America's Drinking Water Problem - PFAS

[Laodicean60]

It's actually the friction of the opening and closing of the plastic lid that releases microplastics into the drink. Squeezing the bottles isn't as bad.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135419308565

Thank you for the paper! I didn't even think of the cap lol.

 

[AlexB23]

Of course you can do something. Harmful food additives can be banned, fast food can be regulated, smoking can be discouraged.

Agreed. But the government in the USA is too dense and focused on money to figure that one out. At least the EU has some of this stuff figured out.

 

[AlexB23]

View attachment 346021

I agree. But we need a regular forum where it is just the facts, a separate subforum for just news and science.

 

[bèlla]

Have you considered the possibility you don't have all the facts? Posting an article doesn't mean you have all the details. It means you shared an article that presented a perspective. Alternative options exist for health care. Some are accessible and others are out of reach.

Most consumers deal with traditional providers or government programs. Two others exist: boutique medicine and executive health. I doubt you're familiar with them. If you were you wouldn't have challenged him.

America was designed on a class-based system. Rest assured there's a velvet rope for everything. Haven't you noticed there aren't a lot of wealthy kids with your condition? There's a reason. To assume medical access is identical is ignorant or uninformed. There are treatments insurance companies are unwilling to cover or they're only available when paying with cash.

~bella

 

[Nithavela]

I agree. But we need a regular forum where it is just the facts, a separate subforum for just news and science.

And who gets to decide what "just the facts" are?

You're already acting like some sort of impartial arbiter of truth by posting longform summaries of all articles. Now you want to have those longform summaries stand uncontested?

 

[Chesterton]

Yes Sir, European laws are superior for their people's health. I wasn't bashing walmart per se but their bottled water because the container is paper thin. I catch myself squeezing the bottle and I know microplastics fly into my water every time I squeeze that bottle. Maybe I need to find a harder plastic bottle of water.

Maybe you can forget bottled water, and buy a reusable metal water bottle instead, though a lot are cheap Chinesium that dent easily.

According to the WHO, microplastics are a low health concern. I think probably because humans can't digest plastic, they just pass through your system.

 

[wing2000]

According to the WHO, microplastics are a low health concern. I think probably because humans can't digest plastic, they just pass through your system.

....the WHO document is from 2019 and mentions:

The data on the occurrence of microplastics in drinking-water are limited at present, with few fully reliable studies using different methods and tools to sample and analyse microplastic particles.

What does the research of the last 5 years suggest?

 

[Chesterton]

....the WHO document is from 2019 and mentions:

The data on the occurrence of microplastics in drinking-water are limited at present, with few fully reliable studies using different methods and tools to sample and analyse microplastic particles.

What does the research of the last 5 years suggest?

I don't know.

 

[FreeinChrist]

nm

 

[AlexB23]

And who gets to decide what "just the facts" are?

You're already acting like some sort of impartial arbiter of truth by posting longform summaries of all articles. Now you want to have those longform summaries stand uncontested?

Well, we both agree on the water issue. But yeah, it is okay if someone wants to disagree with the article, as long as they don't shoot the messenger.

 

[Laodicean60]

And who gets to decide what "just the facts" are?

The Ministry of Truth?

 

[Pommer]

Of course you can do something. Harmful food additives can be banned, fast food can be regulated, smoking can be discouraged.

I’d settle for the banning of prescription medicines from television.

 

[essentialsaltes]

PFAS. It's not just for drinking water any more.

We've contaminated ourselves, which contaminates our poop, which contaminates the fertilizer made from our poop, that allegedly runs off onto the ranchland. The circle of life!

Texas ranchers say ‘forever chemicals’ in waste-based fertilizers ruined their land​

The fertilizer maker says its products are safe, and that the government supports using it as a valuable practice that recycles nutrients to farmland.

Ames said she found what she later learned were piles of fertilizer made from biosolids, which come from human waste and are full of what researchers call PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”

According to multiple studies and the Environmental Protection Agency, all humans consume PFAS chemicals, which are used to make all sorts of products including shampoo, carpet, frying pans and even makeup. The chemicals end up in our human waste, which is then sent to a wastewater treatment facility. During the treatment, biosolids are created.
Those biosolids, also called sewage sludge, can be used to make fertilizer, which is what a company called Synagro does.

And Synagro has a contract with the city of Fort Worth to use their biosolids to make fertilizer.
Tony Coleman and four other landowners are suing Synagro for the contamination on their land.

Detective Ames said Eurofins Lancaster Laboratory tested the tissue of the cows, fish and horses that died on Coleman’s ranch. She said they found extremely high levels of PFAS in animal tissue. Tests also found it in the well water in Johnson County. Eurofins is a TCEQ state approved certified lab.
“The well water, all the animal tissues tested 100-percent contaminated,” Ames said. “We had 100 percent contamination on these properties.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals​

The company found its own toxic compounds in human blood

Kris Hansen had worked as a chemist at the 3M Corporation for about a year when her boss, an affable senior scientist named Jim Johnson, gave her a strange assignment. [In 1997,] Johnson wanted Hansen to test human blood for chemical contamination.

Several of 3M’s most successful products contained man-made compounds called fluorochemicals. In a spray called Scotchgard, fluorochemicals protected leather and fabric from stains. In a coating known as Scotchban, they prevented food packaging from getting soggy. In a soapy foam used by firefighters, they helped extinguish jet-fuel fires. Johnson explained to Hansen that one of the company’s fluorochemicals, PFOS—short for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid—often found its way into the bodies of 3M factory workers. Although he said that they were unharmed, he had recently hired an outside lab to measure the levels in their blood. The lab had just reported something odd, however. For the sake of comparison, it had tested blood samples from the American Red Cross, which came from the general population and should have been free of fluorochemicals. Instead, it kept finding a contaminant in the blood.

Hansen didn’t want to share her results until she was certain that they were correct, so she and her team spent several weeks analyzing more blood, often in time-consuming overnight tests. All the samples appeared to be contaminated.

In subsequent weeks, Hansen and her team ordered fresh blood samples from every supplier that 3M worked with. Each of the samples tested positive for PFOS.

In the middle of this testing, Johnson suddenly announced that he would be taking early retirement.

...

What Hansen didn’t know was that 3M had already conducted animal studies—two decades earlier. They had shown PFOS to be toxic, yet the results remained secret, even to many at the company.

In 1979, an internal company report deemed PFOS “certainly more toxic than anticipated” and recommended longer-term studies. That year, 3M executives flew to San Francisco to consult Harold Hodge, a respected toxicologist. They told Hodge only part of what they knew: that PFOS had sickened and even killed laboratory animals, and had caused liver abnormalities in factory workers. According to a 3M document that was marked “confidential,” Hodge urged the executives to study whether the company’s fluorochemicals caused reproductive issues or cancer. After reviewing more data, he told one of them to find out whether the chemicals were present “in man,” and he added, “If the levels are high and widespread and the half-life is long, we could have a serious problem.” Yet Hodge’s warning was omitted from official meeting notes, and the company’s fluorochemical production increased over time.