EPA cancels pesticide shown to be harmful to unborn babies
thenewlede.org
thenewlede.org
Is this the same list as the IARC group 2A list, which contains stuff like red meat, hot beverages, and french fries[1]?
Edit: Prior to it being edited, the comment I responded to here posed the question to the original IARC comment of whether the EPA could ban red meat due to it classified as a carcinogen by IARC.
The two categories are very similar, they are sort of aimed at the same result but have slightly different criteria. e.g. the EPA considers exposure levels, IARC requires at least some human evidence. So you wouldn't say one is stricter than the other, just different ways of skinning a cat.
> DCPA exposure in pregnant women can cause thyroid level changes in their unborn babies. These changes are linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.
The US may have more innovation and a more powerful economy as a result, but at least we don't have drinking water taps that can be set ablaze because the drinking water is oversaturated with fracking gas.
It is as if people live in a lie, they do not understand what has taken place in the past 200 years, the devastating destruction of the environment with pollution worldwide. As for protecting its citizens, what can really be said about this other than: ignorance is bliss.
You really really need to cite some sources for this
<https://www.britannica.com/topic/agriculture/Economics-polit...>:
>Agriculture has always been influenced by the actions of governments around the world. Never has this been more evident than during the first half of the 20th century, when two major wars profoundly disrupted food production. In response to the tumultuous economic climate, European countries implemented tariffs and other measures to protect local agriculture. ---Rasmussen, Wayne D. , Mellanby, Kenneth , Nair, Kusum , Gray, Alic William , Ordish, George , Crawford, Gary W. and Fussell, George Edwin. "origins of agriculture". Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Oct. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/agriculture. Accessed 30 October 2024.
This puts it in the context of WW2.
Here's one example where you find the opposite of "protections" at play: in the US you need prescriptions for antibiotics, in EU 7% is without. <https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/sante/newsletter-archives/4487> (their PDF link is broken; one that works is <https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-06/amr_arna_re...> "Antimicrobial resistance and causes of non-prudent use of antibiotics in human medicine in the EU" (2017)) Here's their Figure 2.6 e.g. <https://imgur.com/a/wLfoV7h>.
I, for one, enjoy having strict safety requirements for consumer products. I'm also glad to share this endeavour with many similar countries, since it would be wasteful and unfeasible for small nations otherwise.
Companies can, and do, develop various new compounds and then immediately start using them. There're only stringent regulations for food and medicine, but the stuff around it isn't protected. In addition, many of these chemicals make it into local water. We've had to set up countless superfund sites to clean it up later.
Our approach of reactionary vs proactive just doesn't work. Typically, these companies don't do safety tests. Sometimes, companies don't even know what exactly goes into their products.
[0] https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/rere...
> Effective Aug. 7, DCPA may not be sold, distributed or used in any manner. Consumers with current stocks of the product cannot use it.
We need to start retesting pesticide safety more often and be more strict. Currently pesticides are only rechecked every 15 years
What's the point of looking at the same data every 15 years?
being more strict would show results, but like above, showing results isn’t a popular idea with some people, they need inefficiencies to point towards.
• There is evidence of carcinogenicity in animals. (Multiple, consistent studies)
• The substance is shown to directly or indirectly cause chromosomal damage or mutations in a way that is relevant to humans.
• There are no or limited human studies, they are inconclusive, or otherwise inadequate. ((Note: This is sort of a "Why isn't this classified higher?" factor.)). ((If a substance isn't in widespread use, it is kind of hard to design an ethical human study. I mean, you aren't going to have some of your test subjects drink a bunch of likely carcinogen each morning.))
So this is a a classification for "Let's maybe not go nuts with this stuff, and someone really ought to check this out. And if you plan to ship tons of this stuff you might want to talk to your lawyers and lawsuit judgement mitigation team."
I didn't manage to find an exhaustive list of things the EPA has listed with this, but I found one that included higher risks as well, and in my little warehouse/workshop I identified 8 things at a casual glance that I have in inventory or generate. Proper use of these have minimal exposure to my squishy bits for most of them, and the others a well informed user should know to take adequate precautions. (e.g. "wood dust": wear a respirator)
The US does not currently fund the EPA to commission studies to further investigate likely carcinogens, so they stay on the list for ages.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-issues-emergency-order-...
This probably means we got a huge increase in DCPA usage. In the 1970s when they found out Di-bromochloropropane made most workers infertile and caused extremely high rates of birth defects for those that were still fertile, it was banned immediately in the US. Companies that had large stockpiles of the chemical simply sold them to banana republics. This caused an epidemic of infertility and birth defects in many countries in South America and it still an ongoing concern:
"My study shows Foobar to cause Baz." "No, your study is wrong, my study shows it doesn't."
