. So the set of car salesmen is probably skewed toward the people who really believe in cars and would be preaching car stuff even if they weren’t paid to do it. But if you are passionate about something, and can get paid to do it, why would you not take it as your job, since it makes you more effective at doing the thing and also lets you do it full time.
Are carcinogens still scary? I mean, at this point I've been told that everything is carcinogenic, even if the amount I have to be exposed to is so large that it'd never cause cancer. How many Prop 65 signs do you see in California just walking around in public?
Warning: This post contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects blah blah Prop 65
A Prop 65 sign is what I used to give my quarterpanel window some rigidity when I "replaced" it with copious amounts of clear Gorilla Tape. It shall forever commemorate that San Francisco (the location where said window got broken, all for a defective jump starter) is known to the State of California to cause cancer.
You should be outraged, not scared. But what he's saying isn't that there's nothing to be scared of, just that this particular type of BS is just as often written about things that actually aren't real problems.
This is the exact same tone the anti-vaccination crew consume constantly - it holds no numbers, and threatens us with words like "poison", "unique properties", and "have confirmed links", without specifying how strong those links are, or how much actual impact they have. With a good study, you can have a statistically significant outcome of "increases the odds of rectal cancer over a lifetime by 0.0001%", but that shouldn't really motivate much change, since you can say that about bananas.
Most of the country consumes 'science' only through the lens of journalism, and journalists have been doing an increasingly awful job of helping readers distinguish between real problems, potential problems, and non-issues. Fear sells a lot better than science does.
I am getting annoyed by people using "scaremongering" word more and more frequently. Each time someone raises serious issue especially against gov or big corporation, s/he is scaremongering?! It is like a super powered dismissive term to stop all conversation.
I guess tobacco industry is also using scare mongering when people were raising voice because so many of cancer cases.
Someone being scared depends on so many things and it is subjective. On the other hand being paralyzed by our mind projections or being prepared to do something about is different thing. Flight of fight response...
Personally I would rather know, whatever information is, and how bad it is, than choosing alternative to bury my head into the sand when ever says something that is bad.
You can act only if you have information, and only way to propagate information (unfortunately) in our society is if it shocking. Good news simply do not sell papers.
Just imagine, in IT projects, someone finds a back door or Zero-day exploit, and you alarm the company and they answer, "nah it is all ok, stop scaremongering users" ?!
I am trying to imagine doctor that says to the colleague, this man has serious heart failure or cancer, but I should not tell him as that may scared him.
Trying to remember the movie scene/motivation speech where narrator says "Fear is good it keeps you alive."
> Each time someone raises serious issue especially against gov or big corporation, s/he is scaremongering?!
No. What is scaremongering is spending 2/3rds of an article playing up how teflon poisoning our blood is some tightly-guarded secret by nefarious actors twirling their mustaches and laughing at birth defects.
That is: this particular article in question is written in a way that puts scaremongering over actual actionable information, to the point where it ends up crossing into unintentional comedy by reading like the crazed ramblings of someone taking "dihydrogen monoxide" pranks at face value.
> scaremongering is spending 2/3rds of an article playing up how teflon poisoning our blood is some tightly-guarded secret by nefarious actors
Issue is - it was tightly-guarded secret by nefarious actors, and still is because "informing" as you say does not do anything. I do not know how you call the people who poison other people for the sake of profit, but historically if you do it on small scale they call you murderer and you end up behind the bars. I would like to avoid quoting Stalin here. By many country law, for instance if you see crime in progress (rape, murder, robbery...) and you do not do anything about it you are defined as accomplice, in DuPont no one said anything, they had mortgages, families to feed, salaries and investment to protect.
So, DuPont knew all along that their product is not safe because they paid for the tests, and they hid the results. Their explanation was and still is that Teflon is too valuable and it is American product. So, lets scale this down, let's say I make a alcohol beverage, and it has poisons levels of methanol, and I know about it I know it is deadly, but I serve you that drink never the less because my excuse is, "I would be too ashamed and I will lose profit", so my question to you is what I am doing criminal is it evil and wicked?
Now, what if you scale that same beverage to the entire planet, and you do not tell anyone, because business is booming? People are poisoned slowly ...
"In 2019, DuPont led the Toxic 100 Water Polluters Index.[34] The film Dark Waters dramatized a legal case against DuPont related to contaminating a town in West Virginia with unregulated toxic chemicals which poisoned thousands of individuals, this case led to DuPont finally settling all 3,535 cases for $670.7 million."
In DuPont case they settled for $670.7 million and no one ended behind bars, and government needed years before reeling finding, while at the same time DuPont was lobbying and using different kind of other tricks to stop the entire case. DuPont for instance delayed the case, and prolong poisoning of all people on the planet, by finding loophole that says that case can be run against them on person bases. The entire battle lasted for 20 years.
And you tell me that is not nefarious?
How many people do you know that had perseverance to continue battle for 20 years, when you are running out of resources and everyone is abandoning you?
And I would like if you could explain me what is "actionable information"?
You cannot go to hospital and say, please extract PFAS and PFOS out of me, it is deposited in our bodies, slowly killing us and we cannot do zip about it, only thing we can do is go for DuPont management (as it seems from the 2019 they have not change the way they do business) and shut them down forever and put all connected behind the bars.
Through exactly which sources, and in what dosages?
> slowly killing us
At what rate? At what dosages? With what symptoms?
This is what I mean by "actionable information". If the article spent anywhere near as much time explaining the actual details of the risks as it did trying to paint DuPont as mustache-twirling villains, people might actually be able to make an informed decision of "alright, well I should limit my exposure to these things by this much, and keep an eye out for these symptoms, and we should enact these measures to prevent further harm".
And that ain't to say that DuPont is not a bunch of mustache-twirling villains -- only that the emphasis on presenting them as such is far less helpful than an emphasis on the actual details and an actual solution beyond "let's be mad at DuPont".
> Through exactly which sources, and in what dosages?
So any teflon product, non-stick pots and pans, waterproof clothing and furniture, self cleaning ovens, microwave popcorn bags, pizza boxes, and much much more... Non-sticky nature, has a nature of non-sticking to those products as well :P it seems ...
Through those products goes directly into the body, and then when it is disposed goes to landfills, from there to water ...
> "alright, well I should limit my exposure to these things by this much, and keep an eye out for these symptoms, and we should enact these measures to prevent further harm".
As I said, you cannot, you are already poisoned, and you cannot remove it from the nature. You can just try to stop "mustache-twirling villains" to do the future harm, as they shown in 2019 they are capable of simply giving Zero Fs for what public wants.
Additionally, calling them "mustache-twirling villains" it is downplaying danger turning it into the light comedy piece, which will make public care even less about the issue. Just imagine I poison you and then when you get angry I use perfect stand up comedian skills and everyone laugh at you, and say "don't worry you will be fine, people dying anyway" - (Which was exact sentence of the women from Scotland refusing to wear the mask during Corona virus pandemic while she was thrown out of the airplane)
> Additionally, calling them "mustache-twirling villains" it is downplaying danger turning it into the light comedy piece,
My point is that the author's reliance on hyperbolic and emotionally-charged language is what makes the article read like a light comedy piece. It's exactly the sort of rhetoric employed by anti-vaxxers and chemtrail believers, and it cheapens the message.
The facts are damning enough. Let them speak for themselves.
Why not? Most of what we take in, goes through there. Another point would be the bladder, and associated drainage systems. Liver and kidney slightly less so.
