Yet another Hacker News

FDA may allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review

56 points NewJazz 2 hours ago 33 comments

jmclnx 1 hour ago | parent

>many chemicals, especially hormone disruptors linked to brain damage and reproductive harm in children, are considered dangerous at levels far below 0.5ppb

I guess US people are not damaged, dumbed down enough. Now the Trump admin wants to make sure kids are at high risk for brain damage. At least the cuts to colleges by Trump will not matter once TOR hits "critical mass".

rozal 1 hour ago | parent

FDA has been horrible for decades. Trump didn’t make it bad

lisplist 1 hour ago | parent

My car had a few dents in it and leaked oil so I decided the best course of action was to set it on fire.

3eb7988a1663 1 hour ago | parent

FDA was not perfect, so might as well burn the entire thing down?

Surely there is a middle ground, where processes can be improved.

ck2 1 hour ago | parent

it's really hard to pick the first few impeachments based on urgency in preventing further death and destruction

so many clowns to chose from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump

Hegseth, Kennedy and Vought I think would be most productive focus

But if Dems don't get Senate country is doomed anyway so pointless

throawayonthe 1 hour ago | parent

it's weird how they say "One TOR exemption that allows the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate to be used in grain bags..." as well as the article they link to https://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/01/11/fda-perchlorate-in-f... focusing on it being a rocket fuel component

i guess it sounds scary? but it almost implies rocket fuel is somehow involved in grain transport lol. the real reason for its use i guess is to control static electricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate#:~:text=control-,s...

this is like that one time people came to my school to talk about vapes, and one of their talking points was "vapes can contain formaldehyde, and formaldehyde is used to preserve dead specimens/tissue samples" ; they did not get my issue with the lack of causal reasoning in that argument :P

penskymaterial 1 hour ago | parent

When I lived in California I saw one of those prop 65 cancer warnings on a loaf of bread.

Apparently burning toast can generate trace amounts of acrylamide.

This was enough to convince me a subset of these people are complete lunatics.

maxerickson 46 minutes ago | parent

Prop 65 gets a lot of shit, but the way it is implemented makes a reasonable amount of sense. If there is evidence that the substance causes harm, it gets listed and companies producing products that contain it have to either notify consumers that it is in there, or they have to demonstrate that the amount of the substance does not cause harm (there's a very low general threshold and some specific thresholds that are higher).

That leads lots of companies to go the low cost route and use the notification safe harbor, but it also creates an incentive to find alternatives and so on. You get cases like you mention, but the alternative to the evidence based approach is to hand wave that it's not harmful.

CamperBob2 39 minutes ago | parent

No, it doesn't "make a reasonable amount of sense." When everything causes cancer, nothing does. No useful information is being communicated to the consumer.

Meanwhile, the credibility of the scientific establishment in Joe Sixpack's eyes takes another hit, with all-too-predictable consequences.

Retric 18 minutes ago | parent

The flaw in that argument is a great number of chemicals do not cause cancer.

NewJazz 45 minutes ago | parent

That shouldn't be enough. Have you considered that the authors of the law did not foresee the issues like those you mentioned? And struggled to either find ways or prioritize finding ways to better communicate risks?

Note that the state did eventually modify the communications that the law required.

https://oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/crnr/proposition-65-clea...

penskymaterial 23 minutes ago | parent

> Have you considered

No, I didn't consider, I muttered "this is fucking stupid" under my breath and tossed the bread in my cart.

When you dilute the meaning of a warning so much, it becomes meaningless.

NewJazz 15 minutes ago | parent

I agree. The people who made the law that led to that happening might agree. Yet companies might feel the warning is necessary. Where is the lunatic? Just people trying their best acknowledging we can do better.

gucci-on-fleek 55 minutes ago | parent

Or for another example (that's not mentioned in the article), saltpeter and ammonium nitrate can be used in rocket fuel too, but saltpeter has been used in food for thousands of years and ammonium nitrate is one of the most common fertilizers.

techjamie 50 minutes ago | parent

Overexposure to Dihydrogen Monoxide kills around 300,000 people a year, and it's used in a number of culinary and industrial applications. Yet there have been NO serious attempts to regulate it, and it isn't even classed as hazardous waste.

