Endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure in womb impact fear, anxiety behavior | Hacker News Reader

Endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure in womb impact fear, anxiety behavior

neurosciencenews.com

109 pointsvitabenes175 comments

I remember a long time ago reading an article in Omni magazine about this very subject - plastic and how studies have shown that it is an endocrine disruptor with unpredictable consequences for people who will consume it by using plastic utensils, drinking cups, dishware, etc and especially by heating plastics in a microwave. They mentioned that many amphibians, considered canary species were being affected by the by-products accumulating in the environment and some were in danger of extinction as a result of them producing more female offspring than male due to the hormonal disruptions.

That would've been back in the early 90's, before 1994, so this is not a new thing at all. I'm pretty sure they mentioned in the article that research had been done for decades prior to the article but that plastics manufacturers were pooh-poohing all the links.

It could also have been Nature, National Geographic, Sierra Club magazine, Cousteau Society magazine, etc since I was a frequent reader of paper materials at the time.

This is where the notorious Alex Jones quote comes from: "They're making the friggin' frogs gay!"

Yeah, and it's even worse than that - full feminisation of male frogs.

https://www.nature.com/articles/news021028-7

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0909519107

It's not often that Alex Jones is any where near the right side of things, but he was treated somewhat unfairly in this instance.

I’m guessing we don’t have much research but I’m wondering if these chemicals are largely responsible for gender dysphora.

After reading that article back in the 90's I lobbied the wife hard to get rid of the microwave, replace the tupperware with glass or ceramics, and to stop buying prepared foods in plastic bottles and containers. It took nearly 10 years to get rid of the microwave. The other things were easier since glass, stainless steel, and ceramics are easier to manage in a kitchen anyway. Finding prepared foods in glass bottles like tomato sauce, soups, etc is more difficult but we manage.

What does microwave do?

At the time, my wife was fond of heating food in the microwave and I could never get over the fact that the plastic would sometimes get hot enough to soften signalling to me that there were probably chemicals being released as it got hot. I didn't want those chemicals in my food and I was hoping to have kids later so I wanted to try to avoid the possibility that my kids would grow up eating food microwaved in plastic tubs, possibly poisoning them from infancy.

And, most importantly from my own personal history, I hated microwaves since the first time I saw one in a convenience store. Popping a plastic-wrapped sandwich into one to have a hot lunch or heating some beanie-weenies or Dinty Moore Stew was just gross but I saw people do that all day long like it was great. When Mom finally convinced Dad to buy one back in the 70's she would use it because it supposedly saved time on things like baking potatoes or cooking meat. If you grew up back then you would have learned quickly that there is a huge textural difference between a potato baked in a microwave and one baked in an oven or in coals on a fire. Microwaved potatoes caused me to hate microwaves since the potato was not fluffy at all. It was very dense and chunky and hard to melt butter throughout the potato. Meat was an even worse indictment of the technology since it would come out red and uncooked looking even if it was scorching hot. It prefer steak medium well to well done or with a good smoke ring so I have to see that color difference for it to be edible.

The microwave was a personal decision mostly because I knew that if we got rid of it we would use less plastic since no one would use a plastic container in a conventional oven. Eliminate the microwave and the incentive to keep other plastic kitchen things disappears. That's a win for me.

Huh, I never had a microwave growing up. But I use one fairly regularly now for heating up sauces, reheating leftovers, or frozen foods (either home frozen or store bought). I feel like it’s case of the right tool for the right job.

What about reheating or defrosting food in non-plastic containers? That's pretty much the only thing I use a microwave for.

Before we got rid of ours this was the only use we had for it, reheating foods that were refrigerated or frozen in glass or ceramic containers that were microwave safe.

It's not the microwaves, it's the tendency for people to use microwaves to heat food in plastic containers. Which is probably a bad thing to do, if you're concerned about the potential for chemicals leaching out of the plastic, and are going to consume the food you just heated.

Presumably, encourages cooking in plastic containers and use of plastic wrap for leftovers.

best article I've seen was from NYT a few years back... do a startpage.com search for: new york times plastic microwave plastic hormones

my view credits are up so I can't find the exact one, I feel it may be well explained in this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/well/chemicals-food-child...

maybe I can check bookmarks on my other system and be more sure.

And yet, even your tomato sauce in the glass jar went through probably hundreds of yards of plastic tubing that leaches phthalates in the factory. It's essentially impossible to get away from this stuff entirely, although I do think you're doing the right thing to reduce your exposure. They've shown that, for example, if you get an IV, you get a big spike of phthalates in your blood from the medical grade tubing.

Now granted, that tubing is brand new and probably leaches more than what's in the tomato sauce factory, but you also don't get an IV every day.

If you want to reduce your exposure to these things say, 50%, you can achieve that with some changes like you've made that aren't too onerous. Going much beyond that though as an individual is extremely difficult because these chemicals are in absolutely everything.

Yes. This is the approach we settled on. Minimize to the best extent possible and don't waste time worrying about things we can't control. Basically just accept that you can't control everything and won't be able to totally eliminate exposure but make the attempt to minimize it as much as possible.

It's a disturbing question - one that's hardly going to get fair and objective consideration in out society.

Neither the right wing nor the left have the ability to be objective enough to look into this without coming to whatever conclusions they intend to reach.

It's a pity, because the implications are of an extinction level crisis impacting not only humanity, but all high order life on earth.