HIV/AIDS needs active direct sexual or blood contact for transmission, it can easily be protected against by wearing a condom. Corona in contrast can even be transmitted by asymptomatic people and masks, even hospital-grade PPE aren't a perfect protection either.
I agree with you, it's still classified as an ongoing pandemic and has killed orders of magnitude more people than coronavirus for what it's worth - but at the moment it is nowhere even close to being comparable with the comprehensive devastation that coronavirus has brought over the world, especially not when one accounts for AIDS being a thing for almost 40 years while coronavirus is barely one year old.
There were no country-wide lockdowns for months for AIDS, there never was any factual reason to believe AIDS could be transmitted even by being in the same room as an infected person, there were no people dying in hospitals because there were not enough ICU beds because literally every single bed was occupied by another person infected, there were no entire industries employing many many millions of people being destroyed overnight (hospitality, tourism, events, sports).
Again: don't get me wrong, AIDS has been a devastating illness especially for the LGBT community. Still, doesn't mean that it's wise or sensible to compare it with coronavirus.
> It's not the illness causing havoc, it's the country wide lockdown
It is the illness that's causing havoc because people are filling up all available ICU beds - and to make it worse, they're needing intensive care like ventilators and ECMO far longer than previous illnesses!
That's a true but questionable statement, because of how beds availability is handled by hospitals (at least here in the UK).
A relative of mine is a doctor and beds occupancy is often high in this season: this is because hospitals try to work at capacity and extra beds can be converted into ICU beds when needed.
This is how the NHS managed to survive the peak back in March (and how it will probably survive this peak which seems to have similar numbers).
I'm sure saying it doesn't make for a very compelling headline though.
Meanwhile people with more serious diseases (eg cancer) are postponing going to the hospital and dying.
I also consider the lack of scaling capabilities of our public sector to be a shame and I think we should put the private (which was heavily affected by job loss caused by the lockdowns) sector to work on it (converting privately owned businesses into it, speed training people to deal with the illness - we had almost a year to prepare).
But I don't see our society being agile enough to handle it in time from a regulatory point of view.
COVID has already killed around half as many Americans in less than a year as HIV/AIDS did in nearly 40, and has killed nearly three times as many Americans as the "Asian flu" pandemic (which was in 1957/58, not "the 60s", by the way).
And while I get that most countries haven't completely shat the bed with their COVID responses like we have here in the US, those countries doing better (like New Zealand and Taiwan) have been able to react accordingly and return approximately to normal.
God I keep hearing this. Most heart disease can be prevented or delayed by decades by smoking cessation. Some cancers similarly. We spend huge amount of man power and money on cancer research so I don't know how that is ignoring it.
The cardiac, pulmonary, and endocrine disease burden tied to air pollution throws a monkey wrench in that, and air pollution kills many times more people per year than even COVID-19 has[0][1].
Humans suck at assessing dangers soberly.
Another example: the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA in the U.S. exist solely because 3,000 people died one day. Significantly less is being done as 3,000 people now die per day.
And similar for covid, without lifestyle based co morbidity the fatality rate would be a lot lower.
We have over reacted to covid. No one ever puts it into perspective appropriately flinging around non relative numbers left and right and pulling on misplaced compassion. Hats decisions needed to be made and we decided to punish the healthy and young to save the old and sick, and whether or not you like it put like that it's the truth of it.
> we decided to punish the healthy and young to save the old and sick
You're saying that like it's a bad thing. Isn't protecting the weak and vulnerable the entire point of living in a society?
Not to mention all the economic "punishment" the young have taken in the US could have been largely mitigated with proper stimulus programs instead of ceaseless Fed money-printing.
No smoking, better(also less) eating and more physical activity would cure probably 80-90% of these... for some reason, that's too much to ask for from so many folks because some blah blah excuses, like anybody would care about those.
And its not about perfection, any sustained attempt will bring almost immediate massive benefits in quality of life and happiness. One day our descendants will be looking at us as primitive stupid self harming apes
This is says more about where you get your information. Heart disease is talked about constantly. Practically any interaction you have with a medical professional or health insurance company will involve consideration of your diet, exercise habits, how much your smoke and/or drink. The entire point of these questions is to reduce the risk of heart disease.
February is National Heart Health month in the USA! Americans dedicate an entire month to talking about heart disease. A time in which we are inundated with news reports and ads about how to improve our overall well-being and reduce our risk of heart attacks.
The American Heart Association is one of the most influential non-profits in the USA and they run ad campaigns, lobby politicians and healthcare providers, finance research, and issue guidelines for improving cardiac health for everyone.
The same is true for cancer. There's a National Cancer Awareness Day in the USA. There are several high-profile non-profits that raise awareness and finance research into cancer. Medical professionals have guidelines for when cancer screenings should be performed, etc, etc.
Cancer is not ignored; heart disease is not ignored. If you feel like you never hear about these topics, consider changing where you get your information from and perhaps you'll hear more about important topics!
In the US, covid has been the leading cause of death for several weeks now. That was before superspreading Christmas celebrations, and next up is New Years.
But what do you mean that heart disease and cancer are pretty much ignored? Fundraising, research, and health advice for these causes is extremely popular and visible.
Dude, hot water is a known carcinogenic. It is scaremongering unless backed by hard stats that point to the urgency.
Cancer is the default disease, it amounts to a cell copying error, if something else doesn't kill you, you eventually develop it. It's basic statistics.
Life expectancy has never been higher, I'm not saying we shouldn't watch out for dangerous substances in the environment, but there will always be some, and the relative risk is usually quite small.
It's not if suddenly, life expectancy went down by 10 years and we cannot explain it. This is more like: "mhhh interesting, we should take a closer look at it".
Alcoholic beverages or going out in the sun are probably bigger health risks.
Feels like you didn't read the article (the NYTimes one is way better).
This is Teflon before 2016. If you were close enough, it was in drinking water... water you would have used for growing your own food. Organics would have provided zero protection.
I'm curious if you read the article, as the end the article points to the Dark Waters film (pointing out that the author's book was the inspiration for the movie), along with two other resources. This article is obviously an opinion piece meant to alert the general public to this topic, and did a good job - I think - of pointing people to deeper resources.
It is not like a comment on HN. The Guardian editorial staff wouldn't agree to publish it (and pay the author) if they didn't agree with it on some level.
>> There is a pretty good movie about this topic, Dark Waters. The movie is well informed, largely accurate, and more factual than this article. The main protagonist of the movie is actually Robert Billott, the author of this article.
I think there's a place for running articles by major figures as-is. And Robert Bilott would seem to qualify as a major figure in this context.
Peter Attia covered this in bottle mineral water and apparently some of the brands had more than he was comfortable with. Below is a good list if you like mineral water. Seems Perrier is the safest.
If you live near a Air force base, these chemicals are constantly running off into the ground water, because the fire crews must practice and they need the PF etc as it covers the jet fuel to put out the fire.
Fluorocarbons are ubiquitous. Fluorocarbons are basically magic when it comes to repelling water.
Nordic skiing (and to a lesser extent, downhill skiing) have been going through a bit of a reckoning trying to remove them from competitions. Fluorowaxes are very effective for gliding quickly in wet conditions. The fact that they are melted during application makes them particularly pernicious.
Fluorocarbons are also ubiquitous in water repelling in clothing. Some of the more expensive brands of outdoor wear have moved to shorter chain fluorocarbons, but they haven't eliminated their use. From Arcteryx: "... non-PFC [water repellant] treatments... have fallen short of the level of performance and durability we deem imperative". It's likely less urgent with clothing, since these compounds are quite stable when left alone at normal temperatures.