NewJazz 49 minutes ago | parent

I agree the framing is poor, but is the chemical actually safe? The article contained convincing claims that it actually does cause harm.

Still, six months after it published its data, the FDA reapproved perchlorate for use in super sacks. Advocates say the agency used flawed science and manipulated the data. The FDA wrote that there was no meaningful increase in perchlorate across all the 250 foods it measured. But critics countered that the problem was not in all the food – the problem was in kids’ cereal.

The FDA largely ignored the cereal findings, and mostly does not consider endocrine system harms when developing regulations, said Tom Neltner, a former scientist with the EDF who is now director of the Unleaded Kids non-profit. He helped lead litigation over perchlorate, which was ultimately dismissed.

penskymaterial 27 minutes ago | parent

They're worried about the sacks when the coffee beans are being grown in lead- and arsenic-contaminated soil.

NewJazz 17 minutes ago | parent

Uh, isn't that guy even more focused on lead, and this was just an additional case he took on?

https://unleadedkids.org/about-us/

gustavus 51 minutes ago | parent

Wait till they get wind of that toxic dihydrogen monoxide. It is in almost every beverage in the US and is the same chemical used in pesticides, fertilizer, its even used in many toxic waste industrial processes.

Beyond that there are numerous repeated and scientifically proven to cause permanent brain damage or even death in sufficient concentrations. How long will Washington insiders profit while our nation continues to sicken.

swasheck 31 minutes ago | parent

This comment seems detached from the basis of the article. If anything you’re describing the standard MAHA RFKj acolyte

NewJazz 50 minutes ago | parent

I posted this because I thought it both interesting and troubling to see the disconnect between RFK Jr's stated goals and values and his actions in practice. Like many out there, I connected with some of the underlying messages and values that his campaign put forward. However, the more I learn about him and his past, the more I question not just his methods and expertise, but his truthfulness and genuineness.

I would really like to see more policy (from whomever: local, state, federal, judiciary, legislative, executive, red, blue, green, black) that actually accomplishes some of the things that RFK Jr says that he wants to accomplish.

swasheck 33 minutes ago | parent

For me, so many things he said were not rooted in any form of science or verifiable fact so it was always hard to fully accept and endorse his platform. He has always been a snake oil salesperson trading on his surname.

NewJazz 18 minutes ago | parent

Yes, this might be obvious to folks who know a lot. But many folks have limited time or energy to research health topics deeply, even though they care a great deal about outcomes. For me, I'd hear his campaign messaging and flip between tacit agreement and outright disagreement. But the core of the message -- that we deserve to live in a healthier world and be healthier -- deeply resonated.

DonaldPShimoda 16 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, it blows my mind how many people I encounter who say things like "I thought what So-and-So was saying when they were added to this administration seemed reasonable at face value, so I was shocked to later discover their actions were inconsistent with what they were saying."

Like... that's the whole MO of the administration. None of the "reasonable" positions are genuine; they only exist to entice leniency from the gullible. It's been that way since day 1.

NewJazz 13 minutes ago | parent

For me I am not shocked at the behavior of this administration, and I know many other people had a shift in sentiment toward RFK Jr after he joined the Trump campaign in 2024.

shevy-java 31 minutes ago | parent

This is the outcome when you have lobbyists control a government. In this regard the Trump-administration is by far the most hostile to people. You still have to wonder why Trump has a 30% support base; that should be at 0% already but some people can not think on their own (excluding the 5% who benefit personally from the Trump clique).

Havoc 20 minutes ago | parent

The self regulation worked great for Boeing so why not