Very true. After reading that article and doing some initial research on the early internet I found a lot of people were worried that this indicator species(?) was signalling that waterways were in trouble, farm runoff was too heavily polluted by herbicides and nitrates and amphibians were disappearing, not just in the US but globally. It was an interesting article about a serious issue and for a short time it was in the news but then it just went away. Except it didn't.

> the implications are of an extinction level crisis impacting not only humanity, but all high order life on earth.

You're right about the politics, but life is far more resilient than you're giving it credit for.

> You're right about the politics, but life is far more resilient than you're giving it credit for.

Life's a house of cards, and we're kicking the pillars - chemicals that have never before existed are interfering with the fundamental chemistry of life on earth.

I have no doubt that in 100-million years there'll be some form of life descended from what's currently around on earth, and it will be staggeringly robust.

But vertebrates? Mammals? I'm not so sure.

Mass extinction events on earth are rare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

We're in the sixth that we know of; we caused it - and we're not slowing down.

> Life's a house of cards

Life has picked it self back up after every major extinction level event.

But the dinosaurs didn't.

But their descendants. Chickens! So much so, that with our industrial help, there would be a layer of fossilized chicken bones, for our desendents to discover, if we wouldn't use almost everything from them for other (industrial) purposes. Maybe they'd call it the chicktropozene, or something ;-)

Life in some form is, but life as we know it is not so resilient and we can very easily end up with a massively world which isn't so ideal.

The pesticide atrazine? Because it was atrazine that cause the frog deformities, not BPA. I'm not sure why we're talking about atrazine in an article about the different chemical, BPA. Since atrazine was invented in 1958 and gender dysphoria existed before then, I think your hypothesis is incorrect.

Because reality wouldn't be so perverse as to have multiple endocrine disrupters.

Of course there are, but it seems obvious to me that greater LGBTQ+ acceptance recently has led to people being more open with that side of themselves, rather than it being the result of environmental pollution.

Anyway, the alarm is very selective. I don't see people rapidly reducing their animal product consumption because of dioxin, a potent endocrine disruptor that is bioaccumulating. Atrazine is still used in most US corn production, are all the people concerned about plastic avoiding non-organic corn and corn products?

> Of course there are, but it seems obvious to me that greater LGBTQ+ acceptance recently has led to people being more open with that side of themselves, rather than it being the result of environmental pollution.

Why does that seem obvious to you? Additionally, even if it's true, it may not be the only cause in rise of cases of gender dysphoria. Additionally additionally, it's also possible that some change in our environment has affected the prevalence of "LGBTQ+ acceptance" in the first place.

The West's movement away from an Abrahamic worldview has certainly helped with the acceptability.

There's no doubt that there's an aspect of the expectation of acceptance and safety that makes self-identification more viable (certainly more so than the expectation that your family is about to throw a bunch of rocks at you).

However, that does not mean there's been no change in the underlying rates - it just means that the data is noisy.

We've dealt with noisy data before.

I guess a more succinct way to phrase my question-point is: what if as western liberal humans we've always been accepting of anything as it increases in prevalence and something has cased the prevalence of LGBTQ+ to rise to a point where we naturally accept it more? Just a thought experiment I'm definitely not trying to question all the work activists have done. More-so opening the table and asking what if it's an effect and not a cause. I guess covid may be an obvious counter-example but meh.

If there's a shared cause to both it's industrialisation.

It is the reason we're well fed and well educated - here's where I'd look for the cause of acceptance.

It's also the beast we built to burn the world.

It seems that as more people start to absorb the ideology of gender identity that is being pushed upon society, some who wouldn't have otherwise considered it are applying these concepts to themselves.

Hence the trend of people identifying as 'non-binary' in recent years - it's the logical conclusion of believing that 'man' and 'woman' refer to a collection of gendered stereotypes, rather than a description of one's sex.

There's obvious correlation, but causation? And in particular that it would be obvious which way?

I'm sure I'll regret this comment - I really don't have an axe to grind - I just don't find that 'obvious' at all (however real and fine the feeling itself).

> greater LGBTQ+ acceptance recently has led to people being more open with that side of themselves, rather than it being the result of environmental pollution

That's a very weird implication. All human beings are complex products of social, economical, genetic, environmental and historical factors.

External factors do not make a person "less themselves" or "less real".

I think he's overstating the impact, but external factors absolutely impact how people present themselves.

There aren't to many openly gay Saudi Arabians.

Do you think Saudi Arabia is secretly 20% LGBT, like the US gen-z is openly?

That suspiciously high 20% doesn't just include people who are LGB or identify as T. It originates from a poll commissioned by GLAAD, who also included in that category anyone who described themselves as "gender non-conforming". Which could mean anything really: clothing styles, haircuts, hobbies, etc.

But there's been an unnatural rise in instances of alleged gender dysphoria. I have no idea about any of the facts surrounding this issue, just wanted to point out that some X simply existing prior to a point in time when something else Y was introduced to the environment does not mean that Y cannot have any effect on the rate of instance of X.

Edit: I don't mean unnatural in a bad way. I mean it like something has caused the previous rate to change in a noticeable way that warrants studying. s/unnatural/noticeable

That's what I would think, but actually it's just that gay rights have improved, and trans people are just asking to be heard too.

It's a social awakening, it's not linked to chemicals.

How can you know its not both? What we are seeing is some chemicals are clearly disrupting hormones and its something we have tested pretty well in other animals. At the minimum I don't think that we can rule out new chemicals as a part. It also seems likely that gender dysphoria and sexuality are very different things that can't be reasoned about the same way.