In competition it shouldn't matter. If everyone glides less, it's just the same for everyone. What's the problem? A complete ban should be effective at the start of the next season.
From what I read, main issue is a ban immediately creates permanent enforcement overhead. You have to continually test people's skis for fluoro-doping.
> You have to continually test people's skis for fluoro-doping.
Why not just only test the winner of every competition? As soon as winner crosses finish line, confiscate skis for testing. Negative = win, positive = disqualified. Ah, but then I suppose you have to test 2nd place's skis to see if they deserved to be bumped to first in the case of DQ... and this process has O(n) worst case where you would have to test literally every competitor's skis to find a winner...
I suppose you could just say "if you are in top 3 and you cheated, you are disqualified for life and nobody gets that medal" and then just let the communities sort it out.
Well then competitors will hopefully learn to keep their equipment under lock and key and/or maintain a record of custody. If it can be proven that a competitor was sabotaged, the life DQ would be reversed obviously.
Well hopefully it’s already the case that if someone intentionally sabotages another participant, and can be proven, they will receive a penalty worse than permanent disqualification.
No, random sampling can be done, although obviously not foolproof would still be better than nothing. It’s a common practice in most other industries, organizations, and even in sporting organizations with drug usage, etc.
Does 'left alone at normal temperatures' include the inside of a washing machine? Probably not a big issue, if the care instructions say 'cold water wash only' and if people read/follow the care instructions.
Most people avoid washing waterproof gear often (and particularly not at high temps), since it’s believed to damage the waterproofing. It’s particularly bad if you use normal detergent. That, indirectly, answers your question: it must leech in any conditions that damage its effectiveness.
> Most people avoid washing waterproof gear often (and particularly not at high temps), since it’s believed to damage the waterproofing.
Which is completely wrong. The PTFE pores will get clogged with skin oil, leading to more internal condensation, and the wax (the part referred to as "Durably Water Repellent," which is a hugely fraudulent marketing claim, as there is nothing durable about it) impregnated into the outer woven textile layer is less effective if there is moisture-wicking dirt on the outer layer, or the wax has rubbed off. In fact the wax is melted into the yarns of the outer woven fabric at about 40°C. To "re-activate" the DWR, most manufacturers recommend putting the garment in the dryer at 40°C for about half an hour. This re-melts the wax and wicks it into the parts of the yarn where it has rubbed off. Incidentally, Arc'Teryx recommends washing PTFE garments at 40°C as well.
The biggest scam in the waterproof-breathable garment industry (and that is saying a lot) are the so-called "2.5 layer" garments. Instead of being sandwiched between two woven textile layers, the PTFE film is coated directly on the inside of the outer layer, then some kind of ink or paint (yes, really) is printed over the PTFE layer for "durability." In 2.5 layer garments, the PTFE will start to flake off in a couple of years at most from abrasion with the clothes you wear underneath and bending and flexing of the outer textile layer (this has nothing to do with the acidity of skin oil - another completely fraudulent marketing claim I have seen as an attempt by retailers/manufacturers to deny warranty claims for "improper care"). These flakes (which is where all the PTFE is) will end up going down the drain, and you will have a ruined garment that is impossible to repair. 2.5 layer garments continue to be sold, because the manufacturing process is so cheap. I do not understand how there has not been a class-action lawsuit about this yet.
I do not understand how there has not been a class-action lawsuit about this yet.
They meet the desires of most customers. For most people, they want an inexpensive jacket, they wear it pretty infrequently, and by the time it starts to fail in 2-5 years they're ready to get something new.
It's a good thing if you can keep your DWR garment clean enough that it doesn't need to be washed often. Avoid sweating on it as possible, for example.
The interesting thing is that there's very little evidence that HF actually waxes matter for performance in nordic skiing (http://www.skitestguys.com/fluorinated-waxes.html). Maybe the ultra HF powder stuff but it's questionable. Hardness of wax matters, HF maybe not so much.
Not sure how that plays into the larger debate about fluorocarbons, but sometimes I think the perspective frame can be shifted a bit.
It doesn't last long, but off the line it is like magic. Especially in sticky/wet snow. basically a pure form of the stuff we don't want in our water, though.
>Fluorocarbons are also ubiquitous in water repelling in clothing. Some of the more expensive brands of outdoor wear have moved to shorter chain fluorocarbons, but they haven't eliminated their use. From Arcteryx:
Are there any reliable figures on to what degree something like, say, wearing a pair of Arcteryx gloves on and off for a couple years, and frequently taking them off and then immediately eating, raises your risk of cancer? Asking for a... friend who just got some for Christmas and is now considering tossing them in the trash.
It's not clear yet but the dose makes the poison. The amount you get exposed to through Teflon clothing is unlikely to be enough to cause any issues. Animals and people having health problems were directly exposed to large amounts, such as working with them.
Besides, they've been phased out of new clothing. If you got something new they shouldn't have the same PFAS and PFOS, although it wouldn't be surprising if the new shorter chain replacements have similar issues.
No, nonstick cookware contributes no significant fluorocarbons to your diet. Nonstick cookware uses PTFE, which is a polymer that doesn't release its constituent fluorocarbons under any circumstance. Even overheating a pan won't release any significant amounts of PFAS. It will release other poisonous chemicals, but that's a different issue.
The water filter is definitely a good idea. I use a big carbon filter in my kitchen, and that's the only tap that we get drinking and cooking water from.
Then you'll be eating small bits of PTFE (commonly referred to as Teflon), which is completely harmless and will pass through you unaltered.
PTFE is a fluoropolymer. It is a completely different substance than the chemicals we call PFAS. PFAS chemicals are sometimes used when applying PTFE to surfaces, particularly as surfactants, but all current manufacturing processes ensure that no residual PFAS is left behind in PTFE-bearing products. As far as I know, nobody has ever found residual PFAS in cookware, for example. In over 50 years of use in cookware, there is no evidence that PTFE-based nonstick coatings have any negative health effects whatsoever, as long as the cookware isn't overheated. PTFE is among the most stable and immortal of all organic materials, and is logically unable to interact chemically with biological systems. You can eat all the PTFE you want, and it will never show up in your blood stream. PTFE is widely used in medical devices that are implanted inside the body, where it's inertness makes it the ideal coating. It's as safe as any material can be.
Unfortunately, non-stick cookware is pretty easy to overheat, and when that happens it can release some pretty toxic stuff such as fluoroacetic acid. But this has nothing to do with the PFAS chemicals we're talking about here. There are actually very few reports of any real-life health effect from overheated nonstick cookware, and those we do have involve only temporary flu-like symptoms.
The real hazard of PTFE is not in its end use, but rather it's an environmental hazard from its production. It is safe to eat Teflon, but I would never want to live downstream from a production facility.
This is completely different from products that use PFAS chemicals. Prominent examples are outdoor clothing, stain resistant coatings for furniture and carpeting, firefighting foam, and many brands of ski wax. These products contain large amounts of PFAS, which can easily end up in your body. The effects aren't well known yet, but this may well be an global health and environmental catastrophe. But again, that has little to do with PTFE. Two different things in this regard.
I assume it's because they said that immediately after a link featuring "dupont-chemistry-deception" making it seem like the previous sentence called them out by name. The link then got shortened when posted, and whether it says "dupont" depends on how you view the post.
