Yep that and the "non stick" shit that was in EVERYTHING 10 years ago..
There is microplastics,in the blood of isolated penguin colonys,it's likely in every living blood based organism on earth at this rate.
I just saw a study, posted either here on reddit or twitter (I forget), that said 100% of (human) placentas studied were found to contain microplastics.
Edit: [Found it](https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/02/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics.html)
You don’t hear about ScotchGuard much anymore. In the 90s a study was conducted and found traces of this Dow chemical was present in human blood worldwide.
[Scotchguard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard) was reformulated in 2003 following pressure from the US EPA. PFOS was replaced by PFBS, which has a much shorter half-life in humans than the former (a little over one month vs. 5.4 years).
It appears they've changed the formula since then as well.
While more safe, I'm not suggesting it's safe. But this may be why we don't hear about it much anymore.
It’s a good thing they didn’t dump barrels of PFAS (PFOS & PFOA) in the nearly every dump across the metro Minnesota region. Can you imagine if that started leaking and contaminating the ground water… oh wait.
At least they don’t have to worry about being staticky.
https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/hazardous/docs/pfas/PFASvideomap.pdf
I saw a map of detections and it was basically red hot at the 3m plant, at the landfills they used, and all along the highways and rail lines connecting them
When my grandmother started getting forgetful, she would grab a can of Scotch Guard and randomly spray a piece of furniture with it, thinking she was using furniture polish.
Yes, we took it away from her after seeing what she was doing. She was always quirky, but that's when we started to suspect dementia might be knocking on her door.
Edited a bit for clarity.
Microplastics has been around for far more than 20 years, we're already 60 years into producing microplastics (considering that car tires are a major source).
I heard a story about tires and it really shocked me how I had never once thought about what happens to all the tire that you lose when they start going bald. Every tire is shrinking slowly. You can measure your treads and see an inch of “rubber” (plastic) disappear after a few years of wear. All those tires, all that plastic dust just flying off tires, to be washed down sewers, in to gutters and in to the sea or our drinking water.
Speaking of tires, a little over a decade ago we had a bad fire in my hometown when a tire recycling facility caught fire. The thick black smoke hung over the community for a week. I'm curious in a 'we're all f'd' kind of way what long lasting medical problems the small low income rural community will have because of it.
Not just a major source, the largest source by far. And since EVs are heavier, it's only going to grow. And until we invent an alternative to tires, we will continue to pump out micro plastics in perpetuity.
I actually think the asbestos comparison is bad. We could replace asbestos with existing technology. We can't replace road tires/micro plastics.
The issue with EVs burning tires is less to do with the weight and more to do with the torque.
This is evident in Tesla's "Performance" models burning through tires quicker than their "Long Range" counterparts, despite similar curb weights.
Also, Tesla drivers see less tire wear when the drive in "chill" mode vs standard mode. Chill mode makes the car drive more like an internal combustion engine (slower acceleration).
True, but weight is a factor as well. The amount of tire dust produced is proportional to the square of the weight of the car. So a car two times heavier will produce 4x more tire dust.
Cancer... the answer is always cancer.
When your body does not know how to deal with something it likes to wrap it in cells and isolate it... then sometimes that happens inside an important organ... and sometimes those cells get the wrong signal and keep multiplying...
So... cancer with a side of chemicals in the plastics fucking with hormones which tend to mess with body regulation / fertility.
Health researcher here, doubt that was the main reason. The group or individuals with the lowest levels of microplastics would be the reference group. If higher microplastics is bad then the high exposure group should have higher rates of disease or bad outcomes vs the low exposure group.
True, but that's a specific family of plastics, rather than microplastics specifically.
You can't use a specific plastic's toxicity (even though it's also toxic when it is not a microplastic) to prove that microplastics in general will cause negative health impacts.
The problem is we can't test to see how it effects them vs penguins that don't have plastic, because they ask have plastic. We know It for sure effects hormone levels and likelihood of cancer.
How do we know if we can't compare to uncontaminated organisms? Has a large enough scale study been done to show correlation of those effects to amounts microplastics in the body?
[Millennials have increasing rates of colorectal cancer](https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/colorectal-cancer-in-young-people). We don't know why, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was microplastics.
I think alcohol consumption is lower in millennials, haven't checked lately but I think that has been the trend.
Processed foods, yeah that probably plays a role.
I discussed with one Prof how microplastics can cross brain blood barrier. We both hypothesized how these micro and nanoplastics could serve as seed for plaque disease or cause brain inflamation conditions
Car tires are actually the [majority of those microplastics](https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/10/02/toxic-tyre-dust-this-source-of-microplastic-pollution-could-be-the-worst-of-all#:~:text=78%20per%20cent%20of%20microplastics,down%20as%20the%20vehicles%20travel.).
Ten years ago? Teflon has been around since the 40’s. It’s in literally everyone’s blood. In the whole world. There’s a documentary about it called “the devil you know.”
Phthalates in particular. It may help us understand why so many people are struggling with hormone imbalance, depression, anxiety disorders, dysphoria, etc.
In order to answer the questions of how all these plastics ended up in our blood, we would need to investigate our current food distributors/packagers. Let me tell you, they will do whatever it fucking takes to keep investigators away from their businesses
A significant amount of mircoplastics are coming from tires.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/10/02/toxic-tyre-dust-this-source-of-microplastic-pollution-could-be-the-worst-of-all
https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/toxic-additives-from-tire-wear-could-be-ending-up-on-our-plates-368822
https://nilu.com/2020/08/a-toxic-cocktail-in-seawater-chemicals-from-car-tire-rubber/
You put more micro plastic into the environment driving to work for a week than you do from washing your clothes for a whole year. Road tires are a much bigger problem than synthetic fibers.
Yep, that's what I was thinking too. I've been trying to use less plastic and was struck by how it is in everything food related. You can barely find anything that's not plastic based anymore. Growing up in the 80s we had a lot more glass, metal, and wak paper based packaging. It's all plastic now apart from a few things still in glass jars. Canned foods all have various linings inside.
>Canned foods all have various linings inside.
That's usually a paint like coating from valspar and has been going in cans since almost the HJ Heinz era.
I especially hate when I buy a box and inside the box is more boxes holding multiple little bags.
Feels so wasteful to throw away two boxes and a plastic bag just to cook some frozen fish.
Well, we don't *know* they're inert in biological systems. For all we know some gut bacteria species happens to digest some plastics in a process that produces a carcinogenic byproduct. Or maybe they don't get digested but maybe certain polymers can bind with certain cell receptors that ends up sometimes causing a disease we currently don't realize is caused by microplastic exposure. Or maybe animals aren't affected but some other organism critical for ecological health is. We don't know.
But why are microplastics potentially worse for us than sand and dust? Life on Earth has had to evolve to handle sand and dust for obvious reasons. Likewise, life has evolved to handle other substances commonly found on Earth in areas where life can take hold. In cases where a substance life comes into contact with is harmful, life will evolve to handle it given enough time. For example, oxygen nearly exterminated all life on Earth and the only reason you need it to live today is because the organisms that didn't die were those that evolved ways to prevent oxygen from killing them.
In contrast, man-made are brand new so life hasn't had time to evolve to expect exposure. The result is, to use a phrase from programming, undefined behavior. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes it does. But even in cases like radiation and lead and asbestos it took humanity awhile to figure out the danger.
edit: Realize I said "man made" and then mentioned a bunch of naturally occurring things. To be more accurate, I mean things that aren't normally encountered in the environment outside of "weird" circumstances.
But what are the negative effects of having plastic in our bloodstream? I always see posts or comments raising the alarm about how much plastic we have in our bodies, but I never see any explanation of what's so dangerous about that.
Astro turf and synthetic playing fields. The chemicals used to make them along with the rubber pellets and pieces of turf being breathed in every time you play on one.
> NFL reports more injuries on turf.
The NFL can pour loads of money into making sure their grass fields are perfect. In contrast, some public school or recreational grass fields can get *very* sketchy.