Some sexologists do consider this to be related to sexuality. For example, Anne Lawrence, who has considerable expertise with gender dysphoria, has noted that in many cases it appears to be a type of 'erotic target identity inversion', in which the subject of sexual desire is oneself in a different physical form - in this case, the opposite sex.

It can be both (it almost certainly is).

And as for the social awakening, acceptance is one thing (marriage and rights were a long time coming) - denial of reality for the sake of people's feelings is quite another.

100% of all LGBTQ+ people have some form of a fertility disorder.

I'm not saying that to be cruel or unkind - but if the gametes don't meet, there can be no zygote.

At an individual level it does not matter to me in the least - but when it comes to the question of universal fertility it's a different matter.

> 100% of all LGBTQ+ people have some form of a fertility disorder.

> I'm not saying that to be cruel or unkind - but if the gametes don't meet, there can be no zygote.

gametes can easily meet in BTQ+ relationships. L&G, too, especially if there is T involved.

cis-cis L & G relationships aren't the whole of the LGBTQ+ space.

> L&G, too, especially if there is T involved.

If T is involved, e.g. a woman being impregnated by a trans-identifying male, then that would be a heterosexual pairing, not a homosexual one.

Even if we accept that your use of language may in some sense be legitimate, it's not accurate as far as the term LGBTQ+ that you borrowed is defined, so it doesn't matter.

It matters to people who are actually lesbian or gay, as an accurate definition of our sexuality.

I mean, just have a look at this article, it explains exactly what happens when heterosexuals start identifying into homosexuality https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385.

Sure, but depending on the T the delivery/reception mechanism can be somewhat functionally compromised.

I would appreciate some source for this

Why is it an "unnatural" rise? How do we distinguish it from a natural rise?

We can't. That's why its such a difficult thing to study let alone the political issues of such a study. It seems almost obvious that some rise is a rise in reporting but its not possible to rule out other factors either. And these other factors seem pretty likely considering we can observe them in tests on other animals.

Because to the extent that it's induced by chemicals that have never naturally existed, it's unnatural?

There's been a rise in autism during the same period, some people chalk that up to increased diagnosis but pollution is a very reasonable hypothesis as well.

Multiple issues here:

> I'm not sure why we're talking about atrazine in an article about the different chemical, BPA.

It wasn't a top-level comment, further down the comment tree the subject can diverge - I responded to a comment about Alex Jones, not the specific endocrine disrupter in the article.

> ... invented in 1958 and gender dysphoria existed before then, I think your hypothesis is incorrect.

This doesn't logically follow the comment it replied to, the parent comment in no way claimed that endocrine disruption was entirely responsible for sex dysphoria, but wondered whether it was "largely responsible".

Probably true to some extent though from what I have read of his trials and his programs he evidently has no problem just telling a story that is not based on facts at all just to see how much of a rise he can get from his audience. He just apparently used facts in this case.

The more discerning question to ask is:

In that video, Alex Jones was quoting (in his own, 'passionate' way) a study that linked Atrazine (a widely used herbicide) to hormonal disturbances[0]. Mainstream media had access to the same study. Why was he the only one (besides niche, specialized publications) talking about it, or the numerous studies like it, including some in humans? Why were the media, governments, and celebrities, who often promote issues ranging from important to frivolous[1], silent on this? Where were the reproductive rights groups, on this issue that relates directly to people's rights not to have their fertility attacked by Big Agro lobby groups? Why was Alex Jones directly attacked, quite aggressively, and even denounced as "anti-LGBT" [2] for his video? One can argue it's because of his "style", but why did the media universally denounce it as a "dangerous conspiracy theory" instead of simply covering the issue more dispassionately?

Was the US National Academy of Sciences targeted with these same labels when it published[3] the original study? No need to; there was no way a scientific paper itself would go viral. But coverage of it was suppressed. Why?

Cue 2021: "Reproductive Problems in Both Men and Women Are Rising at an Alarming Rate", Scientific American[4]. Oh, really?

Note: do not mistake this commment for a plaudit of Alex Jones. It is a study in narrative control.

[0]: Study: Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/

[1]: just today, the White House released a memorandum highlighting the issue of "women and LGBTQI+ political leaders, public figures, activists, and journalists" who are "survivors" of online harassment https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...

[2]: Find in Page -> "frog" https://www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-releases-background-informa...

[3]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842049/

[4]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reproductive-prob...

But is it permanent? I'm sure some chemicals can undo the fear & anxiety.

As our knowledge increases we invent new ways to decrease the population.

Knowledge is power.

Your [3] reference is not the original study. Some of the original studies were late 80's, early 90's and were discussed in the media even on the nightly news. They were printed in magazines that people at the time subscribed to. The discussion about the issue died down and was later resurrected by those who published that article.

The original time period when this was in the news would be 1995-1998 since I know where I worked at the time.

I don't know why it did not stick in the public's consciousness back in the 90's. I do know that it faded from the news stream over time only to be resurrected years later when the issues that were highlighted had affected a much larger number of people.

> he was treated somewhat unfairly

It could be the toddler-like way he beat his hands on the table shortly after. I get that belief shouldn't entirely be founded on reputation, but here we have a man that tries as hard as possible to be an absolute character. Everything about him screams "satire" on the level that Borat also does.

