Comment by quadrifoliate | Hacker News Reader

Comment by quadrifoliate | Hacker News Reader

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> ...what am I supposed to do, test my fucking pepper?

I think a large part of the USA keeps electing politicians whose philosophy seems to be absolutely that – you "get the choice" to test your pepper or not, and market forces will eventually drive out the bad pepper companies.

This can be backed up by the fact that one of the past administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency was a thinly veiled oil and gas lobbyist [1], and the other one was a former coal lobbyist who relaxed standards on mercury [2].

So, thinking through the options, a few suggestions that look at solving the problem from all sides possible:

- From the data available to you, avoid the spices that are more likely to have high levels of heavy metals – thyme and oregano in particular seem to have higher levels for some reason

- Raise awareness of this report to trigger the capitalism response. If the companies are embarrassed enough on social and regular media, they will be motivated to control their heavy metal levels when it has an effect on sales.

- Keep electing politicians that are less likely to roll back environmental regulation. This is going to take a long time to have a systemic effect though. Voting in local elections is especially important, people often ignore those.

- Maybe, test your pepper? Food heavy metal tests seem to be commercially available [3]. Groups of concerned parents could pool in for a test of common spices.

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[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/22/scott-pr...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/health-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak...

[3] https://www.agqlabs.us.com/food/heavy-metals-food-testing/

Maybe add to the list some kind of long term campaign to have true multi party system (N > 2). Get rid of the first past the post etc. A separate green party is pretty universal in those.

It is probably hard to prove, but it would make sense that the calculated manipulation by commercial ”special interests” is harder and more expensive when it has to influence multiple parties (instead of 2).

I've been really high on the idea that the simplest (legally/politically viable) solution is to put a cap on the number of people a representative can represent. That's a lot more hands to grease for lobbyist and a lot more ears for constituents.

I think there was one rep per 25k people in 1776.

The large number doesn't matter because reps don't read, right, or debate details of the f*n bills. ALEC, and party lawyers do.

I know there's a lot to be said about $POLITICIANS and $POLICY generally, but somehow I don't think there's any big-oil type conspiracy to prevent the FDA from checking for heavy metals in spices, specifically. Did they check for them in the more regulation-on environment of the Clinton administration? The Obama administration? Might there be more nuance than "regulations on!" "regulations off!?"

If the FDA had a classification of "We'd Prefer You Thought This Was Safe", it would be a more accurate description for a lot of their approvals. They are ostensibly protecting consumers, but they also protect manufacturers by engendering [sometimes misplaced] confidence. It's reasonable to assume that corruption plays into this when it's sufficiently incentivized.

> ...somehow I don't think there's any big-oil type conspiracy to prevent the FDA from checking for heavy metals in spices, specifically

Of course there isn't, but that's also not an argument I think I made. I was indicating the more general trend towards de-regulation in the majority of the US, which likely affects all government agencies, including the FDA and the FCC (see, for example, the unchecked monopolies of most ISPs).

I think of it as a chilling effect by appointment. If you put the oil lobbyists in charge of environmental protection and a lawyer from Verizon in charge of the FCC, it seems to me that, for instance, increased FDA funding for anything, (including food safety) is not going to be the top priority of the Government.

Now, it's possible you're asserting that moves like putting oil and coal lobbyists in charge of environmental protection are somehow unique and do not indicate a general skepticism towards regulation.

I suppose there is no way to emphatically demonstrate that without waiting for a few decades, but would refer you to various surveys about political attitudes towards governmental regulation of companies.

Thyme and oregano are easy peasy to grow at home.

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