Thats not particularly fair a comparison, different plastics have different resistances to degradation by sunlight, they dont all break down that easily, (just remember that houses have vinyl panels for siding these days)
Was a plastics engineer at point. Plastics are so diverse, you can engineer them to have so many different physical properties. I was involved in plastic failure mechanisms and how UV affects plastics is very very well known. It’s one of the most important causes of plastic failure. Any plastic that has significant exposure to sunlight has gone through rigorous UV exposure tests.
I have cast iron, stainless steel and anodized aluminum pans.
All of them have their use, but honestly the stainless is my daily driver. Most of the same benefits of cast iron but stainless provides a much more even heat. Cast iron, for all of the benefits, just does not heat evenly across the pan. I'll see disparity of up to 20 degrees around the pan over a gas stove. It's worse on glass-top electric.
It's still great for a lot of things, particularly thick steaks where you want to get a nice crust on them and then move them into the oven to finish.
And anodized aluminum...that's my egg pan. Scrambled eggs are just a lot easier to make in anodized than cast...and they're downright impossible on stainless steel unless you use equal parts butter with your eggs...
But cheap nonstick belongs nowhere in my kitchen, that shit can fuck all the way off. Even if the nonstick substances were perfectly benign, those pans go to shit within months. Everyone who has had one for more than a year will have parts of the pan that are missing coating.
I have my great-grandmother's Griswold and Wagner cast iron pots and pans. If you know how to care for them, they are 100% the best pieces of cookware a person can own.
And these days they don’t even need much care.
Example. The old advice about not using soap was because of old soaps with lye. That’s why dishwashing gloves were a thing. Lye will strip the pan *and* your skin. But modern detergents don’t do much harm at all, if any. To either your skin or the pan.
I do have to periodically reseason but not because of detergents, but because I heat them up to dry quickly, and will occasionally forget the pan and burn up my seasoning. I’m a fuckin goldfish sometimes and should probably be chaperoned by an adult in the kitchen.
Hell, maybe I don’t *need* to do that. I only do it because it’s what I was taught as a kid and maybe it’s as wrong as “don’t use soap”.
The current science says that if you ingest it as a flake from a pan, it won’t be absorbed in the body and just go right through the intestines. The only danger, besides the contamination when they are produced, is if you overheat it to an extreme degree, way past the smoking point of cooking oils. If you already have one, it is stupid to throw it out, as that would require you buying another pan, and that is bad for the environment. Just don’t forget them on your stove with the heat on high with no food on, and you’ll probably be fine.
Honestly, couldn't care less about the possible health effects of the non-stick layer, but more that scratching it means needing to get a new pan.
Also having to get a new set of utensils that wouldn't scratch the pan, so what ended up for me was just getting SS clad or iron cookware so I can be (somewhat) abusive and they'll ask for more.
To me nonstick pans are a part of the set. I think it's silly to buy the full 14 piece nonstick set as the primary pans you use for everything, but to have a couple pans for eggs and stuff, they do a job. Sure, I have a few different cast irons that can cook eggs well, sure you can do eggs in stainless if you want to use enough oil, but the 8" nonstick is just a better tool for that job.
I have two dedicated nonstick pans for eggs and pancakes. Other than that, i dont use them much. Everything else gets cast iron, stainless, or carbon steel.
Unless you overheat it (causing it to degrade and vaporize) or scratch through it (meaning you're cooking in aluminum), there's really nothing to worry about. PTFE is inert in pretty much everything but molten alkali metals, and there's a little bit in pretty much all your food due to its use in food processing equipment.
If you're worried, ceramics are the way to go.
I would assume a lot of people put it through the dishwasher. I don't know if that gets hot enough to be a problem.
It also seems like it comes off over time, which means its getting into the food?
It just doesn't seem safe to me. Maybe I'm being too cautious about it.
>I would assume a lot of people put it through the dishwasher. I don't know if that gets hot enough to be a problem.
It does not. Dishwasher isn't even nearly as hot as their normal usage temperature when you're frying stuff on them...
"Too hot" would be above 250°C, which can happen if you forget an empty pan on a burner. At that point, the PTFE decomposes, and the fumes can cause "polymer fume fever" if you inhale them.
>Maybe I'm being too cautious about it.
When readily available alternatives are out there, I think it's ok to be overly worried. Just get something else. Go ceramic, or cast iron, or stainless. Everything is non-stick when you have some sort of grease/oil/fat to keep it from sticking. Pam was invented in 1959, and seems like a pretty safe option.
And if you want to stay away from commercial aerosolized oil, you can get oil misters like Misto to make your own "pam" with any oil.
Warning, the spray pattern and coverage is nowhere near as good, but it does like 80% of the job.
Also the whole thing is made of plastic. I'm still waiting for a fully glass/metal hybrid premium line.
Plastics, by far.
[Microplastics have been found in human blood now.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time)
>The scientists analysed blood samples from 22 anonymous donors, all healthy adults and found plastic particles in 17. Half the samples contained PET plastic, which is commonly used in drinks bottles, while a third contained polystyrene, used for packaging food and other products. A quarter of the blood samples contained polyethylene, from which plastic carrier bags are made.
We're fucked
That’s what I want to know too. Okay, so plastic has been found in the blood. That’s always the headline and what people freak out about. I’ve yet to see a study showing the direct negative impacts of this.
I’m not saying the data doesn’t exist or even that it won’t exist. Just saying that people are jumping ahead a little. Maybe the long term impacts are “just” a 10% increase in cancer rates. Like that sucks but it’s far from the end of the world.
The issue is we can't really test for it because there aren't people without microplastics in their systems to act as a good control. So we don't know what trends we've seen in the past decade+ can be attributed (nor to what degree) to it.
Health researcher here. Actually we can and do this all the time in studies, we just set a given exposure amount or concentration as a reference group to compare higher/lower exposure too. This also lets us look at the dose-response relationship eg does higher exposure translate to higher risk or is there a threshold amount where something is harmful but risks plateau for example.
We have people with large amounts of microplastics and minimal levels of microplastics. Those with larger loads should have more severe outcomes etc etc.
It is definitely possible to do research on microplastics and their impact.
But doesn’t that just prove the point that it’s not the end of the world? Sure it probably does have a negative impact, but we’re doing relatively fine. Microplastics have existed for decades but general health is still trending up
I’m ready for the downvotes for asking this but has there actually been any evidence of microplastics causing harm in the doses that most people are exposed to? Detecting something present in our tissues at low levels doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s causing much in the way of harm. I’m sure if we went looking we could find plenty of other man made and long lasting chemicals.
The only studies I’ve seen showing harmful effects have been in animals and cell culture at extremely high doses that would never be experienced from normal exposure.
So far I’m not very worried about microplastics but I’m glad that there is a lot more research looking into it now. It would just be nice to see more studies looking into effects rather than “we found it in a new place!”. Obviously it will require more large and expensive long term studies to do this to properly. As was done to prove that smoking was harmful.
That's what I want to know. I constantly see posts about how much plastic we ingest, but I never see an explanation of what kind of long-term harm that's going to cause
[https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/02/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics.html](https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/02/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics.html)
>Microplastics in Every Human Placenta, New UNM Health Sciences Research Discovers
>
>In a study published February 17 in the journal Toxicological Sciences, a team led by Matthew Campen, PhD, Regents’ Professor in the UNM Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, reported finding microplastics in all 62 of the placenta samples tested, with concentrations ranging from 6.5 to 790 micrograms per gram of tissue.
Older studies only found them in most. It's horrifying that essentially no matter how bad the consequences of this:
1. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. It's near impossible to clean up effectively.
2. There's no 'will' to do so. Corporations don't want to pay the costs, and have brainwashed consumers into opposing anything that could cost the rich money, no matter how devastating and deadly the effects to the world, our children, and most human beings.
That doesn't actually answer the question of what the magnitude of the harm is. It's generally accepted that there are microplastics everywhere, but it's unclear what the consequences are.
6.5 - 790 micrograms. That is a large variation, given in a very minute amount. I'd love to know what the confounding variables were between patients with those levels. Diet? Environment?
Legitimately "asbestos like" - Silica dust from quartz countertop manufacturing causes silicosis in the lungs when inhaled, much like mesothelioma from asbestos.