All the easily agreed upon stuff is already done - what's left is the stuff people argue about.
I'll give you a tiny example:
> Gasoline is taxed enough to remove its carbon afterwards?
Gasoline is the entire reason we have an economy, do anything to make it more expensive and you'll unleash an earthquake of inflation and lower productivity. That's like the last thing you want to tax!
Note: it's irrelevant if you agree with the argument, (or even if I agree with it) - the issue is that the argument exists.
But we can’t tax them because then… people would use them less. Yes, that is the point.
The topic at hand is not the existence of global warming, the topic at hand is what to do about it.
> Yes, that is the point.
Try this exercise: Write an argument against taxing it. A good argument. If you can't do it, then you are unable to understand the topic and I don't know how to reply to you.
If we look at all the externalities, should we be subsidizing it or taxing it? This is the challenge with adjusting for externalities.
When goods & people are shipped with gasoline, it is producing that external value. When I drive to the super market to buy groceries, the grocery store receives 2nd order value (aka externality).
The fact that alternative modes of transportation exist does not negate the fact that the positive externality exists. Externalities are not defined using comparative analysis.
Lets say you move to EVs or whatever, those too will have externalities. The composition of those externalities may be different than gasoline, as factors are internalized and excluded to the costs paid.
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/proven-child-of-florist...
Consider that artificial pricing always creates the Cobra Effect: unintended consequences abound that eventually more than undermine the original intent. This is how George Soros legendarily broke the Bank of England - by taking advantage of artificial pricing (in particular, exchange rates).
Furthermore, healthy societies enforce moral lines through criminal and civil law, not merely through fines and price manipulation.
First off, when a birth defect does happen how can you even be sure Substance X caused it? Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not.
Secondly, how do you go about tracking that? Certainly we don't have a big database for the genome of every baby born.
Third, what about substances that don't do acute harm, like lead? Lead poisoning is slow and deteriorates your mind. We know about it now, but for hypothetical new substance X how do we measure who got the poisoning and how much they have (do we take measurements every few years and plot a graph, adjusting the cost over time?)
Fourth, how do we measure esoteric costs? For example this substance causes loss of intelligence. That could translate into lower paying jobs over a lifetime - could. Do we compare average intelligence income to the income of these individuals and then the difference is the cost? What if some of the individuals could have been geniuses, how do we tell? In general, how do we measure against things that have not happened in our reality?
Oh and “unborn” babies is a weird term for fetus that is a politically loaded term… and is as much logical sense as calling the living “undead” or “unburied”
Anti-abortion advocacy is rather new, and old-timey at the same time. The arguments more or less haven't changed since the 50s. For the majority of the time since Roe nobody really cared - the American right shifted to other divisive politics. In the past 10 years they shifted back. Not sure why, maybe they felt as a party it was a strategic entry point into the topic of 14th amendment privacy as a whole. Certainly, that seems plausible when individuals such as Justice Thomas have alluded to taking aim at other protections of that nature such as Loving and Obergefell.
And a lot of cultures celebrate like the 100th day of life with some ceremony because so many babies died before that in antiquity. Humanizing babies, and I mean actual babies, is also modern. Heck, until recently people could be treated as property so even humanizing humans was a recent turn of events.
Shall we judge things by antiquity standards, is that really smart?
Using the divisive terminology is what’s divisive, not the comment complaining about the divisive language
But, since we're here, I think it's loaded because it implies the fetus will be born. It kind of gives the impressions that a fetus is equivalent to a baby given enough time, hence they are unborn babies. I think that language is inherently anti-choice. It seems nitpicky but these subtle collective consciousness changes result in culture shifts over time.
Great, now do Glyphosate.
Not nearly enough testing is ever done on these things. Everyone is in such a rush to get these things into our environment and our bodies, no regard for higher order effects, which is why this pattern keeps repeating.
It was discovered more than 50 years ago and the evidence for its harm is still "inconclusive". How much more evidence do you need? When does "precautionary principle" become crankiness (eg. vaccine skepticism or cellphones cause cancer)?
> [1] in 1972, to a ban on DDT's agricultural use in the United States
Although some use Ethylene glycol, don't drink that.
The LD50 is somewhere in the 5000 mg/kg range; that's around 250 grams for a 50kg person. For concentrated glyphosate, you're in that ballpark with around a liter of concentrate, depending on the exact dilution.
So you have to distinguish which thing is being studied if you want to research this product.