It's not often that Alex Jones is any where near the right side of things

I apologize in advance, but I laughed hard at that statement. It's not often that Alex Jones is anywhere near the left side of things either ;)

I knew someone would mention this and almost didn't make that post, but it definitely is true that this is not a new area of study. He is basing some of his wild bullshit on reality. I don't listen to him so I don't know how much but when I first heard the gay frogs stuff I just thought that this was a known issue and couldn't figure why anyone would be highlighting it. I guess if your audience is that group of people who have never picked up a magazine or cared about science then it is pretty easy to find things to excite them about.

Sadly his comments didn't help, he's talking about a serious issue with science backed evidence. Comments like his cause the issue to be taken less lightly.

It should be noted that this study is on rats. But I think it's reasonable to use such a model to suspect a similar effect on humans.

I've been following the impact that endocrine disruptors have on humans for a while now, and I'm quite frankly flabbergasted that there is so little research being done on it. It seems issues related to hormonal imbalances among people are an increasing phenomenon, and it appears reasonable to me to suspect that these chemicals may have an impact on humans, especially in the development stage.

Perhaps people are afraid to do such research, as some of the implications could be threatening to their careers, considering the fact that some people seem to make hormonal imbalances part of their identity? I'm honestly a bit hesitant to even post this comment as it may quickly get flagged by people who oppose having an open discussion about these things, but oh well.

I was so with you until the last paragraph. I don't think that's either relevant or constructive. I'd posit that you make your particular hormone balance a part of your identity so I'm confused why you're surprised others do. By all means we should be trying to make sure as many people as possible can live happy lives, but saying something like being gay is a hormone imbalance isn't that. I think there's a way you could phrase your point, if the conclusion ended up being true, but without evidence it comes across as just more of a phobia

I feel pretty out of the loop here; is there a strain of beliefs that sexuality is based on some hormone imbalance?

Think the keyword here is transgender people.

Sorry perhaps I should have been less cagey. They didn't specify but I suspect they meant trans people or maybe asexual people when they say some people make a hormone imbalance part of their identity, but really I think you see this sort of rhetoric about most marginalized identity groups. I've definitely heard the same about gay people in the past. The point is this sort of rhetoric divorced from evidence seems likely to be motivated by bias. Obviously it doesn't have to be, and the goal should always be trying to make sure people live happy lives, but even if this were true, chemicals are turning the people gay, trans, ect, that shouldn't actually invalidate their identities or for that matter mean we shouldn't ban the chemicals.

Side note: the historic record is clear that all these groups have existed before plastics so the most you might imagine is that the odds have gone up

>The point is this sort of rhetoric divorced from evidence seems likely to be motivated by bias

If trans people don't have hormone imbalances, why are they treated with hormone replacement... Obviously they have hormone imbalances the only question is how and why.

I think you might be saying something quite different than I was complaining about. Saying trans people are trans because they had a hormone imbalance (presumably not enough hormones for the sex they were assigned at birth) isn't the same at all as saying trans people are trans because they didn't have enough hormones to develop as is typical for the gender they identify as. I'm not sure that conflating those two and saying both imply a hormone imbalance is useful, but if you want sure. The original comment was pretty clearly implying the former though right? It would be really weird if plastic was causing more xy people to develop with low estrogen levels than would have otherwise

I'm lost too. The original issue you had was with the idea that we can't study (and have a hard time even talking about, honestly) hormone imbalances as a problem when, because the "problem" has been present for long enough, people have normalized the problem and made it part of their identity.

I have no problem coexisting with trans people. I also find it acceptable to study whether hormone imbalances in humans may be caused by unnatural additions to our environment such as is the case with chemicals that disrupt our endocrine systems despite whether they lead to or are even relevant in said human identifying with some other gender or not. Do you share my stance or are you saying that assigning one balance as normal and other "balances" as irregular is harmful because it, in your mind, runs counter to the normalization of trans people in our society (which I might call out assumes that hormone imbalances are in fact responsible generally for cases of transgender individual).

What is confusing? What are you lost about? It sounds like you disagree with me and believe that being trans is likely caused by a hormone imbalance in the the first way I ascribed to the original commenter. That's something you're allowed to do, though there was a reason I tried to focus the conversation on the gay issue. The fact that that situation is more resolved makes the whole thing more obvious, but it doesn't have anything to do with my comment being confusing and I don't care to have the argument you seem to want to have

> It sounds like you disagree with me and believe that being trans is likely caused by a hormone imbalance in the the first way I ascribed to the original commenter.

No I don't agree with that characterization (I think being trans is more complicated than a hormone imbalance for some people and you can be perfectly "normal" balanced and still identify as whatever you want while also it being possible that some people experience gender dysphoria because of a hormone imbalance that can be corrected if desired). That's why I'm confused. I don't understand what stance you're taking. I don't understand why you're bringing gay into the mix. I'm genuinely confused because the way you worded things make in ambiguous whether you were supporting the comment you first responded to but didn't think last bit was the right way to approach the argument, or if you disagreed with the comment you were responding to because of the way the last part was worded. I'm not trying to have any argument just share my context because I'm actually confused.

Fair, sorry for that, feeling a tad defensive. Let me try to be clear, being while acknowledging there are things I have clear opinions on and thing I don't.

I had two big problems with the original comment. First the implication that identities based on hormones are weird in anyway (hormones make a big part of who we are), and the tone in which it was written. I also took some issue with the idea that it's likely the cause of some sort lgbtqness, because yes it's the sort of thing that gets expressed mostly by people who think other groups of people are in essence broken and it's tempting so we have seen it about all sorts of issues including the gay people.