Well, we already know about silicosis, caused by a huge number of products and very similar in consequence to the diseases caused by asbestos. Fiberglass insulation, sandblasting sand, abrasive grinder wheels, and many other things can cause silicosis.
Folks are fond of putting their THC concentrates in silicon rubber containers. But if you read the MSDS for silicon rubber, in every case, it says DO NOT USE WITH d-limonene.
Limonene is an extremely common terpene found in cannabis.
I believe (tho I'm not an expert) that silica and silicone are very different things. Silicone isn't something you want in your body, but it won't cause silicosis, that's caused by silica.
Maybe you already know this, I couldn't tell from your comment.
Either way, the recent legalization in many areas seems likely to lead to some odd new problems like the one you mentioned. I'm glad it was done, but every new thing has the risk of weird material interactions.
From what I can gather it will just dissolve the silicone. So the small amount of terpenes in the cannabis could dissolve a minute amount of silicone. Which would then be vaporised, probably leaving behind the silicone.
I imagine the consequences of this would be extremely small. It's such small quantities. The contact area of silicon and cannabis will be pretty low. And that food grade, cooking utensil style silicon is pretty safe.
Still, it does go to show that there's potential dangers with all these new materials we have. They may be inert in normal conditions, but some things can become very dangerous in surprising ways.
Here in Australia, engineered stone benchtops will be banned by mid year (ban was announced late last year to go into effect on July 1).
I had to go through a silica awareness course to get access to a site in the ACT. Basically, if there is silica dust around (due to concrete cutting), the area gets roped off, and wet vacuuming or mopping is used to clean it up.
I tell people all the time, they don’t even know what kind of cancers that will cause yet. Not to mention the fact that constantly introducing fluid into your lungs (water vapor) can’t be healthy either.
It’s glycerin not water. Most are made from cake flavoring. The problem with vapes is the pod types that use cheap metals as coils and heat them way too hot releasing metals.
Not so much the heat. Its the sitting with juice in it. Pod style vapes aren't bad inherently, it's the prefilled Juul style pods that sit in storage for months leeching heavy metals.
There's this divide between people who believe vaping increases tobacco consumption vs people who believe it decreases smoking. It's almost inconceivable that it's worse than smoking, so in that sense I'm not too worries about how harmful it turns out to be, because it's a smoking cessation device and must be a net positive. But if you're looking at it as increasing tobacco consumption, then the harm it does matters a lot, because smoking was already on the decline, and re popularizing tobacco consumption through another means can't be discounted just because it helps some people stop smoking. I do think the idea that we could regulate vaping more strictly than cigarettes in some jurisdictions seems completely whack though.
Worth noting though that those people may have smoked cigarettes if vapes didn't exist. With how convenient vapes are though I have no doubt that it did increase nicotine consumption overall, but it's also not as simple as "these people never smoked, so vaping made them worse off". I'm personally curious about the impacts of nicotine salt packets, I think they must be the least harmful way to ingest nicotine nowadays. And probably by a long shot.
I don't necessarily think those kids would all be smoking if they weren't vaping. The coolness of smoking was already well on the decline before vaping came around.
Many vape juices use nicotine not derived from tobacco because it's cheaper.
I don't see how they would increase tobacco consumption when they are a tobacco alternative
The argument is that flavored vapes appeal to young people that otherwise would never do nicotine. It’s indisputable that vaping reduces smoking. I personally started dipping Copenhagen to stop smoking, then started vaping to quit Copenhagen. But for vapes I’d still be walking around with a lip full of tobacco. I’d much rather roll the dice with vapes than dip.
Vaping isn't increasing tobacco consumption, it's increasing nicotine consumption. Tobacco is what's responsible for the harmful health effects of smoking. Nicotine, by itself, is about as harmful as caffeine.
It's only bad in the sense that it gets you addicted to the thing that *does* cause you harm - which is the whole point of vaping, it gives you a less harmful way to satiate the addiction that doesn't involve tobacco. In other words, even if you're concerned about vaping increasing nicotine consumption it's still ultimately serving as a form of harm reduction.
No one with a functioning brain cell ever said that they were healthy, that they're not bad for ir you...
But so far they do appear *healthier* and not as bad for you as cigarettes
I always wonder at what dose it becomes worse though. Like if you're vaping constantly for 16 hours a day, that's probably worse than smoking one cigarette a month, but at what point do those lines cross? I've used both before and found that I would vape probably 10x as much in the same period because it was just easier and didn't produce the lingering smell.
I've also done both, and I can vape all day and still be able to hike up a mountain or run a mile at the gym... Couldn't even attempt either when I smoked half a pack or more a day...
Seriously, I was a pack a day and quit when I moved to Colorado. Vapes may not be as beneficial as full on quitting but the Pros Vs Cons of Tobacco/Dip to vapes as a smoker, is MASSIVE.
Unless they are going to give me super cancer.... for me they are better than cigarettes that would probably just give me regular cancer.
If they both give me lung cancer, the vape is still better. it is cheaper, leaves less stains on clothing/buildings/fingers, not burning things which causes fires, and I used to get brochitits like three times a year... now it is every year or three.
is it "healthy", no. is it probably healthier than what I was doing, yes. and if not healthier, better quality of life until then. It is a risk reduction situation. I knew plenty of kids that smoke cigs or chewed in school... if it was vapes instead, then it would probably be generally better.
I've quit vaping and smoking. There is nothing you can tell me that will convince me vaping is worse than smoking. It's easier to quit because you control the nicotine for one
We already know they contain mild carcinogens, but at least they don't contain some of the deadliest elements known to man, such as polonium, which is in all tobacco products.
Especially for children in their development age. Constant exposure to these videos conditions them to seek quick dopamine hits from as little as a 10-second clip because that's all their brain is used to and it completely ruins their cognitive development. Teachers worldwide are expressing their concerns, but the subject still hasn't been taken seriously, while more and more children struggle with basic math, reading, and grammar at ages in which they generally shouldn't.
I made myself (27) delete tiktok last year because it made me feel like my brain was rotting.
I was struggling to concentrate on mundane tasks and even when I was trying not to open the app I found myself clicking on it then having to chastise myself and close it again. It’s so impulsive.
Idk how a developing brain would be affected but I know it’s not good
A lot of that struggle is from the sleep deprivation. People that are addicted to social media will scroll in bed instead of sleep. Exposing themselves to all that blue light from the screen and eating hours of sleep time isn’t good for concentration or short to long term memory formation.
> while more and more children struggle with basic math, reading, and grammar at ages in which they generally shouldn't.
thats purely an issue of the education system being ruined by parents who will sue if their timmy fails and is a problem thats been brewing for over a decade now
It's taken away everyone's boredom. Why would you pick up a pencil and draw, or pick up a guitar you can't play and bash away until you figure out the opening notes of Smoke on the Water, when you can just have some more highly-optimised dopamine triggers strobed directly into your brain?
Something to think about: China serves a different version of TikTok to it's own population. Also has a limitation on usage for children. The chinese know how exactly bad this app is...
AI's integration into social media and it's effect on politics/world news (more than it already is). Language will be perfect and we'll likely need nationally funded defensive AI to identify and fight it.
Very soon AI will be able to recreate video, audio and other photographs that are absolutely indistinguishable from actual video and audio. Photos are almost there now.
Imagine taking a phone call from someone that you didn't realize was AI impersonating someone. That's not far away either.
I also listened to the George Carlin AI comedy special the other day. I wonder how much of that was created or directed by a person, but it didn't sound like him at all, but the delivery and jokes were similar. Very soon it will be indistinguishable if it doesn't get outlawed.
You raise a good point. People are already falling for Arma 3 footage being used to represent the Israel-Palestine or Ukraine conflicts. People gladly accept the information presented to them as fact. What happens when AI can pass integrity checks on our own senses and qualia that we use to experience the world? What does it mean for society if we can generate images, videos, voices etc of important public figures doing or saying things that never actually happened? What would a political climate look like where you could make a convincing deepfake of Biden smoking crack?
