Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

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1. An example result is "https://laboratory.love/product/117", which is a list of chemicals and measurements. Is there a visualization of how these levels relate to regulations and expert recommendations? What about a visualization of how different products in the same category compare, so that consumers know which brand is supposedly "best"? Maybe a summary rating, as stars or color-coded threat level?

2. If you find regulation-violating (or otherwise serious) levels of undesirable chemicals, do you... (a) report it to FDA; (b) initiate a class-action lawsuit; (c) short the brand's stock and then news blitz; or (d) make a Web page with the test results for people to do with it what they will?

3. Is 3 tests enough? On the several product test results I clicked, there's often wide variation among the 3 samples. Or would the visualization/rating tell me that all 3 numbers are unacceptably bad, whether it's 635.8 or 6728.6?

4. If I know that plastic contamination is a widespread problem, can I secretly fund testing of my competitors' products, to generate bad press for them?

5. Could this project be shut down by a lawsuit? Could the labs be?

Thank you for your questions!

1. I'm still working to make results more digestible and actionable. This will include the %TDI toggle (total daily intake, for child vs adult and USA vs EU) as seen on PlasticList, but I'm also tinkering with an even more consumer-friendly 'chemical report card'. The final results page would have both the card and the detailed table of results.

2. I have not found any regulation-violating levels yet, so in some sense, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Part of the issue here is that many believe the FDA levels are far too relaxed which is part of why demand for a service like laboratory.love exists.

3. This is part of the challenge that PlasticList faced, and additionally a lot of my thinking around the chemical report card are related to this. Some folks think a single test would be sufficient to catch major red flags. I think triplicate testing is a reasonable balance of statistically robust while not being completely cost-prohibitive.

4. Yes, I suppose one could do that, as long as the funded products can be acquired by laboratory.love anonymously through their normal consumer supply chains. Laboratory.love merely acquires three separate batches of a given product from different sources, tests them at an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited lab, and publishes the data.

5. I suppose any project can be shut down by a lawsuit, but laboratory.love is not currently breaking any laws as far as I'm aware.

The UK levels are more strict and generally more up to date, which I personally follow rather than FDA. Could be nice to show those violations as a comparison to FDA.

Great site!

thank you!

What a wonderful idea! I sincerely hopes this moves the market. And I backed a study.

you rock!

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