I am not confident on the last note though, I can believe that some environment factor has contributed, but if so being careful about your language, and worried about falling into bias is the proper way to talk about it. Certainly some day we will have the ability to mold things like sexuality to our desire, but we'll still need to decide how we label such things

1. Not everyone agrees that trans people are trans because of hormone imbalances, at least not in the same way 2. Using language of damaged, or brokenness to express the idea of environmental influences where not warranted is wrong especially where it's used to imply that adult trans people are invalid in some way

They... don't? I thought trans people only use HRT if they're going through gender reassignment treatment? Or do they use them all the time?

It's not hormone replacement therapy in the same sense as is used for relief of menopausal symptoms in women or symptoms of testosterone deficiency in men.

They don't have any actual hormone deficiency. Instead, they are using hormones for cosmetic purposes, to give themselves an artificially masculinized or feminized appearance in accordance with how they desire to look.

It's more akin to people with anorexia starving themselves because they hold a belief that they are obese and must be thinner.

> even if this were true, chemicals are turning the people gay, trans, ect, that shouldn't actually invalidate their identities or for that matter mean we shouldn't ban the chemicals

I think given the existence of detransitioners (https://reddit.com/r/detrans), there's a strong case to be made in support of rigorous research studying these links. Regardless of anyone's innate identity (born a X in a X's body), it's very plausible that detransitioners are examples of hormonal effects (TFA is one of many articles that talks of lifelong effects of hormonal imbalances in the womb) that were incorrectly interpreted as an essentialist, innate thing.

Why would it be based on an imbalance? The way we interact with other persons is definitely informed by our hormonal makeup, regardless of whether that makeup is temporary, permanent, balanced, or unbalanced.

Yes, exactly, but imbalance is in the eye of the beholder

>Perhaps people are afraid to do such research, as some of the implications could be threatening to their careers, considering the fact that some people seem to make hormonal imbalances part of their identity? I'm honestly a bit hesitant to even post this comment as it may quickly get flagged by people who oppose having an open discussion about these things, but oh well.

I would like to remind you that 90% of people in real life are not on either extreme of the political spectrum. The news channels get money by dramatizing everything, don't forget their motivation. I am pretty sure if there were interested researchers with enough funding and a chance to have media pick it up it would (likely) be done. My guess is that there is too little research and not enough publicity.

The 90% have less than 90% influence. If you are a researcher, you don't need 51% of people against you to get kicked out. 5% of very vocal opponents and 95% indifferent is all it takes.

Male sperm counts have dropped by half in the last 5 decades. This is an existential level threat more relevant than climate change by a large factor, I don't understand why studying it is on a back burner.

> This is an existential level threat more relevant than climate change by a large factor

I agree, but the wealthy rulers that meet at Davos believe the opposite.

They generally believe this sort of thing is a double win. The population decreases and the population that remains becomes emasculated.

That's why Climate Change is a problem and Endocrine Disruptor proliferation is not. And you can be sure the wealthy like their all natural wool and glass bottles.

Well that doesn't seem very effective, since climate activists are the most anti-oil people you'll ever meet. You can't make endocrine-disrupting plastics without oil.

> They generally believe this sort of thing is a double win. The population decreases and the population that remains becomes emasculated.

The whole model of capitalism is based on more people consuming more stuff, so I don't see the Davos capitalists wanting this.

The Davos people are less capitalists and more socialist monopolists. The leverage government to entrench their own business.

At this point they are uber rich and believe most people are about to be completely replaced by machines. Thus, they want to get rid of the "Useless eaters."

>I'm quite frankly flabbergasted

Prepare to be flabbergasted an order of magnitude more when you find out that vaccine Adjuvants like aluminum, in the form that is being used in vaccines, has never been evaluated for safe use in humans. Yes, the vaccines containing them are studied, but the thing in isolation, no.

People think that society at large values human life and well being. But at some point in your life, you are going to wake up to the realization that its highest priority is economic stability and growth, and individuals life and well being are not even on the map.

>I'm honestly a bit hesitant to even post this comment as it may quickly get flagged by people who oppose having an open discussion about these things, but oh well.

Well, you have company now.

What's also alarming is that a bunch of plastic is now clearly labeled 'BPA Free', and people think "problem solved", while quite a few studies show that these BPA free plastics have other, just as toxic, endocrine disruptors.

Some time ago I got curious about Nalgene's new BPA free plastic called Tritan. Some of the stuff I read wasn't too reassuring: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/tritan-certi...

At this point I’m just doing everything to avoid plastic. Not completely but when i buy clothes they’re usually natural fibers, when i eat and drink it’s usually out of glass, ceramic, or steel.

i remember reading in order to make any plastic soft enough to stretch and mold (otherwise it's too brittle) additives like BPA are required. BPA is just one of many different options. BPA free doesn't mean endocrine disrupting free.

Some of us switched to glass containers. Others switched to other plastics, or to plastics thinking they had switched to metal. Some metal containers are epoxy lined. Kleen Kanteen got into trouble because they were confidently wrong, launching a press release saying they had no BPA in their products, only to have to backpedal a week later.

If memory serves, as part of their mea culpa they let people request replacements for their old products.

I don’t know why people drink from plastic. Just because we know about BPA doesn’t mean there are hundreds of other things in plastic not on our radar. Just use glass, fired clay (with no additives, just wood ash) or metal containers where container strength is required (copper ideally).

Why copper rather than stainless steel (the more common, less costly option)?