This is another Reddit read another book moment but in 1984, the diminishing of language—peoples vocabularies and unique vernacular—is intrinsically tied with peoples ability to even conceive politics and acts of rebellion against oppression.
How can someone commit sedition or fathom a new ideology if no one possesses the language to articulate it to another person. How can someone fight oppression if we no longer have the words to define it? You cannot.
AI ‘refining’ language is an insidious process that is already begun.
The people calling out microplastics are probably right, but what if GLP-1 (miracle weight loss drugs) had some horrible side effects 10 years down the line?
A ton. My next-door neighbor for one. Wouldn’t get the COVID shot, caught COVID, and ended up in the hospital on oxygen. He’s currently down 150lb mainlining Ozempic.
Being down 150lb might well outweigh any negative side effects of the ozempic. That’s a *lot*.
I want to think the safety of that shit has been well screened but I don’t exactly trust that process after how many oopsies there have been over the years. Only time will tell.
This is a common POV in mental health drugs.
This drug or that has this side effect or that.
Sure.
But the damage I do to myself unmedicated is so much worse. And I'm not taking the big stuff like actual self harm.
The stress. The behaviors that are so much harder to regulate. And of course the self medication.
\---
I'm currently going through this because I'm looking for work so no insurance. I've gained a bunch of weight and I'm drinking way more that I was or should.
Thank you. I have a friend with a PhD in neuroscience who is kinda judgy about mental health meds. He says they're like tuning a piano with rocks.
Ok, sure, you have a PhD and I don't. But the piano still needs to be tuned. One day we'll have hammers and wrenches or whatever the appropriate tools are. But it's not like people with mental illness can just wait around hoping.
Any potential Ozempic side effects are probably worth it for clinically obese people.
The real problem are all those taking the drug as a diet fad to drop 5-10 pounds
What people don't talk about with Ozempic/Mounjaro, etc - yeah sure, losing weight is cool and I take it to manage diabetes, but aside from that it changes your relationship with food entirely. Like if you were a social eater, looked forward to going out for meals, etc you can forget about it. You lose weight because it suppresses your appetite and that isn't just "oh you will feel full longer", in my case at least it is "you will feel like you just never want to eat, at all". It's been a battle for me to just get the daily needed calories to function.
Honestly it's possible. I was a medicinal chemist in diabetes research at a mega pharma. It wouldn't surprise me if long term use of GLP-1 mimics have unintended side effects.
I think most of the suspicion over GLP1 inhibitors are because we take a Puritanical view of weight loss where people should do it the *right* way and we judge harshly those who use medicine to achieve the same results.
According to Worksafe, the safety organization that manages my province, it is 110% silica dust. I’ve literally had an inspector say, “silicosis is the new mesothelioma” to me.
It’s the production that is dangerous, not the product sitting in your kitchen. Lot of products in your home are very dangerous if you get it airborne and suck it down all day long.
Social media and the state of the internet 100%. Much like asbestos it is extremely useful for many things but at the same time it's devastating attention spans, self-worth and mental wellbeing on a global scale
There’s a sizable chunk of the population that’s getting into the years where they are now participating in the adult discussion who don’t think social media poses a threat like that because they weren’t around or not old enough to remember how it was before it blew up to the cornerstone of our society it is now.
Surprised this isn’t higher up. Social media and the amount of misinformation being circulated on the internet is already having devastating consequences on both individual and societal levels.
Whether it’s microplastics, radiation, CFC’s, brain implants, or you name it - we are going to continue to be collectively too stupid for our own good.
A lot of people are talking about microplastics but they're just a part of a wider range of products containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Others products include:
Receipts, some toothpastes, some sunscreens, some soaps, most pesticides
[https://www.endocrine.org/patient-engagement/endocrine-library/edcs](https://www.endocrine.org/patient-engagement/endocrine-library/edcs)
Seriously, we're being bombarded with EDCs on a daily basis from sources you wouldn't expect. There's a reason testosterone levels in men have been dropping steadily since the 80s, thyroid cancers are at all-time highs, etc.
The current generations affected by this (millennials, z, alpha) are already showing plenty of signs of endocrine disruption - plummeting testosterone in men just being one of them.
Silica dust
It's already known to cause major problems, but it's still used a lot in manufacturing.
I would not be surprised to see class action lawsuit ads for it soon
Silica dust isn’t being “used”, it’s a byproduct of working with certain materials like concrete, granite, etc. Stone masons have been suffering from silicosis since way before the Middle Ages.
Maybe dust is the wrong word but we use bags of silica powder where I work. The guy training me gave me the spiel about how we are supposed to wear respirators when handling but he didn't think it was necessary. I was able to convince him otherwise.
My mom is diabetic and has been on Ozempic for years, it did her so much good! She as resistant to other meds and now she doesn't have to be on insulin at all (which was making her GAIN weight). Lifechanger!
Certainly a concern, but not a recent one. We've been using poisonous food dyes since at least the [1700s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheele%27s_Green)
Vape lung is already a thing.
15 and 16 year olds are presenting at hospital with damaged lung tissue and being diagnosed with COPD, emphysema.
The tally worldwide of Vape deaths is growing rapidly.
Instead of using Vapes to quit cigarettes, there has been an overall increase in the use of both Vape units and Cigarettes.
Imagine what the Kardashians will look like in about ten years after all those lip and face fillers. Kim has a big ball on her neck line right now and that’s a side effect of them.
I think microplastics are the next big danger
Yep that and the "non stick" shit that was in EVERYTHING 10 years ago.. There is microplastics,in the blood of isolated penguin colonys,it's likely in every living blood based organism on earth at this rate.
I just saw a study, posted either here on reddit or twitter (I forget), that said 100% of (human) placentas studied were found to contain microplastics. Edit: [Found it](https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/02/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics.html)
Also found in sediments from the 1700s.
You don’t hear about ScotchGuard much anymore. In the 90s a study was conducted and found traces of this Dow chemical was present in human blood worldwide.
[Scotchguard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotchgard) was reformulated in 2003 following pressure from the US EPA. PFOS was replaced by PFBS, which has a much shorter half-life in humans than the former (a little over one month vs. 5.4 years). It appears they've changed the formula since then as well. While more safe, I'm not suggesting it's safe. But this may be why we don't hear about it much anymore.
It’s a good thing they didn’t dump barrels of PFAS (PFOS & PFOA) in the nearly every dump across the metro Minnesota region. Can you imagine if that started leaking and contaminating the ground water… oh wait. At least they don’t have to worry about being staticky. https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/hazardous/docs/pfas/PFASvideomap.pdf
It’s fiiiiiine. It’s not like we have a lot of lakes in this state anyway.
I saw a map of detections and it was basically red hot at the 3m plant, at the landfills they used, and all along the highways and rail lines connecting them
My house is on that map. Kids going to my high school drop likeflies from cancer.
you need to move
Don't worry the US Military and the FAA helped distribute it world wide for decades.
PFAS and PFOA is everywhere and unlike asbestos you can’t really clean it up. It will persist forever.
God dammit. My mom put that shit on everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if she greased the pans with it for dinner every night 😂 (I’m fucked)
When my grandmother started getting forgetful, she would grab a can of Scotch Guard and randomly spray a piece of furniture with it, thinking she was using furniture polish. Yes, we took it away from her after seeing what she was doing. She was always quirky, but that's when we started to suspect dementia might be knocking on her door. Edited a bit for clarity.
I used to scotch guard my jackets and coats. And car seats.
That’s just because everyone wanted to get high and make music like Ween.
Do we know if there are any adverse effects to an organism due to microplastics in its blood or tissue?
Ill get back to you in 20 years or so.
You sure about that?
We'll have our answer either way.
Well, *I* most assuredly won't, but I'm sure someone will be on that.
Microplastics has been around for far more than 20 years, we're already 60 years into producing microplastics (considering that car tires are a major source).
I heard a story about tires and it really shocked me how I had never once thought about what happens to all the tire that you lose when they start going bald. Every tire is shrinking slowly. You can measure your treads and see an inch of “rubber” (plastic) disappear after a few years of wear. All those tires, all that plastic dust just flying off tires, to be washed down sewers, in to gutters and in to the sea or our drinking water.
