I would never approach any topic (even those I am most knowledgeable or skilled in) with a sense of supreme correctness-- a "you are absolutely wrong, and I am absolutely right" frame of mind. Anyone that does so is blinded by pride and unable to see clearly enough to actually find truth, which requires the consideration of all sides. That said, here's what I found worth responding to.
If there is a clear right or wrong answer with something, I
will approach it from that angle. I did with several points already and will continue to do so if there is a clear defined answer.
There are a ridiculous amount of chemicals in question, I'd be a total idiot to
ever claim that I know about even close to all of them-- I don't. All I know about are ingredients that (after research) I realized weren't really what I wanted to expose myself to. Just to mention a few of the grosser and more common,
Triclosan,
Retinyl palmitate,
Oxybenzone,
Dibutyl Phthalate. There are, of course
many more (of which I'm
sure you know
all about).
Might as well be afraid of everything then. When broken down into it's constituents, many things appear scary and alien. There were some nice infographics going around earlier this year that illustrated this very well; taking an item such as a
chicken egg and showing everything that makes it. To nearly everyone, it's going to be unfamiliar, and some ingredients are legitimately scary (the egg has a few actually). But, are at such low levels it's insignificant. It's not about knowing about every single compound, or even groups of compounds. It's about knowing and understanding what is considered harmful, dangerous, or risky based off quantity, exposure frequency, exposure level, and if any of these are even worth considering. I've sort of already said it, but many things are falsely scary because "they are linked to cancer". You could link cancer to pretty much everything. We use sand (plain ordinary sand) in my lab for covering silica gel (glass dust) so it doesn't move when being used. The bottle of sand, labeled "Sand, Washed and Dried" has a "this product contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer". Yep, for
sand. When someone says something is carcinogenic, 99% of the time, it's nearly meaningless.
Triclosan is actually very interesting, and something I am paying close attention to. It came to prominence to me at the beginning of the year (had a
really great discussion about it too with a professor teaching a class on secondary metabolism at the time too). For decades now we have been using triclosan for pretty much everything antibacterial related. It's a wonderful compound in that manner. So much so that it has been placed in many many consumer products to keep them clean and pathogen free that don't really need them, but can benefit anyway. Truly great at what it does, and in the past has shown minimal to no harmful effects on humans. The biggest issue has actually been overuse and the consequential proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria and organisms (which is a
serious and
dangerous worldwide health threat that is a question of
when, not if. It trumps the issues in this thread topic by thousands of orders of magnitude). However, recent studies have shown that triclosan might not be as safe as it has been thought to be over the past several decades. In light of this, the FDA is going to be (and has been) reviewing it's use, safety profile, and effects. This is a great example of how this all should be done. When there is credible solid evidence to deem something as potentially risky, investigate it further, and determine it. If triclosan is shown to be too bad, then it absolutely should be and will be removed. I actually want to see it's use made far less ubiquitous, however for the reasons of microbial resistance, not potential harm.
Edit: I should have actually clicked the links instead of reading the names.
That's you're source?
Come on. Well gee, they're
certainly not biased and have a clear understanding of what they're dealing with! Classic example of using sources in a shotgun manner (that are terribly formatted, innaccurately laid out, and hard to trace), and organizes information to look official and unbias, but still add conclusions that can't be drawn. I despise places that do this. It's infuriatingly dishonest and preys upon individuals that have limited understanding of what they're dealing with. Places like this should be downright
ashamed of themselves. Granted, I have seen far worse before, but this still falls in the catagory. If you want to understand the risks associated with individual chemicals, read
MSDS's, look at sources that don't have an agenda/bias/intent behind them. Wikipedia is actually a surprisingly good source (most of the time) for chemicals as well. The fact that you used that as your source (and your assumption that I would
actually take it seriously? Yeah right) and examples is extremely telling of where you are with this and your lack of ability to assess and form accurate opinions on these matters.
No offense, but that sounds pretty idealistically naive to me. Espescially in a culture that overdoes and adds excess to
everything (mostly to make money).
Look, even if the risk is
small I don't see the point (or intelligence) in blindly using a product which contains substances I don't recognize. Especially when products that contain much simpler ingredients exist, and do the job just as well.
The truth is that most people don't think twice about what they are using, and that in it'self is a problem.
I don't agree at all. As said above, we do look into the safety profile of chemicals. Is it perfect? No. But it's pretty damn good. I don't see it worth fretting over just because of tenuous risks that very often aren't actually valid. It really is a question of living in excessive caution, or being able to have faith that measures are taken to keep the populous safe. The latter is best acheived through understanding how the process works, and what results from studies actually mean. The fact that people "don't think twice" is a problem, but it's actually one that's understandable. We all have a finite level of energy and effort we can expend into what we do. Many just aren't going to have it in them to take the extra step, and I honestly can't fault them for it. If there were serious risks involved for having inaction, then I would. However, because they are so low to completely absent, I can't. As I pointed out above, there are so many things that many individual might not recognize. Not recognizing a chemical as a reason to not use a consumer product is a pretty bad reasoning in my opinion for most people, due to the fact that this will be so common, and the vast majority of strange named chemicals are totally harmless.