Perhaps because copper has antibacterial qualities? I use stainless steel, myself. Never plastic.

Stainless steel is just as good.

It could be that some people are sensitive to nickel (which is the 10 in typical 18/10 stainless steel)

Copper gets into acidic food, and is actually poisonous in large quantities

Copper is actually a reactive metal, will leach into acidic liquids, and is generally not permitted for restaurant use for this reason.

For me personally? My favorite flavor of bottled water costs 3x in glass as it does in plastic.

While traveling, plastic-contained beverages are almost all that is available. 100% of the drinking water on a commercial flight is in plastic. 100% of the drinking water in airport vending machines, etc.

Take your own water with you. Some things are unavoidable (like flights, airports etc.) but this is a harm reduction exercise. It doesn’t have to be perfect. If you take your own water with you, you should be able to cover 90%+ of your consumption.

> Some things are unavoidable (like flights, airports etc.)

You can "take your own water with you" for those, for the amount that it matters to this discussion. It's not going to be literally your own water — generally speaking, TSA will force one to dump "dangerous" water into a giant trash bin in the middle of the checkpoint¹ — but you can normally refill the bottle once inside the secure area from a water fountain. Now … it might be tap, unfiltered, the local jurisdiction might be bad at water, IDK. But it's not quite an entirely lost cause.

Specifically, an empty reusable water bottle can traverse the security checkpoint. (We own some mostly non-plastic ones, too.)

¹comically, we were once forced to discard water that came from within the secured zone at the checkpoint.

Tap water is way worse for me, personally. This is why I drink bottled in the first place.

My point is that drinking out of plastic is basically unavoidable in many circumstances. It isn't a choice we make.

Why is tap water worse? Is your local water contaminated?

Most bottled water is just filtered municipal tap water. And there are fewer regulations over bottled water quality than there are municipal water.

I'm aware; the filtration filters out the thing in tap water to which I am sensitive (chlorine). The regulations don't cover that.

Well all of those cost more than plastic containers and I am unaware at the point of purchase if that’s because externalities aren’t priced in and someone else is paying to give me a deal or if it does take less resources to create and damages the environment less.

I, and I presume most consumers, have a number of values we are always trading off when making purchases, but any single items ranking on those tradeoffs is usually obfuscated other than price.

But they’re completely reusable. You can technically use one for the rest of your life.

They are technically reusable. I don’t doubt most people buying a reusable bottle get at least a few uses out of it.

However, you have to deal with the risk of misplacing it, theft, destruction, moving without taking it, etc. All of these risks make the value of the reusable bottle possibly better but the low cost of the plastic one use bottles are a real benefit that can be immediately realized

I'm in the same boat (preferring stainless steel), but plastic sure is handy. Almost indestructible compared to glass and clay and way lighter and cheaper than metal.

And then there is also "sneaky plastic" in places people may not expect, e.g. in "bamboo" mugs that are mostly resin. So exactly the kind of mug that people may buy to avoid plastic ones... :/

Almost all utility water is delivered in PVC piping. There is not really any avoiding it. So I don't really worry about the Nalgene bottle I use to drink water from.

Yeah but Nalgene started as laboratory kit and I would imagine doesn’t leach nearly as badly as an 0.25¢ soda bottle.

Nalgene was one of the worst offenders in the BPA space.

That’s not true. Most of the utility water pipes are metal, concrete or clay. PVC pipes make up 22% of the US’s total utility water piping.

Many homes in the US have wells so this generally doesn’t apply evenly to everyone.

Finally, it’s an exercise in harm reduction.

The only luxury my family has is buying bottled water from Europe (Aqua Panna, San Benedetto) to avoid routinely ingesting microplastics. We only use natural fiber fabrics at home (cotton and wool) but it has become really hard to buy pure cotton wear nowadays - especially socks! Even brands like Cotton:On now have plenty of plastic wear, so, one needs to be very careful. Unfortunately, due to the supply chain issue, there's almost no more glass-bottled water from Europe anymore and the American one is grossly expensive! Not only glass bottles are hygienic and make water intake dosing easy, they also reduce pollution in nature as people perceive them differently, I believe. Kids love fleece, which is one of the worst airway and lung pollutants wit microplastic fibers, I believe.

Look on Etsy for locally made cottons socks.

Investigate getting a reverse osmosis home water machine installed under your kitchen sink, and ensuring the tubing coming out of it all the way to the faucet is metallic.

> there's almost no more glass-bottled water from Europe anymore and the American one is grossly expensive!

Wait, was european bottled water cheaper than american bottled water in California or am I misunderstanding this? That would be kinda insane, IMO :D

Yes [0] [1] [2], including the subscription services, which offer glass gallon jugs for astronomical prices - that's why I chose individual bottles! Even Voss from Iceland is cheaper on per-case basis!

[0]: Saratoga (https://sswc.com/)

[1]: Mountain Valley Spring (https://www.mountainvalleyspring.com/)

[2]: Starkey (https://starkeywater.com/)

Ouch. Then let's hope the supply of glass-bottled european water returns to normal soon. ^^

(Those gallon jugs look really cool, though, never seen such massive glass bottles. But my god must they be heavy! :D)

They must be heavy as even the plastic ones weigh a ton and even they are not so easy to install. I've been grossed out by busineses who put plastic on those commercial stations without bothering to even wipe them out from the road and storage dirt and the machines used to cool and heat the water from the jugs are full of hard plastic components, heat the water, which is even worse, and are rarely cleaned up - I always carry water with me for that reason as even a plastic bottle is better than drinking water from there!