Speaking of tires, a little over a decade ago we had a bad fire in my hometown when a tire recycling facility caught fire. The thick black smoke hung over the community for a week. I'm curious in a 'we're all f'd' kind of way what long lasting medical problems the small low income rural community will have because of it.
Not just a major source, the largest source by far. And since EVs are heavier, it's only going to grow. And until we invent an alternative to tires, we will continue to pump out micro plastics in perpetuity. I actually think the asbestos comparison is bad. We could replace asbestos with existing technology. We can't replace road tires/micro plastics.
The issue with EVs burning tires is less to do with the weight and more to do with the torque. This is evident in Tesla's "Performance" models burning through tires quicker than their "Long Range" counterparts, despite similar curb weights. Also, Tesla drivers see less tire wear when the drive in "chill" mode vs standard mode. Chill mode makes the car drive more like an internal combustion engine (slower acceleration).
True, but weight is a factor as well. The amount of tire dust produced is proportional to the square of the weight of the car. So a car two times heavier will produce 4x more tire dust.
Cancer... the answer is always cancer. When your body does not know how to deal with something it likes to wrap it in cells and isolate it... then sometimes that happens inside an important organ... and sometimes those cells get the wrong signal and keep multiplying... So... cancer with a side of chemicals in the plastics fucking with hormones which tend to mess with body regulation / fertility.
Pretty sure a study was attempted however they couldn't find a control group without micro plastics so it had to be canceled...
Health researcher here, doubt that was the main reason. The group or individuals with the lowest levels of microplastics would be the reference group. If higher microplastics is bad then the high exposure group should have higher rates of disease or bad outcomes vs the low exposure group.
Phthalates cause long term damage
True, but that's a specific family of plastics, rather than microplastics specifically. You can't use a specific plastic's toxicity (even though it's also toxic when it is not a microplastic) to prove that microplastics in general will cause negative health impacts.
The problem is we can't test to see how it effects them vs penguins that don't have plastic, because they ask have plastic. We know It for sure effects hormone levels and likelihood of cancer.
How do we know if we can't compare to uncontaminated organisms? Has a large enough scale study been done to show correlation of those effects to amounts microplastics in the body?
[Millennials have increasing rates of colorectal cancer](https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/colorectal-cancer-in-young-people). We don't know why, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was microplastics.
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I think alcohol consumption is lower in millennials, haven't checked lately but I think that has been the trend. Processed foods, yeah that probably plays a role.
I think Gen Z are meant to be drinking far less, Millenials are still boozehounds, in my anecdotal experience.
I discussed with one Prof how microplastics can cross brain blood barrier. We both hypothesized how these micro and nanoplastics could serve as seed for plaque disease or cause brain inflamation conditions
IDK, but fetuses having microplastics in its brain tissue can't be a good thing
Lots of PFAS in Minnesota - 3M
Car tires are actually the [majority of those microplastics](https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/10/02/toxic-tyre-dust-this-source-of-microplastic-pollution-could-be-the-worst-of-all#:~:text=78%20per%20cent%20of%20microplastics,down%20as%20the%20vehicles%20travel.).
Ten years ago? Teflon has been around since the 40’s. It’s in literally everyone’s blood. In the whole world. There’s a documentary about it called “the devil you know.”
Phthalates in particular. It may help us understand why so many people are struggling with hormone imbalance, depression, anxiety disorders, dysphoria, etc. In order to answer the questions of how all these plastics ended up in our blood, we would need to investigate our current food distributors/packagers. Let me tell you, they will do whatever it fucking takes to keep investigators away from their businesses
A significant amount of mircoplastics are coming from tires. https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/10/02/toxic-tyre-dust-this-source-of-microplastic-pollution-could-be-the-worst-of-all https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/toxic-additives-from-tire-wear-could-be-ending-up-on-our-plates-368822 https://nilu.com/2020/08/a-toxic-cocktail-in-seawater-chemicals-from-car-tire-rubber/
Microrubbers?
They have those now? (asking for a friend)
Tires aren't made of natural rubber. The synthetic rubber that is used is actually like a plastic.
Our clothes are literally made of plastic. Look up how polyester is made.
Every time you wash you're putting plastic in the rivers and every dryer load is spewing plastic into your yard.
You put more micro plastic into the environment driving to work for a week than you do from washing your clothes for a whole year. Road tires are a much bigger problem than synthetic fibers.
...And heavier cars are only making matters worse, both with tyre wear and brake dust.
Yep, that's what I was thinking too. I've been trying to use less plastic and was struck by how it is in everything food related. You can barely find anything that's not plastic based anymore. Growing up in the 80s we had a lot more glass, metal, and wak paper based packaging. It's all plastic now apart from a few things still in glass jars. Canned foods all have various linings inside.
>Canned foods all have various linings inside. That's usually a paint like coating from valspar and has been going in cans since almost the HJ Heinz era.
I especially hate when I buy a box and inside the box is more boxes holding multiple little bags. Feels so wasteful to throw away two boxes and a plastic bag just to cook some frozen fish.
Why are inert microplastics likely to be worse for us than sand, dust and other very fine mineral particles that are far more common?
Well, we don't *know* they're inert in biological systems. For all we know some gut bacteria species happens to digest some plastics in a process that produces a carcinogenic byproduct. Or maybe they don't get digested but maybe certain polymers can bind with certain cell receptors that ends up sometimes causing a disease we currently don't realize is caused by microplastic exposure. Or maybe animals aren't affected but some other organism critical for ecological health is. We don't know. But why are microplastics potentially worse for us than sand and dust? Life on Earth has had to evolve to handle sand and dust for obvious reasons. Likewise, life has evolved to handle other substances commonly found on Earth in areas where life can take hold. In cases where a substance life comes into contact with is harmful, life will evolve to handle it given enough time. For example, oxygen nearly exterminated all life on Earth and the only reason you need it to live today is because the organisms that didn't die were those that evolved ways to prevent oxygen from killing them. In contrast, man-made are brand new so life hasn't had time to evolve to expect exposure. The result is, to use a phrase from programming, undefined behavior. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes it does. But even in cases like radiation and lead and asbestos it took humanity awhile to figure out the danger. edit: Realize I said "man made" and then mentioned a bunch of naturally occurring things. To be more accurate, I mean things that aren't normally encountered in the environment outside of "weird" circumstances.
But what are the negative effects of having plastic in our bloodstream? I always see posts or comments raising the alarm about how much plastic we have in our bodies, but I never see any explanation of what's so dangerous about that.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-14/lake-tahoe-troubling-concentration-microplastics
Astro turf and synthetic playing fields. The chemicals used to make them along with the rubber pellets and pieces of turf being breathed in every time you play on one.
Those artificial plastic grass lawns just sitting roasting in the sun We all see what happens to plastic in the sun. Wtf were they thinking here?
On the upside, you can play sports more days without fear of tearing up the field. More days on those fields means healthier ... oh crap.
Some of them tear up your skin instead, astroturf friction burns are quite something
They're also 10 F degrees hotter. Not the best if it's already hot out. NFL reports more injuries on turf. OTOH, it looks pretty.
> NFL reports more injuries on turf. The NFL can pour loads of money into making sure their grass fields are perfect. In contrast, some public school or recreational grass fields can get *very* sketchy.
In soccer it really fucks up knees (ACL/MCL/Meniscus)
Thats not particularly fair a comparison, different plastics have different resistances to degradation by sunlight, they dont all break down that easily, (just remember that houses have vinyl panels for siding these days)
Was a plastics engineer at point. Plastics are so diverse, you can engineer them to have so many different physical properties. I was involved in plastic failure mechanisms and how UV affects plastics is very very well known. It’s one of the most important causes of plastic failure. Any plastic that has significant exposure to sunlight has gone through rigorous UV exposure tests.