This won't change until companies are fined sufficiently to prevent this. More importantly, those responsible must retrospectively face prosecution and jail time. A CEO will only care when it's their money and their life that's on the line - they won't care about a large fine 10 years after they've left.
The problem statement is simple: there needs to be lawful accounting for negative externalities, even when discovered after the fact. And the price to pay should be roughly equal to the damage caused by the externality. Solve these two problems and you solve governance and capitalism. As for the implementation...
You want to strike a balance between responsible development and paralyzing progress. If potential liabilities are unlimited and you can be held fully responsible for damages no one (including you) understood until decades after the fact, will any new chemical ever be introduced again? Under this regime, even the best, most diligent science with decades of study would not balance your liability. You'd be playing roulette.
You need some bar of rigor they aim to clear that confers protection from damages. Whether that's field trials, drug trials, peer review, etc.
Protection from damages should come from due diligence. Potential liabilities are unlimited only because potential damage to humanity is unlimited, and its worth pricing that in. This would mean successful developments free from negative externalities are rewarded accordingly considering their scarcity.
I want to agree with this but the article proves that good faith cannot be relied upon and that is endemic to both corporations and the state. A stronger hand might be needed.
We need to impress upon corporations to look at the long term condequences and any executive looking to keep living the good life to prioritize environmental/social matters with a high level of awareness and scrutiny before any machinations relating to increasing topline growth (figuring things like this out is why C-Suite execs get paid more than the presidents of most states)
To that we need a harsh route and I reckon the need for high profits will apply enough pressure for proper investment in R&D and allows new entrants to get a piece of the pie. Raising the bar will never stop progress -if it did we'd still be boarding some suspect aeroplanes amd driving ridiculous death traps we might call cars.
I think if you stack the game into a completely unwinnable position (unlimited liability, no statute of limitations, no sunset on discovery of previously unknown harm) then the efforts of these C-Suites will triple down on evasion. Shell companies, regulatory capture, passing the buck, and their own golden parachutes. Because you've made that the only viable option for them.
> these C-Suites will triple down on evasion. Shell companies, regulatory capture, passing the buck, and their own golden parachutes
This is the reality under the current regulatory frameworks. Which is I'm advocating for a firm hand just as in the aerospace/motor industry.
Ofcourse there will be concessions as there will be non-obvious oversight and/or employees hiding bad information if it might damage their career. Regulators and civil organizations will have to figure out the meta information before proceeding to trial.
It's only unwinnable if your definition of winning is to cause more harm to society than the value you create.
Your arms race argument is valid, but I think there's a lot of progress to be made before that negative effect dominates. I don't think we're currently at the optimum equilibrium of regulation vs. evasion. If the punishment for murder causes murderers to evade capture, society matches their efforts; it doesn't just give up.
My definition of "winning" is making a useful product that sells & turns a profit. But if the liability is unlimited & unknowable, your new chemical might turn a profit & do some good - or you might be sued into bankruptcy, and you can't know for sure which it will be, no matter how much study you do. It's just gambling.
With liability limits, you can do the math on whether a chemical is worth the risk because while some things are unknowable, your maximum liability is already established.
That's why I favor a "due diligence" regulatory arrangement.
> But if the liability is unlimited & unknowable, your new chemical might turn a profit & do some good - or you might be sued into bankruptcy, and you can't know for sure which it will be, no matter how much study you do. It's just gambling.
New technology is always a gamble. It's just a matter of who pays -- the people who profited, or the bystanders who had nothing to do with it? If you want to do business and protect yourself against downside risk, take out insurance and do enough due diligence to satisfy the insurance provider. Passing off the risks to third parties just because currently there is no accountability system in place is not a just system.
Systemic solutions are needed. Placing the onus on individuals will fail and this very argument is a distraction injected by the abusers because it will fail.
Systemic change begins with personal transformation. Individuals acting doesn't replace systemic change, it helps create it. You and I acting here and now helps us develop the skills to lead others, including corporations and governments.
I agree the person you responded to shouldn't have written "Or", but that doesn't change that individual actions and systemic change aren't exclusive but additive.
"The only reason the world knows anything about this today is because, in 1998, Earl Tennant, a courageous farmer from West Virginia, came to me demanding answers."
Which is, of course, complete bullshit.
I'm not dismissing the toxicity and persistence of fluorocarbons, but this article is too grandstanding and fearmongering for my likes.
The guy who found out BPA was an endocrine disruptors was a scientist who was studying breast cancer and kept finding that his breast cancer cells were getting activated when put in plastic test tubes. He called up the test tube manufacturer and they refused to tell him the material that composed the test tubes. When he did his own investigation this is what led to the BPA / Endocrine link being discovered.
> A maintenance worker had used an abrasive floor cleaner, instead of the usual mild detergent, to wash out cages and water bottles. The acidic solution scarred the hard, polycarbonate surface of the plastic and enabled a single chemical culprit to leach out—bisphenol A (BPA).
What's special about the surface that doesn't let BPA to leech out? Is it a different composite used on the inner surface or does it have to do with something like how water is strong until the surface tension is broken?
How so? Your own link seems to support that reading.
The Wikipedia page says:
> "The chemical has received attention due to litigation from the PFOA-contaminated community around DuPont's Washington Works facility in Washington, West Virginia, along with EPA focus."
That litigation was handled by Robert Bilott, the author of the article and subject of the NYT piece[1] that confirms the story of Tennant bringing up the issue.
Perhaps you thought the article was saying that the harm of fluorocarbons is known at all because of Tennant, when it instead seems to say that it is widely known because of him.
It is what you say. I object to the absolute certainty of the writing.
The use of language in a piece of journalistic writing colors my perception of it. Saying that the only reason the world knows anything comes off as grandstanding.
That said... I think the author is fighting a good fight. Maybe this kind of reporting eventually helps the cause. I just don't like all the emotional strings being pulled.
Finally, unrelated... Every organic chemist should understand intuitively how dumb it is to let undegradable shit loose in the environment. This is polychlorinated biphenyls all over again, without the chloracne.
> I object to the absolute certainty of the writing.
That's a better way to phrase it than "complete bullshit", which suggests you object to more than just the certainty.
I'm not really sure what your nitpick is here, anyway. Because <100% of people found out about this harmful pollution from that lawsuit, it's unfair to say that most people did?
Do you just believe that you can't credit anyone for popularizing anything, because some niche of people already knew?
Well. It’s a guardian opinion piece. While I often find guardian language stilted, I find that there is value in reading it.
DuPont is one of the big daddies of the chemical industry. The few who control the poisons of the world also control our seeds.
Having said that, learning about the author is also important to understand the motivation :
[..] Rob Bilott is a partner at the law firm of Taft Stettinius & Hollister, LLP and author of Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont.
His book was the story behind the film, Dark Waters and the documentary, The Devil We Know.
Rob is also a 2017 recipient of the 2017 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” for his work on Forever Chemicals.
On Thursday, Rob Bilott is participating in an online discussion on the need to regulate PFAS titled Dark Waters no more! Is it time for a global agreement on toxic chemicals?[..]
I had the same feeling. No info except 8 letters of chemical names and their relative longevity. The rest of article is just random pick from chest of horrors with awkward focus of recently fashionable scares (covid, vaccine efficacy).
