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Well, it used to be safe ...
emnmnme
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Registered User regular
There was a really great photo in an older National Geographic of two kids on the beach running through a cloud of DDT. They didn't look too concerned that a pesticide was being sprayed into the air a few feet from where they were playing - hell, they grownups in the photo, who may have been the kids' parents, were staring and smiling. I found a few pictures with a similar scene on google but not this particular one from NG.
Anyways, the image gets one to thinkin' about all the things people used to think were safe until their evening news told them otherwise. It's hindsight from a vantage point fifty years in the future but there were building managers that thought asbestos was harmless, home owners who embraced lead paint and lead chromates, and consumers who thought smoking was doctor recommended so long as one bought the right brand of smokes.
Then twenty years ago, we find out the Nutrasweet in our colas and the SweetNLow in our iced teas were giving cancers to lab rats. Johnnie Cochran was using his mobile phone daily and tanning beds were the bee's knees even with the whispers floating around at the time suggesting they weren't good for you. People thought it was safe because it was sold on stores or advertised on TV, I guess.
Not that we, today, are any better off. If it's not Alieve giving us heart attacks or trans fats clogging our systems, artificial tire reefs are mucking up natural reefs and microwave ovens are 'breaking' the vitamins in food. The butter fumes from popcorn cause lung cancer? We all knew popcorn was junk food but, damn.
Anyways, the image gets one to thinkin' about all the things people used to think were safe until their evening news told them otherwise. It's hindsight from a vantage point fifty years in the future but there were building managers that thought asbestos was harmless, home owners who embraced lead paint and lead chromates, and consumers who thought smoking was doctor recommended so long as one bought the right brand of smokes.
Then twenty years ago, we find out the Nutrasweet in our colas and the SweetNLow in our iced teas were giving cancers to lab rats. Johnnie Cochran was using his mobile phone daily and tanning beds were the bee's knees even with the whispers floating around at the time suggesting they weren't good for you. People thought it was safe because it was sold on stores or advertised on TV, I guess.
Not that we, today, are any better off. If it's not Alieve giving us heart attacks or trans fats clogging our systems, artificial tire reefs are mucking up natural reefs and microwave ovens are 'breaking' the vitamins in food. The butter fumes from popcorn cause lung cancer? We all knew popcorn was junk food but, damn.
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You always hear people joke about how "everything gives you cancer these days" and it seems like that's true. There are obviously dangers in exposure to chemicals, and prolonged/frequent exposure can't be good for you. But are the risks real? I mean to say, how much butter am I going to have to put on my popcorn before I get lung cancer?
Are we just looking for the next health crisis to be afraid of?
*If you drink something like a gallon of it a day.
Hell, you don't even have to prove things are dangerous for people to be afraid of them. You're not going to build your house underneath large powerlines and you're not going to gorge yourself on genetically modified foods. The experts say there's no long-term problem but, hell, this is America - we're scared of everything.
I guess everybody likes to be afraid of the next killer chemical, but it’s not like it was any less dangerous before.
Correct.
As an aside, we've been eating frankenfoods for a very long time. We just modified them on a different level.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
So saccharine doesn't cause cancer?
Eh, everything is linked to cancer these days. Too much protein from meat causes cancer. Too much exposure to light (people working night shifts) causes cancer. Second hand smoke causes cancer. Stress causes cancer. Bad genes cause cancer. Not everything is a proven carcinogen but it sure feels like it when everything's being scrutinized and presented in news articles.
In fifty years, someone will prove breathing the air in urban areas causes cancer. ;-)
How unfair. They should totally do something about that.
I watched a news segment the other day that pretty much scared the shit out of me. You see, our honey bees are dying off at rapid pace. This matters because honey bees are what are responsible for pollination, and thus, food.
My opinion is that the new insecticides we're using are fucking them up hardcore, and no one is doing anything about it yet.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_4557.cfm
I'm pretty sure I've consumed my share of YD#5, and I still managed to knock up a woman with a single gimpy ovary who was on the pill at the time. I'm not worried.
Generally speaking, everything will kill you. I'm pretty convinced that literally everything you can stick in your mouth, wear on your body, or sit next to in your living room is linked to some horrible disease. I really don't give a shit - I would rather live 60 years not stressing out about using the right fake butter on my popcorn than live 80 years in a plastic bubble.
Yeah, I'll avoid asbestos and refrain from licking lead-painted walls, fine. But aside from the most egregious offenders, just let me live in happy ignorance.
sigged
It is the way I've lived my life for the last couple years and I couldn't be happier.