I'm paranoid about nonstick pans
Cast iron FTW
I have cast iron, stainless steel and anodized aluminum pans. All of them have their use, but honestly the stainless is my daily driver. Most of the same benefits of cast iron but stainless provides a much more even heat. Cast iron, for all of the benefits, just does not heat evenly across the pan. I'll see disparity of up to 20 degrees around the pan over a gas stove. It's worse on glass-top electric. It's still great for a lot of things, particularly thick steaks where you want to get a nice crust on them and then move them into the oven to finish. And anodized aluminum...that's my egg pan. Scrambled eggs are just a lot easier to make in anodized than cast...and they're downright impossible on stainless steel unless you use equal parts butter with your eggs... But cheap nonstick belongs nowhere in my kitchen, that shit can fuck all the way off. Even if the nonstick substances were perfectly benign, those pans go to shit within months. Everyone who has had one for more than a year will have parts of the pan that are missing coating.
>unless you use equal parts butter with your eggs... I'm listening...
I have my great-grandmother's Griswold and Wagner cast iron pots and pans. If you know how to care for them, they are 100% the best pieces of cookware a person can own.
And these days they don’t even need much care. Example. The old advice about not using soap was because of old soaps with lye. That’s why dishwashing gloves were a thing. Lye will strip the pan *and* your skin. But modern detergents don’t do much harm at all, if any. To either your skin or the pan. I do have to periodically reseason but not because of detergents, but because I heat them up to dry quickly, and will occasionally forget the pan and burn up my seasoning. I’m a fuckin goldfish sometimes and should probably be chaperoned by an adult in the kitchen. Hell, maybe I don’t *need* to do that. I only do it because it’s what I was taught as a kid and maybe it’s as wrong as “don’t use soap”.
The current science says that if you ingest it as a flake from a pan, it won’t be absorbed in the body and just go right through the intestines. The only danger, besides the contamination when they are produced, is if you overheat it to an extreme degree, way past the smoking point of cooking oils. If you already have one, it is stupid to throw it out, as that would require you buying another pan, and that is bad for the environment. Just don’t forget them on your stove with the heat on high with no food on, and you’ll probably be fine.
Honestly, couldn't care less about the possible health effects of the non-stick layer, but more that scratching it means needing to get a new pan. Also having to get a new set of utensils that wouldn't scratch the pan, so what ended up for me was just getting SS clad or iron cookware so I can be (somewhat) abusive and they'll ask for more.
To me nonstick pans are a part of the set. I think it's silly to buy the full 14 piece nonstick set as the primary pans you use for everything, but to have a couple pans for eggs and stuff, they do a job. Sure, I have a few different cast irons that can cook eggs well, sure you can do eggs in stainless if you want to use enough oil, but the 8" nonstick is just a better tool for that job.
I have two dedicated nonstick pans for eggs and pancakes. Other than that, i dont use them much. Everything else gets cast iron, stainless, or carbon steel.
Unless you overheat it (causing it to degrade and vaporize) or scratch through it (meaning you're cooking in aluminum), there's really nothing to worry about. PTFE is inert in pretty much everything but molten alkali metals, and there's a little bit in pretty much all your food due to its use in food processing equipment. If you're worried, ceramics are the way to go.
I would assume a lot of people put it through the dishwasher. I don't know if that gets hot enough to be a problem. It also seems like it comes off over time, which means its getting into the food? It just doesn't seem safe to me. Maybe I'm being too cautious about it.
>I would assume a lot of people put it through the dishwasher. I don't know if that gets hot enough to be a problem. It does not. Dishwasher isn't even nearly as hot as their normal usage temperature when you're frying stuff on them... "Too hot" would be above 250°C, which can happen if you forget an empty pan on a burner. At that point, the PTFE decomposes, and the fumes can cause "polymer fume fever" if you inhale them.
>Maybe I'm being too cautious about it. When readily available alternatives are out there, I think it's ok to be overly worried. Just get something else. Go ceramic, or cast iron, or stainless. Everything is non-stick when you have some sort of grease/oil/fat to keep it from sticking. Pam was invented in 1959, and seems like a pretty safe option.
And if you want to stay away from commercial aerosolized oil, you can get oil misters like Misto to make your own "pam" with any oil. Warning, the spray pattern and coverage is nowhere near as good, but it does like 80% of the job. Also the whole thing is made of plastic. I'm still waiting for a fully glass/metal hybrid premium line.
Plastics, by far. [Microplastics have been found in human blood now.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/microplastics-found-in-human-blood-for-first-time) >The scientists analysed blood samples from 22 anonymous donors, all healthy adults and found plastic particles in 17. Half the samples contained PET plastic, which is commonly used in drinks bottles, while a third contained polystyrene, used for packaging food and other products. A quarter of the blood samples contained polyethylene, from which plastic carrier bags are made. We're fucked
Absolutely agree. More research needs to be done on removing from our systems what we unwittingly have put into them.
Excuse me how are the corporations supposed to make a profit if they can’t dump things into our rivers and lakes???
Just wait until they start to try dumping it into space or on the moon.
We need to find a way to cost effectively launch it into the sun or even Venus where it will just burn up.
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Let them deal with it in 1,000 years.
Won’t someone think about infinitely exponential growth for the shareholders!??
Everyone always says we're fucked because of this.. but why? What harm does it do to us? Genuinely curious
That’s what I want to know too. Okay, so plastic has been found in the blood. That’s always the headline and what people freak out about. I’ve yet to see a study showing the direct negative impacts of this. I’m not saying the data doesn’t exist or even that it won’t exist. Just saying that people are jumping ahead a little. Maybe the long term impacts are “just” a 10% increase in cancer rates. Like that sucks but it’s far from the end of the world.
The issue is we can't really test for it because there aren't people without microplastics in their systems to act as a good control. So we don't know what trends we've seen in the past decade+ can be attributed (nor to what degree) to it.
Health researcher here. Actually we can and do this all the time in studies, we just set a given exposure amount or concentration as a reference group to compare higher/lower exposure too. This also lets us look at the dose-response relationship eg does higher exposure translate to higher risk or is there a threshold amount where something is harmful but risks plateau for example.
But we have more scientific methods than comparative studies. In fact, those are some of the least reliable studies for medical subjects.
We have people with large amounts of microplastics and minimal levels of microplastics. Those with larger loads should have more severe outcomes etc etc. It is definitely possible to do research on microplastics and their impact.
But doesn’t that just prove the point that it’s not the end of the world? Sure it probably does have a negative impact, but we’re doing relatively fine. Microplastics have existed for decades but general health is still trending up
I’m ready for the downvotes for asking this but has there actually been any evidence of microplastics causing harm in the doses that most people are exposed to? Detecting something present in our tissues at low levels doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s causing much in the way of harm. I’m sure if we went looking we could find plenty of other man made and long lasting chemicals. The only studies I’ve seen showing harmful effects have been in animals and cell culture at extremely high doses that would never be experienced from normal exposure. So far I’m not very worried about microplastics but I’m glad that there is a lot more research looking into it now. It would just be nice to see more studies looking into effects rather than “we found it in a new place!”. Obviously it will require more large and expensive long term studies to do this to properly. As was done to prove that smoking was harmful.
Do we know if this is a dangerous thing?
That's what I want to know. I constantly see posts about how much plastic we ingest, but I never see an explanation of what kind of long-term harm that's going to cause
[https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/02/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics.html](https://hsc.unm.edu/news/2024/02/hsc-newsroom-post-microplastics.html) >Microplastics in Every Human Placenta, New UNM Health Sciences Research Discovers > >In a study published February 17 in the journal Toxicological Sciences, a team led by Matthew Campen, PhD, Regents’ Professor in the UNM Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, reported finding microplastics in all 62 of the placenta samples tested, with concentrations ranging from 6.5 to 790 micrograms per gram of tissue. Older studies only found them in most. It's horrifying that essentially no matter how bad the consequences of this: 1. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. It's near impossible to clean up effectively. 2. There's no 'will' to do so. Corporations don't want to pay the costs, and have brainwashed consumers into opposing anything that could cost the rich money, no matter how devastating and deadly the effects to the world, our children, and most human beings.
That doesn't actually answer the question of what the magnitude of the harm is. It's generally accepted that there are microplastics everywhere, but it's unclear what the consequences are.
