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Comment by lame-robot-hoax | Hacker News Reader

Is there any evidence these things are actually making people sick?

Just saying “it’s banned in these countries” isn’t evidence.

About potassium bromate, IARC based its evaluation on studies of rats, mice and hamsters. https://www.inchem.org/documents/iarc/vol73/73-17.html

Would you want to ban something producing renal tubular tumours and thyroid follicular tumours in rodents, for use in human food? I guess this is the crux of the article.

I know, right. It’s like how can we know things like that the cancer clusters that will show up in that population inside the government created toxic mushroom cloud fallout region around East Palestine, OH has anything to do with setting thousands of barrels of toxic chemicals on fire and letting them seep into the waterways that supply 20 million people.

Let’s discuss it over cocktails at the K Street Lobby Bar.

So, no proof? Your argument could be used for every single chemical.

You'd not say that if you knew EU require far more rigorous tests/documentation than the US for things that are ingested.

This is obviously false, but in any case that would still mean we would have actual proof. Where is it?

Even if it's not do you really need it ? Looks like it's mostly used to make shit products (bread) slightly less shitty

The only winner is the food industry that can sell you subpar products that look better

It doesn't even look like it's a game changer: https://ifst.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/b57beb64-e8a9...

look up "potassium bromate carcinogen" in your favorite search engine.

In practice, it would be very difficult to prove. It's IARC group 2B; possibly carcinogenic in humans, but insufficient evidence to say definitely. And it would be very difficult, probably impossible, to do an ethical trial. You can't say to people "Take this stuff; it's vaguely useful to bakers. Let us know if it gives you cancer; it did in lab animals!"

Also, no-one much except possibly the FDA has much incentive to spend money on research here. The EU regulator is presumably happy to leave it banned, the companies who use it in the US probably don't want to open Pandora's box, and it's not like they're unable to bake bread in the EU due to the lack of it.

This isn't an unreasonable question to ask.

There is some evidence that (at least some of) the chemicals in the banned additives can cause health problems at some dosage. There is an expert who is almost certain that those chemicals in food has caused health problems. Neither of those equates to evidence that their use in food does cause health problems. And the opposing experts (the FDA) has said that food additives require evidence of their safety before approval for use in foods.

If you found an expert willing to claim it and ran a fearmongering story "Covid vaccines 'almost certainly' making people sick" despite safety requirements from the FDA, I think it would get a very different response here. At the very least calls for actual evidence of the claims would not be down voted.

I would be interested in the evidence too. For example presumably there would be a signal in cancer detection rates when potassium bromate was banned in Europe in 1990 if the ban had a significant reduction in its use and if its use caused cancer.

>> If you found an expert willing to claim it and ran a fearmongering story "Covid vaccines 'almost certainly' making people sick" despite safety requirements from the FDA, I think it would get a very different response here. At the very least calls for actual evidence of claims would not be down voted.

If his opinion on said vaccine was also accompanied by trade ban in Europe, India and China, he would also see a different response than if it was his claim alone. It's not juste an expert, it's multiple foreign agencies.

Not if the evidence used for the bans was admittedly not based on actual evidence of harm in humans in its use as a food additive but in acute toxicity tests in animals. How do vaccines perform in accute overdose safety in mice, I wonder?

In any case OP's question about evidence for the claims in the article is still reasonable IMO.

COVID vaccines have a specific use that nothing else provides. When there was the slightest bit of concern about the J&J vaccines (which turned out to be unfounded), the FDA did ban its usage.

The food additives in questions are not saving anyone’s lives even in the best case scenario. They’re only making bread last longer by a day or so.

There is non-zero risk for any and all the vaccines and they don't ban them. It's a measured and scientific approach that is taken. And cost and availability of food is absolutely of critical importance for peoples' lives.

> "Titanium dioxide (also known as E171);"

https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.2903/j.efsa...

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=E171

If it has been banned, there are enough evidences. Then anyone is free to re-evaluate, but hey, you already have a big red flag.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/

"adverse effects are not evident in animals fed bread-based diets made from flour treated with KBrO3"

The question isn't whether the chemical can cause cancer at any dose, it is whether there is evidence that its use in food in the US causes health problems in humans, i.e., the primary claim in the article linked to.

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