Cocks?

Fixed. I meant "socks" - not sure how it happened, and, no, it's not a Freudian slip as I don't use that particular word.

One thing that’s always freaked me out (admittedly without any evidence beyond anxiety) are those triangular tea bags made entirely out of plastic. Very thin strands of plastic, heated to around boiling. I can’t imagine that the plastic remains completely inert there, so I’d guess you’re consuming some amount of plastic, and probably more than just drinking cold water out of a bottle.

they're not necessarily plastic (some may be): i used one earlier and it states on the box it's some plant material, so edible truly.

i was reading the box because of exactly what you said above, had thought the same!

"derived from plant material" = bio-plastic.

Most likely PLA. polylactic acid derived from starch.

that's possible : will look when i next have access, now curious too

These are known to leach microplastics:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49845940

I usually rip those open, brew the loose tea in a cup or bowl or whatever, and strain the tea into a mug afterwards.

Huh? Is 'normal' loose tea not avaliable near you?

Ripping the plastic you will end up with small threads or pieces of it in your drink

It is, that's just what I do when for whatever reason only the plastic bags are available. Usually they rip cleanly.

IV drips are made from soft PVC (both IV bag and tube) and I've always wondered how on earth they managed to get that certified for medical use. Interestingly, the tubes used with vacutainers for drawing blood samples are silicone.

I think we need to stop seeing this (and many other things) as a personal choice behaviour. Why is this seen as "leave it to informed choice reflected through the market" and not simply "No, you can't sell that".

Is there any evidence that plastics we use for food containers are harmful? The continued life expectancy of humans seems to show that any harm is very small. This study wasn't feeding them food from a plastic container, it was feeding them two of the isolated chemicals in a solution, so it really doesn't show any harm in itself.

Even drinking water from lead pipes is safe as long as there aren't failures that cause the lead to get carried away by the water. Same with asbestos building materials, etc. Just touching a toxic substance doesn't necessarily poison you.

> The continued life expectancy of humans seems to show that any harm is very small

Life expectancy is a bad measure for two reasons.

1). The major bump in life expectancy of the 20th century is largely due to the number of infants that survive compared to the past.

2). We wouldn't see a decline in life expectancy that's due to exposure in womb until said children were of an age that mattered.

Not to mention pure quality of life issues.

Harm does not necessarily mean only life threatening issues IMO. There have been a bunch of studies recently indicating dropping male fertility with strong links to plastic consumption.

> The continued life expectancy of humans seems to show that any harm is very small.

This is terrible logic. If something causes deafness, blindness, or missing toes it will not affect life expectancy.

Additionally, suppose in same year a drug against cancer i.proves life expectancy by 5 years and plastic pollution causes it to go down by 5 years - so you will never find out.

That's what I mean by very small harm - hard to isolate from other factors, so no really relevant to individuals' lives. Disabilities can obviously be treated the same way - we don't have an epidemic of blindness. Maybe it's coming when all those plastic-bottle-using-mothers'-babies reach 80 years old, but the chance of anything dramatic happening is shrinking as time goes by.

> Is there any evidence that plastics we use for food containers are harmful?

Would you consider underdeveloped male fetuses a harmful consequence?

Because we have some pretty strong evidence that Bisphenols are causing exactly that.

Bisphenols aren't food from plastic containers. I'm sure if you set fire to your water bottle and inhale the fumes, some thing worse could happen than if you just drink the water.

The effects are probably counteracted by increase of charity funded additional health care disabled people get thanks to network effects

Let's get the FDA a bigger lab budget and some sharper teeth -- but at the same time, we should not legislate based on hunches. If we do that, it will quickly devolve into every year we get a new brand of government-mandated Asbestos Free Cereal. No thanks.

I hear ya. But in no time, using any rational analysis, we'd be banning burgers and smartphones. One mans meat, another mans poison etc.

Change has to come first as an informed choice. Once a critical, educated mass rejects a harmful product, a consensus to say "you can't sell that" can be sought.

Problem is, as we've seen with oil, unhealthy foods, and now digital technologies, big, rich and influential companies will throw whatever money it takes to undermine research and messaging to disrupt rational choice from taking place. That's very frustrating.

There are always smart regulations between "banning" and "yeah that kills babies but laissez faire".

I mean the harmful effects of smartphones are what radiation that we can find no effects in rats ? Or is it social media ? I am more dubious as to that being social media fault (as opposed to "hey we have taken every pub conversation on the planet and made it available to anyone on the planet. Imagine listening to Einstein and Dirac as they walk home from Princeton each day. Oh wait there are a lot more drunk aholes screaming about immigration than Einsteins in the world - who knew"

Smart regulation there simply says "you are not a common carrier, but if you make a choice to show one post to a user and not show another post then ... that makes you a publisher"

Will it destroy business models - yes. But that's not the same as destroying the social value of recording every human to every human

Because there isn’t really a good way to package liquids besides plastic. Glass would work but it’s bulky and brittle. Paper and aluminum work but they cost the inside with plastic anyways. This might be the extremely rare thing where it makes sense for consumers to do at our level.

Going with this line of thought, who should eat plastic anyway? Nobody. So how does it make any sense to ever use plastic? I don't understand.

Glass is completely fine for liquids. It's only relatively recently that plastic became ubiquitous. In my UK childhood (70s/80s) most drinks, milk etc were in glass bottles that were re-used and/or recycled.