[..] But if you are a sentient being reading this article in 2016, you already have PFOA in your blood. It is in your parents’ blood, your children’s blood, your lover’s blood. How did it get there? Through the air, through your diet, through your use of nonstick cookware, through your umbilical cord. Or you might have drunk tainted water. The Environmental Working Group has found manufactured fluorochemicals present in 94 water districts across 27 states (see sidebar beginning on Page 38). Residents of Issaquah, Wash.; Wilmington, Del.; Colorado Springs; and Nassau County on Long Island are among those whose water has a higher concentration of fluorochemicals than that in some of the districts included in Rob Bilott’s class-action suit. The drinking water in Parkersburg itself, whose water district was not included in the original class-action suit and has failed to compel DuPont to pay for a filtration system, is currently tainted with high levels of PFOA. Most residents appear not to know this.
Where scientists have tested for the presence of PFOA in the world, they have found it. PFOA is in the blood or vital organs of Atlantic salmon, swordfish, striped mullet, gray seals, common cormorants, Alaskan polar bears, brown pelicans, sea turtles, sea eagles, Midwestern bald eagles, California sea lions and Laysan albatrosses on Sand Island, a wildlife refuge on Midway Atoll, in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, about halfway between North America and Asia.[..]
"Scientists have confirmed links between PFOA exposure and a variety of serious diseases, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. And more recent studies are now raising concerns that some of these forever chemicals may negatively impact our endocrine system, our fertility, and our immune system – and possibly even the efficacy of vaccines."
A few moments spent checking out links to some of the issues mentioned above reveals enough 'actual information' to sink a boat. We can then make up our own minds as to whether the author is exaggerating. I vote for 'not'.
Almost any chemical you can think of has been linked to some type of cancer or other disease. The important question is, how much? If they don't estimate the level of risk, the claim is fairly worthless - indistinguishable from all those other low dose chemicals we're exposed to on a daily basis.
That is indeed a good question, and the answer (like many chemicals) is “extremely toxic at high concentrations and nobody really knows the long-term effects at smaller ones because this would require enormous scientific investments that nobody will pay for.” But PFOA/PFOS is different from other chemicals in that it’s extremely long-lived and so it doesn’t break down rapidly the way many other chemicals do. Putting something like this into the environment should demand the reverse of the evidentiary standard you’re describing: we should know exactly how safe it is before you dump it into the environment like DuPont did.
And that’s a valid position to take. However the tone of the article is extremely alarmist painting it as “this is the biggest problem ever” vs “this is an area of concern that I think requires immediate investigation”. The same line of FUD is used all the time with tech. See all the BS about 5G and even Berkeley’s general attempt to spread non-scientific FUD about RF. Now obviously this is a bit different because RF has far more research behind it and the lack of research here is the problem. All the appeals of “this causes cancer” is used to cloud the fact that the position taken in this opinion article is one of ignorance and encouraging decisions to be made as a result of said ignorance.
A valid position is one you’ve taken that the onus should be on the manufacturer to prove safety. However, it’s intentionally not the position of the government. Not just the US as I believe many/most/all countries err on the side of “it’s safe” without actually requiring evidence to that effect except for drugs and maybe some food production (such studies take a long time, are expensive, and often inconclusive).
If you are smart, dry facts are enough to persuade you and this kind of emotional 'manipulation' might actually deter you (it did me a bit). If you are on opposite spectrum, this might help to get story through. Obvious on whom it was aimed at
This article really hams up the language -- but that makes sense, given its author is a lawyer who's spent most of his adult life trying to get PFOA banned. He is not a neutral actor.
That said, the pervasiveness and harmfulness of PFOA (and some of its newer replacements) is a real and significant issue that needs to be publicized.
> its author is a lawyer who's spent most of his adult life trying to get PFOA banned. He is not a neutral actor.
I dislike this logic: it penalises expertise and commitment. It’s similar to the way broadcasters frequently dismiss people as “activists”. As far as I’m aware, he is only not neutral because he has learned a lot about the problem and found it serious enough to devote himself to doing something about it.
When weighing people's opinions, expertise should be rewarded but commitment should be penalized.
Committed people have a psychological need to prove themselves right and to discount contrary evidence. This is due to a combination of conscious and subconscious factors: enhancing one's social and career standing, making oneself feel better about the invested effort, etc. Among people who spent a decade or two arguing in favor of a certain theory, not many would be comfortable admitting they were wrong all along.
There is a period of time when someone is already an expert but not yet committed to any particular belief. This is an excellent time to listen to their opinions. Unfortunately, this period is usually quite short for most people.
Sometimes (as in this case), the commitment is quite obvious; at other times, it may be hard to detect it.
> Committed people have a psychological need to prove themselves right and to discount contrary evidence
This feels like an unfairly broad brush to paint committed people with. True commitment and expertise invariably results in truths indistinguishable from opinion to the outsider, they can offer considerable insight to those who will listen.
> When weighing people's opinions, expertise should be rewarded but commitment should be penalized.
"Penalized" is too dismissive, and borderline bulverism. I would say it is important to listen to the committed while being critical and wary of any bias they may have.
Penalized is just the converse of rewarded. Use negatively-weighted instead if the language is the point that trips you up, but the person who writes “Frankly, I was shaken to the core by what was exposed, yet I understood why the stakes were sky high for those seeking to hide the truth. Why it was a fight to the death to keep a lid on their secrets?” does get those words negatively-weighted in my accounting.
That negative score is added to the positive score from the expertise part of the author when I determine how much credence to give their argument.
Yes, I understood the meaning, and stand by my refinement. However the passage you quote is devoid of argument and full of emotion (and to be fair so is much of the article), it is not the type of information for which I am suggesting a penalty is inappropriate.
When presented with a true argument, information that can be reasoned about or verified, this is where penalization is not appropriate - healthy skepticism ensures you are critical of it, but an attitude of penalization adds a handicap to every argument produced by a committed person regardless of any truth it could hold.
When the argument is almost entirely emotional however I'm inclined to agree - a negative weighting is reasonable.
Was there any particular section in that piece that struck you as deserving of strong positive weighting? I found the entire thing fairly breathless emotional screaming about a topic that quite possibly is one deserving of serious attention, but I'll never realize that through the tears.
No. I agree the article is not well written, and I think this is a case where the author is not the best placed to communicate the issue in a convincing way, he has literally been personally defending thousands of individuals directly affected by the manufacture of PFOS, so it's understandable how the subject is an extremely emotional one for him.
The parent's principle is in fact quite applicable in this case due to the lack of arguments presented along side facts and explanation, but that does not justify over generalizing it to argument from all committed people.
By "penalized", I meant the opinions they offer should be weighted lower (i.e., a penalty should be applied to the weight). Committed people do offer insights. However, for every valuable insight, there are a lot of confidently proclaimed but unfounded claims.
By this argument, few CEOs, salespeople, or advertising execs should ever have been heard.
Also, in the history of science and philosophy, you’ll find that the majority of those whose work significantly advanced human knowledge were committed to their work and to the promotion of their ideas.
> By this argument, few CEOs, salespeople, or advertising execs should ever have been heard.
You say this as if it was a negative.
Besides the history of science is very fuzzy, and complex enough that "commitment" by itself is too vague a term. Also, science is not homogeneous enough for any kind of it to be a positive on every field.
> There is a period of time when someone is already an expert but not yet committed to any particular belief. This is an excellent time to listen to their opinions. Unfortunately, this period is usually quite short for most people.
Is there? Or is this an unfalsifiable classification that people one agrees with can be put in, and people who one doesn't agree with can be pushed out of?