I should offer a sort of a counter point to my argument though. There are things that I do not thing should be on the market or used as the product intends them to be as there are measureable risks, and better alternatives to it. The best example I can think of are flea bombs. Most contain a derivative of the compound
pyrethrin (which, interestingly enough, occurs naturally in the chrysanthemum flower). Pyrethrin itself is actually great. It has poor absorbtion into mammals, it breaks down in environment quickly to harmless by products, and is readily available. They actually used to use ground up chrysanthemum plants long ago as a flea repellent. Modern flea bombs contain chemical deriviatives of pyrethrin though, and that is a problem. I'll use
permethrin as the example since it's one of the more common ones. Like pyrethrin, it has poor absorbtion so exposure is not a problem, usually. The difference (and part of the reason it's an effective flea bomb) is it biopersists. It does not break down in the environment quickly. In the home if used, those who live there will have persistent exposure for months, and this is tangibly dangerous. While most flea bombs have warnings "not to use inside a home" are marked to be used in a home! It's absolutely horrible. I'm glad my mother had the foresight to ask me about this years ago. She's rather chemophobic and had she found out she done this to her home she would have freaked out and had severe psychological effects ontop of very likely physical ones.
Part of me illustrating that above is to show and say that (despite how I appear) I am not "pro chemical" as many would like to label me. I am pro rational approach to chemicals.
No, I don't think Cancer is simple at all-- quite the contrary, as its' causes are many. I do know though, that if I can make choices that remove some of those factors from my life, I will.
Right, and with most traditional physicians, that's extremely rare. I've talked to people (who had things like heavy metal poisoning and hormone imbalances) who went from doctor to doctor for years, trying to get to the bottom of their symptoms and only ever found answers through holistic medicine-- not because holistic physicians are magic, but because they care about the root of the problem enough to battle with insurance companies (and yes, make less money) to get their patients answers. All of the aforementioned has been my personal experience and my opinion (which I am entitled to).
You can make choices to avoid things. Anyone can. Though I am telling you it is a waste of your energy and time overall, on top of unneeded stress and worry. That's great if holistic medicine managed to get to the root of the problem, but the way you explained this makes it sound like physicians don't do this. There entire job is to get to the root of the problem. That is what medicine
is. That's what they're trained to do in medical school. To suggest that they don't is really offensive to the medical community.
A huge issue I take with the holistic practitioners is many of them are not properly educated nor do they have the credentials to taut what they practice in the way they do (sometimes they overtly lie). My mother is
immensely into holistic medicine. She has been seeing a doctor for years now and was constantly talking about her. How great she was, how many of her problems have been solved (they haven't been really, she's partly a hypochondriac), and how knowledgeable she is on medicine. I really thought little of it. She kept telling me for years to go see her, and how she could solve my problems with depression (later correctly diagnosed as Bipolar II, but that's a different matter), what she sees as health issues that I have (when I don't), or might have down the line (which is fear mongering). Thinking it couldn't hurt, and to just placate her a little I did some research and looked her up.
She claims to be a doctor, and she is; a doctor of
chiropractic. She has no formal training or credentials in what she does with her "patients". None. I honestly thought my mother was smarter than that (she's not dumb at all). That she would know better than to avoid these individuals who really don't have understanding of medicine or ailments (it's sadly so common). When I confronted her with this, all she replied with is "well, she said in college she did take a few courses related to medicine". I of course dismissed the discussion and did not go, nor allow it to come up in conversation again. It's incredibly dishonest. This is not the first individual I have encountered with this sort of value towards holistic medicine. Many seem to think credentials aren't that important, or aren't at all. There is a lack of appreciation of flat understanding of what the definition of an expert is. To me that is actually quite disturbing.
Holistic medicine is not clean either, it's not superior to modern medicine (I know you didn't claim it to be, I just need to reiterate it). Everyone has a right to an opinion, but if I think it's wrong and or harmful, I will push against it.
This, I am outright laughing at. Are you not aware of how
nutrient-depleted produce has become because of over-fertilized, pesticide laden soil and other modern farming techniques? Nutrient deficiencies are quite common ideed!
Laugh away, it's no skin off my nose. Besides, it's not right. Nor is it a serious medical threat. If it were a serious problem, we'd be hearing a lot more about it, the FDA and CDC would be stepping in and making notice that something needs to change, because it would be a national health issue that they can do something about. This is also leap of logic. Just because food is deficient in nutrients compared to historical averages doesn't mean that the populous is going to have deficiency problems.
And for the record, the anti-vaccine people are (yes) cray. I think they are starting to come around though, we can hope.
I do agree with someone who posted earlier though, in that we should be seeking safer vaccines (as there
are issues there).
Good to hear. I'm just disappointed that most of the drive to "improve" vaccines is cosmetic and done to satisfy people who refuse them; it's done for PR reasons mostly.