It's mostly the desire to save a few pennies per product that drove plastic.

There are several brands in Europe now that sell water in aluminum cans rather than plastic bottles.

If you ever buy takeaway coffee, you can't avoid it. All milk in UK is in plastic containers. In fact i struggle to find sny food that isn't

> copper ideally

Copper is toxic though. Especially bad with acidic drinks which a lot are.

Unless laws come into place, and unless it's strongly proven on humans with extensive research, BPA will just be treated as a conspiracy theory.

To be completely honest, reducing plastic packaging seems impossible to do right now, the economic impact would be so huge.

You realize how ubiquitous plastics are in healthcare? I mean we even implant plastics into the human body.

But regardless, IV solutions are manufactured and stored for months in plastic bags.

I think you’re understating what we know about safety.

You drink close to a gallon of water a day. How often do you have to get IVs.

When you've got a central line implanted, like people undergoing dialysis, then you're exposed for the rest of your life.

That’s a tiny fraction of people and at that point they have bigger problems than estrogen mimics being released into their bodies.

My point is that the FDA has evaluated the use of plastics in healthcare and it’s used everywhere.

What does that tell you about risks?

Composite dental fillings and sealants are literally made out of BPA in many cases.

Punchline:

"Female [rat] offspring administered BPA and a combination of BPA and low-dose DEHP displayed less anxiety in the Open Field Test, which measures activity and exploratory behavior. However, male offspring administered high-dose DEHP showed feminized anxiety-like behavior in a maze."

I wouldn't call that a punchline, that's just one of the stated observations. This would be closer to the punchline:

“Our study confirms sex-specific behavioral changes in offspring as a result of these exposures, highlighting the fact that exposure to these chemicals should be avoided during pregnancy”

But the article is short enough to read in its entirety. I find all the observations alarming, not just that one, given how prevalent BPA use has been in the past decades.

I'd add your alternative punchline, but between the two of us, we'd have reproduced the "article"

I wonder if many of the gender dysphoria issues and related politics we're seeing now have an underlying factor of hormone disruption due to widespread pollution.

We should be pursuing the banning of bisphenols, phthalates, and PFAS for any products that touch food or water (or eventually leach into groundwater) as a strategic priority.

If you're making the connection that gender dysphoria could be "prevented" through environmental and FDA protections maybe you should be working in politics.

It is hard to know for sure if it isn't studied. Environmental pollution can disrupt sexual development in animals. There are a number of chemicals that frogs are sensitive too that mess with their sexual development. Here is the first google hit I can find: https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/04/15_frog...

> I wonder if many of the gender dysphoria issues and related politics we're seeing now have an underlying factor of hormone disruption due to widespread pollution.

It is worth more research into this. Hard to make predictions but having environmental causes underlying some of these trends, at least to a degree, is possible. I think the lower fertility rate among first world nations is also partially tied into endocrine disruptors as well.

I expect that in 100 years, they are going to look back on this period of widespread endocrine disruptor exposure from plastics, hormonal birth control, etc. with the same or greater horror and incredulity than we look back on the Romans poisoning themselves with lead. At least the Romans had the credible excuse of ignorance.

I think I saw this on here recently but not findingly the link right now... it was an article arguing pretty convincingly that the Romans did know about lead poisoning, and it was most likely very rare rather than widespread.

100%

People always choose the popular outrage topics as what they expect future generations will agree with them on. But wouldn't it more likely be something we're completely blindsided by? Perhaps something even opposite to our cultural values?

there's enough science denialism in the social sciences we're spoiled for choices, enough uncomfortable truths they'd fill many books

It's possible we may look back with some regrets, but I seriously doubt that plastics will be thought to cause anything close to the same or greater harm caused by lead. We'd know it by now if that were true.

> We'd know it by now if that were true.

My brother, we have a tanking fertility rate, rapidly declining testosterone levels and sperm counts, and widespread sexual development issues causing intense social conflict. It is already much worse than lead.

Why go to the Romans and not to whole putting lead in gasoline a hundred years ago just because it was a little bit cheaper? Heck, some planes still do

Most small planes still use 100LL. The local airport I fly cessnas out of only has leaded gas.

Interesting. By just reading the headline I was expecting increases in anxiety in general. With these chemicals being so pervasive today as well as the increasing commoness of anxiety issues today, I now wonder if the anxiety issues could be even worse without them.

I’m tired of studies on rats immediately being linked with human health. BPA may be harmful but until we get human studies I think these animal studies cause more confusion than answers. *nervously sips disposable water bottle*

Personal opinion:

Plastics are a genuine health hazard for humans, but not all plastics are created equal. If you are concerned, try to avoid soft plastics that readily off gas as a means to mitigate the issue.

The earth's soil, oceans are living things - anything we can do to avoid dumping plastic ( a non-living thing) with benefit us... to put it mildly.

It hurts to think how bad plastic is, harmful on so many levels.

Yes it’s convenient but it seems pretty darn harmful in so so many ways.

Please tell me more about this "feminized anxiety-like behavior".

Obesity is reducing sperm counts, which is still well in the normal range. Look up adipose cells and estrogen production.

Anxiety and fear are more related to internet usage, which is created intentionally to get engagement numbers. Look up the relationship between cortisol and hormones/sperm counts.

People are fat, sedentary, and driven to the point of neuroticism by stories like this.

The fertility rate reduction is a global phenomenon and is occurring cross-species.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com