The idea that opinions have no relation to expertise is a general argument against expertise. The magic period during which people have expertise but don't have opinions seems related to that magic period for journalists when they understand all of the facts about a story accurately but have no opinion about what is true and what is not true.
Your "... unfalsifiable classification" question is a fair one, but your final paragraph conflates "opinions" with parent's "commitment" -- a false equivalence that amounts to a strawman argument.
---
My own take is that it's less about a period of time [during which loosely-held opinions ostensibly ossify into the kind of commitment that interferes with honest pursuit of truth] and more about mindset, ego and circumstance. Which latter variables are difficult if not impossible to ascertain or verify. Which is why peer-reviewed science -- in removing as much subjectivity as humanly possible -- is our best and only plausible path to truly objective knowledge. (Which in turn is not the only kind of knowledge worth having or sharing! Far from it! But I digress.)
Hmm, perhaps the main explanatory factor for ossified opinions is not the passage of time, but individual personality / circsumstances. If so, it is fortunate: once you discover an unbiased person, you can put greater weight on their opinion for a bit longer.
> When weighing people's opinions, expertise should be rewarded but commitment should be penalized.
This is straight paranoia, unless you plan on only talking to people about their job or topics that don’t interest them.
You’re clearly too committed to your opinion here.
> There is a period of time when someone is already an expert but not yet committed to any particular belief.
Experts without opinions? It sounds like you’re just talking about a toaster. Toasters have no opinions about you when you set the shade to dark, like a monster
Be fair, I’m not suggesting that experts don’t change their opinions. In fact, just like you say, that’s a sign that someone has stopped learning.
I’m suggesting that hand-waving away information because someone has some strong opinions is silly. I don’t believe someone would ever dive into something that deep if they didn’t have some commitment to some opinion about their area of expertise
This logic is actively dangerous. It takes commitment to make any kind of real change in the world. There are way more lucrative careers for a lawyer than public service.
No, listening to every conspiracy-theorist is actively dangerous. Look where the internet is taking us.
Not to say this bloke isn't right on the money. But one would certainly want to read other, less biased sources to weigh the actual gravity of the problem.
Oh come on. So then listen to none of them? Can you really not tell the difference between real conspiracies and the crap peddled by the alt-right? People really just must like dying.
Plainly described, this is a grave threat to public health being deliberately covered up by people with monetary interests. We've faced literally hundreds of these threats since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Remember asbestos?
Public awareness is the first major obstacle. Standing in the way of that means more people will die than necessary.
Here's the problem the commentor is probably getting at: people won't believe the narrative.
It's not hard to convince me that any type of plastic is bad. I dont use plastic containers for food. Only wood, metal and glass are in my kitchen when it contacts food. I dont even like plastic for anything else. If I can opt for something that's not made of plastic, I'd rather pay a premium than have it all if I can (obviously what I'm holding to type this flies in my belief's face, but right now the anti-plastic war I wage is a hill I will die on and it'll be a brutal death). Yet, after reading the article, I have doubts on what he's claiming.
Journalism used to be emotional only at very key, important points. The deadpan nature allowed for disciplined emotional tones to have extreme, nearly atomic impact on a subject. That used to move people. Now, everything is a life or death struggle. For fucks sake, figuring out what bathroom to use was and still is a "heated debate". 99% of people have zero issues figuring this out. Less than 1% are arguing yet everyone has to feel like THIS is what will collapse society if we dont fix it. The constant barrage of outlandish "passionate" claims to "save the world" along with the deep dark shady underworld of business, after a while, "yup, whatever". While I will always err on the side of "fuck plastic", I will also admit that I'm a casualty of the current "journalism" climate of ever increasing sense of doom around every corner. I dont believe the author even though I philosophically should knee jerk to being a cheerleader all because of the tone of the article. And given some other comments, I'm not alone.
And yes, my word choice is relevant to the theme I'm discussing.
I also agree that plastic is probably bad, but it's everywhere though and I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that it's become unavoidable.
With respect to the article, it's an opinion piece and clearly marked as such. I'm not sure if this is a difference between US and UK papers, but in papers that still try to have some journalistic integrity in the UK there is, by convention, a difference between articles marked as 'Opinion' and news articles. The writers of opinion pieces are invited to submit articles on a one-off basis and are not necessarily journalists, they can be anyone and the articles they write are expected to hold an opinion so when you read one the understanding is that it will be biased towards a particular viewpoint. So the Guardian frequently has opinion pieces written by politicians (generally centrist but from the left and right of politics), activists, scientists, etc. These opinion pieces typically lean leftish on average, because its The Guardian, but individually they are not always left leaning.
Do newspapers from other countries have a similar convention?
Defining activists as hopelessly biased due to their commitment is nothing but blanket immunity for corruption. The corrupt have no commitments to anyone but themselves.
Becoming passionate about something is generally a result of the interpretation of facts, not the cause. It's very difficult to become passionate about plastic pollution without any knowledge of plastic pollution. The only people that can maintain this fantasy libertarian opinion without enthusiasm are people who support plastic pollution because it makes them money, and pay people to come up with arguments to continue doing it - hence all people without a financial stake are hopelessly biased activists.
If they're not making money, what could they possibly be getting out of it? They're obviously insane and feeding their own egos through heroism, and therefore can't be believed.
I started reading this comment about your doubts with interest, thinking it would eventually lead to some concrete reasons that you doubt the evidence on PFOA/PFOS. But it turned out to be an opinion piece on why you reflexively disbelieve news about chemical contamination of the environment. Whatever you might say about the article at the top of this post, it’s written by someone who has done research and has concrete arguments. Why not hold your own beliefs and commentary to at least that standard?
According to Hans Rosling, his research shows activists have a less accurate picture than the general public on the issue they dedicate their activism to.
Interestingly enough, Hans Rosling's own activism revolved around overturning accepted wisdom, so what happens when you apply this result to his own work?
There is difference between journalist talking to such an expert and writing the article, than the expert writing himself.experise does not mean he will be unbiased.
You need a neutral perspective, same reason dev should be his own qa, or lawyer should not represent himself or a doctor not operate on family.
While they can be objective and unbiased, it is right to question that, when the author has a vested interest in the matter as it easy to loose perspective.
Bias is not bad in sciences. It means the person is dedicated to his/her cause. For example, if you read through nobel price winners you find one very strong common factor. They were always emotionally involved in their work.
Humans are emotional beings, not robots. If you want to have high performance, you want the performer to care deeply about his work.
Biases should not be hidden though! I think that is the pathology people generally confuse with bias. Bias is a positive thing, hiding it is not.
This does not contradict the above examples (lawyer, doctor, dev) but rather highlights there are different situations and no single approach to bias suffices.
Besides, journalism is almost never unbiased. If you don't know the bias of the writer, it means the writer has a hidden agenda. Much better to flaunt the agenda, then.
And our reaction is entirely coloured by bias and our own baseline understanding of the world. We expect higher quality argument from the side we are less comfortable with. And happily accept less proof on concepts that we are already familiar with. No one worries about bias when you are talking about pistgres.
Note that the article is in the Opinion section of the newspaper. You shouldn't expect unbiased reporting here, it's the designated space for editorializing and well... opinions.
If you have a financial incentive to do anything, your motives should be investigated if not outright suspect, even if they're objectively good.
If everything is above board there's nothing to lose. But hand-waving it away doesn't help anyone except people with motives that appear good at first blush but are in fact not.
He's learned 'a lot' but cherry-picked to prosecute. That's the difference between a biased actor, and a scientist who is supposed to be neutral and use experiments to distinguish between bias and reality.