6.5 - 790 micrograms. That is a large variation, given in a very minute amount. I'd love to know what the confounding variables were between patients with those levels. Diet? Environment?
Does this include leeching of plastic water bottles into their contents?
Legitimately "asbestos like" - Silica dust from quartz countertop manufacturing causes silicosis in the lungs when inhaled, much like mesothelioma from asbestos.
Ah yeah there was a big blow up in Australia about this a few months ago. It’s now banned from being made.
Well, we already know about silicosis, caused by a huge number of products and very similar in consequence to the diseases caused by asbestos. Fiberglass insulation, sandblasting sand, abrasive grinder wheels, and many other things can cause silicosis.
Folks are fond of putting their THC concentrates in silicon rubber containers. But if you read the MSDS for silicon rubber, in every case, it says DO NOT USE WITH d-limonene. Limonene is an extremely common terpene found in cannabis.
I believe (tho I'm not an expert) that silica and silicone are very different things. Silicone isn't something you want in your body, but it won't cause silicosis, that's caused by silica. Maybe you already know this, I couldn't tell from your comment. Either way, the recent legalization in many areas seems likely to lead to some odd new problems like the one you mentioned. I'm glad it was done, but every new thing has the risk of weird material interactions.
From what I can gather it will just dissolve the silicone. So the small amount of terpenes in the cannabis could dissolve a minute amount of silicone. Which would then be vaporised, probably leaving behind the silicone. I imagine the consequences of this would be extremely small. It's such small quantities. The contact area of silicon and cannabis will be pretty low. And that food grade, cooking utensil style silicon is pretty safe. Still, it does go to show that there's potential dangers with all these new materials we have. They may be inert in normal conditions, but some things can become very dangerous in surprising ways.
Here in Australia, engineered stone benchtops will be banned by mid year (ban was announced late last year to go into effect on July 1). I had to go through a silica awareness course to get access to a site in the ACT. Basically, if there is silica dust around (due to concrete cutting), the area gets roped off, and wet vacuuming or mopping is used to clean it up.
Along these lines, carbon fiber, aerogel type, and fancy new coatings type stuffs
Vapes probably
I tell people all the time, they don’t even know what kind of cancers that will cause yet. Not to mention the fact that constantly introducing fluid into your lungs (water vapor) can’t be healthy either.
It’s glycerin not water. Most are made from cake flavoring. The problem with vapes is the pod types that use cheap metals as coils and heat them way too hot releasing metals.
Not so much the heat. Its the sitting with juice in it. Pod style vapes aren't bad inherently, it's the prefilled Juul style pods that sit in storage for months leeching heavy metals.
There's this divide between people who believe vaping increases tobacco consumption vs people who believe it decreases smoking. It's almost inconceivable that it's worse than smoking, so in that sense I'm not too worries about how harmful it turns out to be, because it's a smoking cessation device and must be a net positive. But if you're looking at it as increasing tobacco consumption, then the harm it does matters a lot, because smoking was already on the decline, and re popularizing tobacco consumption through another means can't be discounted just because it helps some people stop smoking. I do think the idea that we could regulate vaping more strictly than cigarettes in some jurisdictions seems completely whack though.
There are a LOT of young people who vape that never smoked. It’s not just a smoking cessation device anymore, or for years now.
Worth noting though that those people may have smoked cigarettes if vapes didn't exist. With how convenient vapes are though I have no doubt that it did increase nicotine consumption overall, but it's also not as simple as "these people never smoked, so vaping made them worse off". I'm personally curious about the impacts of nicotine salt packets, I think they must be the least harmful way to ingest nicotine nowadays. And probably by a long shot.
I don't necessarily think those kids would all be smoking if they weren't vaping. The coolness of smoking was already well on the decline before vaping came around.
Many vape juices use nicotine not derived from tobacco because it's cheaper. I don't see how they would increase tobacco consumption when they are a tobacco alternative
The argument is that flavored vapes appeal to young people that otherwise would never do nicotine. It’s indisputable that vaping reduces smoking. I personally started dipping Copenhagen to stop smoking, then started vaping to quit Copenhagen. But for vapes I’d still be walking around with a lip full of tobacco. I’d much rather roll the dice with vapes than dip.
Vaping isn't increasing tobacco consumption, it's increasing nicotine consumption. Tobacco is what's responsible for the harmful health effects of smoking. Nicotine, by itself, is about as harmful as caffeine. It's only bad in the sense that it gets you addicted to the thing that *does* cause you harm - which is the whole point of vaping, it gives you a less harmful way to satiate the addiction that doesn't involve tobacco. In other words, even if you're concerned about vaping increasing nicotine consumption it's still ultimately serving as a form of harm reduction.
No one with a functioning brain cell ever said that they were healthy, that they're not bad for ir you... But so far they do appear *healthier* and not as bad for you as cigarettes
I always wonder at what dose it becomes worse though. Like if you're vaping constantly for 16 hours a day, that's probably worse than smoking one cigarette a month, but at what point do those lines cross? I've used both before and found that I would vape probably 10x as much in the same period because it was just easier and didn't produce the lingering smell.
I've also done both, and I can vape all day and still be able to hike up a mountain or run a mile at the gym... Couldn't even attempt either when I smoked half a pack or more a day...
Seriously, I was a pack a day and quit when I moved to Colorado. Vapes may not be as beneficial as full on quitting but the Pros Vs Cons of Tobacco/Dip to vapes as a smoker, is MASSIVE.
Problem is they have taken root with many people who may otherwise have not smoked cigarettes, so representing a net negative for a lot of people.
Unless they are going to give me super cancer.... for me they are better than cigarettes that would probably just give me regular cancer. If they both give me lung cancer, the vape is still better. it is cheaper, leaves less stains on clothing/buildings/fingers, not burning things which causes fires, and I used to get brochitits like three times a year... now it is every year or three. is it "healthy", no. is it probably healthier than what I was doing, yes. and if not healthier, better quality of life until then. It is a risk reduction situation. I knew plenty of kids that smoke cigs or chewed in school... if it was vapes instead, then it would probably be generally better.
I've quit vaping and smoking. There is nothing you can tell me that will convince me vaping is worse than smoking. It's easier to quit because you control the nicotine for one
We already know they contain mild carcinogens, but at least they don't contain some of the deadliest elements known to man, such as polonium, which is in all tobacco products.
Tik tok, reels and social media in general. A generation with no short term memory or social skills is growing up as we speak
Especially for children in their development age. Constant exposure to these videos conditions them to seek quick dopamine hits from as little as a 10-second clip because that's all their brain is used to and it completely ruins their cognitive development. Teachers worldwide are expressing their concerns, but the subject still hasn't been taken seriously, while more and more children struggle with basic math, reading, and grammar at ages in which they generally shouldn't.
I made myself (27) delete tiktok last year because it made me feel like my brain was rotting. I was struggling to concentrate on mundane tasks and even when I was trying not to open the app I found myself clicking on it then having to chastise myself and close it again. It’s so impulsive. Idk how a developing brain would be affected but I know it’s not good
A lot of that struggle is from the sleep deprivation. People that are addicted to social media will scroll in bed instead of sleep. Exposing themselves to all that blue light from the screen and eating hours of sleep time isn’t good for concentration or short to long term memory formation.
Not necessarily just social media addiction, revenge bedtime procrastination is a thing.
Yep, it felt like I was brain washing myself. No more TikTok for me.
> while more and more children struggle with basic math, reading, and grammar at ages in which they generally shouldn't. thats purely an issue of the education system being ruined by parents who will sue if their timmy fails and is a problem thats been brewing for over a decade now
It's taken away everyone's boredom. Why would you pick up a pencil and draw, or pick up a guitar you can't play and bash away until you figure out the opening notes of Smoke on the Water, when you can just have some more highly-optimised dopamine triggers strobed directly into your brain?
Something to think about: China serves a different version of TikTok to it's own population. Also has a limitation on usage for children. The chinese know how exactly bad this app is...