Committed experts are basically activists, they are people with grandiose delusions who think that particular thing is so important that they committed their lives to it.
Our bodies are full of "toxins". For example, our bones are made up of calcium and phosphorus. Yet, if you eat a pinch of powdered phosphorus, you die.
Thanks, that article is a great read. This was news to me:
Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, the E.P.A. can test chemicals only when it has been provided evidence of harm. This arrangement, which largely allows chemical companies to regulate themselves, is the reason that the E.P.A. has restricted only five chemicals, out of tens of thousands on the market, in the last 40 years.
Given that we're talking about something that's practically harming the entire population of this planet there are only two groups of people. The one's that get sick from it and get rich, and the one's that just get sick, so I think it's fair to say the number of people who have any reason to be neutral actors is 0.
No, there is a third, that oh so great government that everyone seems so keen to give more power and money too. This is exactly where they are suppose to do their job yet they're so woefully bad at it. If they can't even get this sort of shit right why trust them to do anything properly.
It's to deal with the actions that have a good cost/benefit ratio for everyone, citizens and companies. If something dramatically puts companies (the offenders) at a disadvantage they will fight against that with anything they have. Hence the EPA is more like a pebble under a steamroller fueled by billions of dollars obtained by not actually caring what the EPA or people want. It's hard to move an opponent who has more money and power (of every kind) than you.
Not the person you’re replying to, but I just got stainless steel cookware this year. Covid got me cooking much more, and I actually started liking it, so I thought I’d invest in some decent pans as my non stick ones were wearing down. I am not a natural in the kitchen, and the learning curve for stainless has been huge for me. The heat is different and the pans get much much hotter at a lower heat. When you throw things in the pan, it sticks for a moment. This can make things yummy but is unsettling after a life of non stick. You can season stainless like a cast iron pan to get it non stick.
I was really frustrated after making the switch. Non stick pans are so forgiving. However, now that I’m over the hump, I really love these pans. They are so sturdy and will last my whole life. I’ve learned how to control heat much better, and they’re quite satisfying to cook with. There’s something so quality feeling about them.
After I stopped using non-stick, I realized it was kind of a cheat method for cooking. Non-stick is super forgiving because you can cook anything too hot/too cold with too much/too little oil and get approximately the same result. With stainless, cast iron, etc. it actually takes some thought to make sure you have adequate time to preheat and are actually using the right heat in the first place, but by the end of it you end up being a lot more precise in the kitchen. Once you get the hang of proper temperature control it seems like your results get way more consistent. Plus you're spot on with the satisfaction thing, it's definitely more work to cook without non-stick but it just feels better for some reason.
For pots it doesn’t really make much difference, but cooking on a stainless steel frying pan is very different, especially when cooking eggs, fish etc. You need to heat the pan first, add a bit of oil and onion to the hot pan and spread that around (something in the onion creates a non-stick effect) before adding the eggs.
I never used Teflon regularly. I did buy them because it was modern and seemed to make life easier. But I never liked how it smelled at high heat. I am trained as a professional chef and have been cooking for decades now. I rely on my sense of smell for everything.
These are my preferences in no particular order...and materials I have used over the years
stainless steel: My go to in the kitchen. It has to be thick and heavy. All Clad is great. But IKEA doesn’t disappoint either.
Cast iron: for skillets. Heavy..you need strong wrists. Never wash them. They have to be conditioned.
Copper bottomed stainless steel: I used this for a while and I like it because copper spreads heat evenly.
Copper: when I have to be fancy and serve in the same dish as I have cooked. Like with sauces because it has to cook evenly and at low temperature.
Also for serving. My grandmother kept a glass of water in a copper jug with a couple of leaves of tulsi leaves soaked overnight. She would drink it first thing in the morning.
Silver: only for serving. Hot liquids are really really hot in it. Will tarnish. There is some religious or cultural significance to it in south India. The older generation always ate on silver plates and had a silver tumbler. They’d also eat from banana leaves so I know it’s not a vanity thing. But I know there was some significance to it. I will find out.
Tinware: this is traditional cookware from India. It is used to make exactly one dish..a soupy item called rasam. This is handed down from generation to generation. My grandmother taught me how to cook in this and as a young bride, I was gifted one by my mother in law who handed it over to me with confounding reverence.. as though it was made of gold and studded with emeralds and rubies.
It is supposed to create a unique taste profile to the rasam(tamarind based broth soup with spices, tomatoes, lentils and herbs.) I was warned again and again not to use over high heat because it would ‘melt’. My mother explained to me later that at high heat, it would become a molten mess and that it can happen quickly. She also assured me that it’s ok. She herself has had her eeyum-chombu melted and there were tin smiths(?) who will remake it back to the shape you want in the kitchen.
I did my best rasams in that tho’..could have been the story. I was always excited when it came out without me melting dinner. I guess it’s the vegetarian south indian housewife version of ‘puffer fish’ syndrome. So there’s that. I thought I will pin it here.
Clay: I recently started cooking with this. I also make yogurt in it. And use small clay cups to serve tea. It’s a little tricky. Can’t use soap. Have to be soaked. I can use it only for one dish at a time. Because the odors stick around. It does make chai and yogurt taste out of the world or rather, ‘earthy’. I guess it’s an acquired taste. I like it. Don’t like the cleaning part. It will break. And pick up mold if it’s not dried out in the sun.
Brass/bronze: I could never tell what it is. I had a ton of stuff that I inherited from my grandmothers. It’s really heavy. It won’t work well with modern stoves. They have antique value now but were also used to cook.
Iron: I have a couple of ladles. I don’t use them.
Aluminum: some houses use these to cook for large crowds like events etc. to make rice or tea for 100 people etc. I don’t own them but we had a couple of utensils like this in the attic for family functions. As kids, we’d play hide and seek by crouching inside one of the giant utensils. Good times.
Glass: a lot of baking trays are aluminum. Some might even be Teflon coated. But Pyrex is awesome. But aluminum and coated with something nonstick(I never found out what it was ..maybe Teflon?) and silicone is still the way to go for cookies and quick order baking. I don’t bake a lot these days.
‘Stone’: I don’t know what kind of stone. My grandmother used to make only certain dishes in this. It was black and I think it’s soapstone. While copper is a good conductor. Soapstone was a good insulator. Super heavy.
Silicone: for the modern kitchen. In the oven, stovetop or for microwave. It’s very Meh. I don’t know what to make of it. I use a lot for cooking. Silpat baking sheets etc. I don’t know how to do any of my modern French culinary baking stuff without these materials. Like patisserie work or sugar work or working with chocolate etc.
I use many of these on a daily basis because I cook both traditional indian as well as classical French. They all conserve energy. The right material means you don’t use heat too much or that you don’t have to stick everything in the refrigerator.
You have to choose the right material for the right cuisine. You have to match the energy source you have with the cuisine and the material. Now we have electric stoves and induction and convection and ovens and gas stoves. So the cooking utensil material is meant to match those criteria. It is not a fad or a cost or a looks thing. It is about utility. And ultimately cooking with an energy source that is most efficient. It’s about controlling heat. A home cook doesn’t need all this. Stainless steel would do for a gas stove.
I am sharing this info because cooking brings me great joy. So just putting this out there.
Finally: Instant Pot. My absolute favourite. I mean. If you are starting out or an expert cook, this is a game changer. One pot electric pressure cooker. Changed my life in the kitchen during the pandemic.
Thanks, very insightful! Had been thinking about trying out a clay pot for slow cooking biriyani. Sounds like a fair bit of hassle though to clean it. Maybe a Kamado grill would work well, super well insulated and can cook long at low temp.
I recently bought a 8l Instant Pot - it cooks really fast and I’m still exploring the best dishes to cook with it. But so far I find slow cooking stews and curries on minimum heat on a gas hob for ~7hours still brings out a bit more flavour - I just use the stainless steel pot from the Instant Pot on the hob, with a glass lid mostly on. Maybe it’s because of the time the flavours can mix, or because the dish reduces a bit more this way. We cook a lot of Burmese and Indian food and European stews this way, it’s great every single time.
How on earth would anybody find it in their heart to deliberately destroy the beautiful countryside of the US, or even the world?
In the past my impression was that only the corporatism and boundless greed of the people from the US yields such environmental catastrophes, which fill the pockets of executives while harming entire generations with massive pollution.
But the Corona catastrophe shows that too many people from all cultures and countries have the same disease of ignorance, rot, shortsightedness and stupidity. And once they fear to be picked out for it, all they try to do is to save their skin from prosecution. This is not American, this is Human.
Probably not. The parent comment was "prove it". My point was, if you're willing to drink it then its likely you don't think its that toxic. Its a test of sorts. But people happily drink all sorts of toxins. My answer still works for low values of idiocy.
People are usually more protective of children than themselves, so perhaps a better question for them is: would you let your children or grandchildren drink it knowing what it can do? A good question for various politicians and officials around Flint, Michigan perhaps.
assume its the year 2000 with a 20 year old having some level of PFOS in blood & cells etc and the half-life of that PFOS is 5 years*
2000 100% of accumulated measured concentration in blood & cells by some measure
2005 50%
2010 25%
2015 13%
2020 6%
2025 3%
2030 2%
2035 1%
2040 <1%
So our fictional 20 year old is 60-70* by the time the stuff has "fully" degraded. This doesn't mean they are now healthy. It just means the toxic stuff is now no longer at the original level. Impact on organs? Not a great picture.
A "Forever chemical" indeed.
* Assumptions just to make things easier to see. PFOS half-life is actually 5.4 years. So the table above is too short. Assume nothing gets stuck where it can't decay. What is toxic for this? What is typical buildup for a 20 year old for various locations/contexts?
They are called "forever chemicals" because they don't naturally degrade in the environment. That term does not refer to how long they stay in your body. Because they are don't degrade in the environment, the amount found in the environment is continuing to increase: http://marinespecies.org/introduced/wiki/Polyfluorinated_com...
"That term does not refer to how long they stay in your body."
I didn't assert that. I did state that after 70 years of only getting to some vague level of trace amounts its still likely there and that something of that nature is a "forever chemical" indeed. You haven't cancelled that.
You do realise that PFOS actually does have a half-life when in the body and that the body does break them down? Slowly. My point is that even at 5.3 years or anything around that half-life the stuff is in your body. Basically forever... until you're likely very old or dead.
You want to quibble about "forever" in a human being only 70 years. Ok. That's excessively pedantic however I'm not going to exhaustively iterate over every detail to do so.
Your link is year-on-year PFOS concentrations. Seems that the exposure from the environment is increasing. Sure.
How does that cancel out what I wrote? I fail to see where you've cancelled out my simulation at all.
Indeed such compounds do not have a half life. They can only continue to increase in concentration in everyone’s body over time, assuming environmental exposure remains constant. Of course it is theoretically possible to live in an hermetically sealed environment without such compounds, where are all incoming substances are controlled, that would allow the body to naturally excrete such compounds over time. But we don’t know the rate at which this happens.
"PFASs can concentrate in the bodies of humans and animals over time through a process known as bioaccumulation. For example, as a result of PFOA’s tendency to bioaccumulate and its long half-life in humans, PFOA’s presence in the body can persist even after exposure stops. PFOA’s half-life (the length of time it takes for a substance to decrease to half of its original value) in humans is anywhere from over two to nearly four years, while other PFASs have been shown to have a half-life of over eight years. There is also evidence that some PFASs can biomagnify, or increase in concentration, up the food chain."
This also assumes no biological ability to remove the chemical, relying only on the half life. If our systems are not able to do so, I missed that point in the article.
Serious topic but article is a bit overly mysterious. Never goes on to explain the mechanism by which the "poison" leches into the creek and kills the cattle? Where it originated?
Don’t eat microwave popcorn (PFOAs have been replaced there with other PFCs, which might not be an improvement). Avoid other similarly non-stick heated disposable packaging. Avoid overheating non-stick pans (or don’t use them at all). Use a filter if it’s appreciably in the groundwater.
Not just a sediment filter, you need activated charcoal.
I live (and grew up) drinking groundwater downstream of a plume of PFOAs. Wolverine Worldwide (of Cat/HD/Hush Puppies/Merrell footwear brands) made waterproof leather goods in my hometown of Rockford, MI. In the 60s and 70s, they dumped barrels of leather scraps and excess 3M Scotchgard in woods and swamps in the area. They knew it was dangerous (they used PPE when handling it), but when it was phased out in the 90s they forgot about all the old dump sites until someone sued them in the last few years. Now they've been forced to install thousands of carbon filters in homes across the area, and most of us who have been on well water will eventually be moved to city water. Fortunately, the testing has proven that the carbon canisters are highly effective - my well went from 80ppt to non-detectable - but they're expensive to maintain, and I spent 30 years drinking the stuff...
Because "Across our portfolio, DuPont’s use of other PFAS is a small fraction of the total PFAS used in the world." Meaning, they admit they use it in many of their products, but insist they aren't a major contributor without providing numbers. Legally defensible.
They even have a "current use" button on that page. Lo and behold the information is right before your very eyes.
I picked uranium because it's sufficiently scary to most people, not because it's special - you can say the same thing about any (stable) artificial particle too. My point was that without talking numerically about real-world impacts, this article has no meaningful content.
To clarify, you should absolutely be concerned about this particular category of particles - the impacts are not fully understood, but they are substantial and meaningful. I'm just railing against the consistent failures of modern scientific 'journalism'.
I mean, I could take blood sample from any, any, HN reader and find arsenic. No problem. But it’s natural right. So no big deal. And at levels that aren’t toxic.
> The poison found in everyone, even unborn babies – and who is responsible for it
One of the things about poison is that the more poisonous it is, the fewer living people it will be found in.
Unless you can show a dos exposure curve of some symptom getting worse with dose, something that is ubiquitous would likely be relatively harmless.
Remember dihydrogen monoxide with is also in everyone and results in quite a few fatalities every year in both its solid and liquid form and in its gaseous form is a very potent green house gas.
How much ubiquitous, world-wide PFOA presence is too much ubiquitous, world-wide PFOA presence?
Related question: is it physically possible for DuPont to synthesize and release an amount of persistent environmental toxin sufficient to end all higher life on the planet within 500 years?
> Related question: is it physically possible for DuPont to synthesize and release an amount of persistent environmental toxin sufficient to end all higher life on the planet within 500 years?
Never thought about it this way. Scary interesting.
If it was very deadly, it would be an obvious problem. The worst poisons are the ones that are deadly after decades, cause a broad range of diseases, and cause problems when the perpetrators are no longer around.
There is a pretty good movie about this topic, Dark Waters. The movie is well informed, largely accurate, and more factual than this article. The main protagonist of the movie is actually Robert Billott, the author of this article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)