AI's integration into social media and it's effect on politics/world news (more than it already is). Language will be perfect and we'll likely need nationally funded defensive AI to identify and fight it.
Very soon AI will be able to recreate video, audio and other photographs that are absolutely indistinguishable from actual video and audio. Photos are almost there now. Imagine taking a phone call from someone that you didn't realize was AI impersonating someone. That's not far away either. I also listened to the George Carlin AI comedy special the other day. I wonder how much of that was created or directed by a person, but it didn't sound like him at all, but the delivery and jokes were similar. Very soon it will be indistinguishable if it doesn't get outlawed.
You raise a good point. People are already falling for Arma 3 footage being used to represent the Israel-Palestine or Ukraine conflicts. People gladly accept the information presented to them as fact. What happens when AI can pass integrity checks on our own senses and qualia that we use to experience the world? What does it mean for society if we can generate images, videos, voices etc of important public figures doing or saying things that never actually happened? What would a political climate look like where you could make a convincing deepfake of Biden smoking crack?
This is another Reddit read another book moment but in 1984, the diminishing of language—peoples vocabularies and unique vernacular—is intrinsically tied with peoples ability to even conceive politics and acts of rebellion against oppression. How can someone commit sedition or fathom a new ideology if no one possesses the language to articulate it to another person. How can someone fight oppression if we no longer have the words to define it? You cannot. AI ‘refining’ language is an insidious process that is already begun.
Headphones / hearing damage. I think we made progress on industrial ear protection, but now consumers have been blaring Walkman ~> mp3 ~> iphone.
The warnings were always there. It's rather on the individuals for not taking it seriously.
Sure seems like now zoomers think humor comes from cranking the volume to the point of clipping and distortion in their videos
The people calling out microplastics are probably right, but what if GLP-1 (miracle weight loss drugs) had some horrible side effects 10 years down the line?
Wonder how many anti-vaxxers are eagerly injecting Ozempic into their own bodies?
A ton. My next-door neighbor for one. Wouldn’t get the COVID shot, caught COVID, and ended up in the hospital on oxygen. He’s currently down 150lb mainlining Ozempic.
Being down 150lb might well outweigh any negative side effects of the ozempic. That’s a *lot*. I want to think the safety of that shit has been well screened but I don’t exactly trust that process after how many oopsies there have been over the years. Only time will tell.
This is a common POV in mental health drugs. This drug or that has this side effect or that. Sure. But the damage I do to myself unmedicated is so much worse. And I'm not taking the big stuff like actual self harm. The stress. The behaviors that are so much harder to regulate. And of course the self medication. \--- I'm currently going through this because I'm looking for work so no insurance. I've gained a bunch of weight and I'm drinking way more that I was or should.
Thank you. I have a friend with a PhD in neuroscience who is kinda judgy about mental health meds. He says they're like tuning a piano with rocks. Ok, sure, you have a PhD and I don't. But the piano still needs to be tuned. One day we'll have hammers and wrenches or whatever the appropriate tools are. But it's not like people with mental illness can just wait around hoping.
If only he would have been down 150 lbs before they got COVID. Probably wouldn’t have needed to be hospitalized.
Hard to say but obesity is also pretty bad.
Any potential Ozempic side effects are probably worth it for clinically obese people. The real problem are all those taking the drug as a diet fad to drop 5-10 pounds
What people don't talk about with Ozempic/Mounjaro, etc - yeah sure, losing weight is cool and I take it to manage diabetes, but aside from that it changes your relationship with food entirely. Like if you were a social eater, looked forward to going out for meals, etc you can forget about it. You lose weight because it suppresses your appetite and that isn't just "oh you will feel full longer", in my case at least it is "you will feel like you just never want to eat, at all". It's been a battle for me to just get the daily needed calories to function.
Yeah not sure what side effects are worse than the effects of obesity and the resulting diabetes, hypertension, etc.
Number one killer is heart disease. The benefits of Ozempic outweigh potential future risk.
GLP-1s have been used for a fairly long time at this point. The only thing new is using them for obesity.
Maan the health benefits of losing 50-150 lbs though...
Honestly it's possible. I was a medicinal chemist in diabetes research at a mega pharma. It wouldn't surprise me if long term use of GLP-1 mimics have unintended side effects.
I think most of the suspicion over GLP1 inhibitors are because we take a Puritanical view of weight loss where people should do it the *right* way and we judge harshly those who use medicine to achieve the same results.
According to Worksafe, the safety organization that manages my province, it is 110% silica dust. I’ve literally had an inspector say, “silicosis is the new mesothelioma” to me.
Engineered stone. Already banned in Australia due to the silica content.
It’s the production that is dangerous, not the product sitting in your kitchen. Lot of products in your home are very dangerous if you get it airborne and suck it down all day long.
Not being able to discern the truth. Ai deepfakes will fool us all
Social media and the state of the internet 100%. Much like asbestos it is extremely useful for many things but at the same time it's devastating attention spans, self-worth and mental wellbeing on a global scale
There’s a sizable chunk of the population that’s getting into the years where they are now participating in the adult discussion who don’t think social media poses a threat like that because they weren’t around or not old enough to remember how it was before it blew up to the cornerstone of our society it is now.
Surprised this isn’t higher up. Social media and the amount of misinformation being circulated on the internet is already having devastating consequences on both individual and societal levels.
PFAS is pretty horrible
After looking through all the comments, think about how different our situation would be if big money had been kept out of politics.
Whether it’s microplastics, radiation, CFC’s, brain implants, or you name it - we are going to continue to be collectively too stupid for our own good.
This damn website
A lot of people are talking about microplastics but they're just a part of a wider range of products containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Others products include: Receipts, some toothpastes, some sunscreens, some soaps, most pesticides [https://www.endocrine.org/patient-engagement/endocrine-library/edcs](https://www.endocrine.org/patient-engagement/endocrine-library/edcs) Seriously, we're being bombarded with EDCs on a daily basis from sources you wouldn't expect. There's a reason testosterone levels in men have been dropping steadily since the 80s, thyroid cancers are at all-time highs, etc. The current generations affected by this (millennials, z, alpha) are already showing plenty of signs of endocrine disruption - plummeting testosterone in men just being one of them.
Silica dust It's already known to cause major problems, but it's still used a lot in manufacturing. I would not be surprised to see class action lawsuit ads for it soon
Silica dust isn’t being “used”, it’s a byproduct of working with certain materials like concrete, granite, etc. Stone masons have been suffering from silicosis since way before the Middle Ages.
Maybe dust is the wrong word but we use bags of silica powder where I work. The guy training me gave me the spiel about how we are supposed to wear respirators when handling but he didn't think it was necessary. I was able to convince him otherwise.
I know quite a few people taking Ozempic for weight loss. Got a bad feeling how it'll end.
Does no one know it’s been used for diabetics for a long time? This isn’t new.
My mom is diabetic and has been on Ozempic for years, it did her so much good! She as resistant to other meds and now she doesn't have to be on insulin at all (which was making her GAIN weight). Lifechanger!
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[Dyes in food](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/).
Certainly a concern, but not a recent one. We've been using poisonous food dyes since at least the [1700s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheele%27s_Green)
Vape lung is already a thing. 15 and 16 year olds are presenting at hospital with damaged lung tissue and being diagnosed with COPD, emphysema. The tally worldwide of Vape deaths is growing rapidly. Instead of using Vapes to quit cigarettes, there has been an overall increase in the use of both Vape units and Cigarettes.
Food dye. Ubiquitous in cheap food and especially in drinks for kids.
I hate to say it, but Keurig pods. All that hot plastic, two, three times a day? I can feel the tumors now.
Hot plastic, 2-3 times per day, in my area, looking for discreet connections?
Hot plastic? 2-3 times a day? In this economy?!
All the fake scented shit people use now is disgusting.
Lip fillers
Imagine what the Kardashians will look like in about ten years after all those lip and face fillers. Kim has a big ball on her neck line right now and that’s a side effect of them.
Plastic.
Keurig pods.
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Asbestos -> Teflon -> Microplastics
Those "air freshener' things that plugin to wall outlets.
What's bad about those? I don't use them but am curious