Which is great, but now it looks like your sig says:
Would just like to point out, that it could be safe in the case of DDT depending on the concentration used. If it's an older National Geographic article then yes it was probably back in the day before the 1972 ban when its concentrations were atrocious (even then there's yet to be a study linking DDT exposure to detrimental side-effects in humans that's been able to be reproduced, unlike the breast milk DDT link that gets bandied about), but with modern day spraying of DDT the concentrations used tend to be so minute that there isn't even any impact to the surrounding ecological environment.
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Cancer comes in so many varieties anyways. It's a very natural cause of death in a way, caused by abnormal conditions.
What would worry me more was if noone anywhere was getting cancer. individually, it is a horrific experience, but as a species, cancer seems like a perfectly normal cause for deaths right?
of course we could change our lifestyles and reduce the risk of cancer. but you can never reduce it to 0. the very fact that you live on earth, bombarded by radiation, naturally occuring toxins and all sorts of oxidising foods and environments means you have a chance of getting cancer anyways.
cancer is just a biological response to the universe.
the more humans come into contact with a more diverse range of things, with a much more varied diet, living conditions and habits, the more cancer occurs.
also, coupled with the fact that it is only recently that cancer has been studied so extensively (im talking 100 years or so), many previously 'unknown' causes of death that were called other things have been identified as a form of cancer.
coupled with a vastly improved healthcare system, globally, compared to years ago, cancer detection rates and treatment is improving constantly. meaning the publics perception that 'everything causes cancer' is accurate. because everything does. thats part and parcel of existing on earth. what annoys me is the ridiculous hyperbole that everything that does cause cancer is somehow guaranteed to cause it.
the amount of substances you would have to consume to even reach a 1% chance of cancer is astromomical.
there are people living today who were a matter of hundreds of metres from ground zero at hiroshima who dont have any cancer at all. a remarkable documentary i saw a week or so ago showed that a womans only injuries from the blast was a loss of the use of one eye, unshielded from the light of the explosion. she doesnt have cancer, after being bombarded with ludicrous radiation levels for a prolonged period of days in the blast zone.
people thinking if they drink too much sprite are going to somehow get massive tumours all over their body need to wake up and realise that if they do get cancer, it is far more likely caused by something else than the soda they drink.
Your post made me think of a pretty appropriate simile.
Essentially, attempting to avoid or remove every possible cancer-causing agent would be like banning all beverages on a cruise ship because you're afraid they might sink it.
I'll be fine, just give me a minute, a man's got a limit, I can't get a life if my heart's not in it.
60 Minutes accused Trasylol of causing renal failure recently, too.
And wasn't there a topic about fluoridated tap water here on D&D a few months back?
The Hiroshima woman survived because cancer comes from random mutations, so there is a chance to get away w/ nothing. Considering that this is one woman out of millions, it doesn't seem all that surprising.
While cancer is natural, it could be said that getting stabbed through the heart is heart failure (electricity is more obvious, but less fun), and that consuming carcinogens is like adding an extra bullet (or, in the case of some things, four) to your the Russian roulette of life.
DDT was misused. Retarded farmers were not diluting the cidal agent properly and ended up poisoning the environment. DDT was and would be the most effect agent to combat malaria.
Do you know what the most harmful disease in the world is?
My overall point is that the population should be informed to harmful chemicals, but should also be informed that many chemicals are used irresponsibly.
Exactly. But I think the point everyone is making is that while you can remove bullets out of your 'gun' of life, you will always have one.
And worrying about the bullets can add bullets.
Of course certain activities increase cancer risk. But 95% of these 'cancer warnings' on products, on food etc is a protection from lawsuits.
For example: I am allergic to peanuts. Extremely in fact. So much so that I have only every consumed one peanut in my life. A single peanut M and M. I was in shock and a coma for a week and 3 days.
From one M and M.
And yet since then, I have never once paid attention to these 'This product may contain traces of nuts' warnings on id guess 80% of the food I eat. im lucky i cook most of my food rather than eating out.
however, Ive seen people who have the same allergy as me take it seriously. they stress so much over it that they cant eat anything normal, import in special nut free foods, cant go to restaraunts at all. heck, one girl said she couldnt kiss her boyfriend because he had eaten a snickers the day before. no joke.
could my allergy get me one day? sure.
is my life improved by not giving a shit? hell yes.
Viruses cause cancer.
Mutations in DNA cause cancer.
Carcinogens cause cancer.
Immune compromise causes cancer.
Epigenomics cause cancer.
You have cancer in your body right now.
Your immune system is just strong and healthy and able to destroy the cancerous cells or your genes still have integrity.
I haven’t watched that particular video, but he gave a much longer presentation at Google about extending human life. It was on Google Video but I can’t find it now, and I’m off to eat.
For example, way back when in the first grade, my mom told me not to leave my block. I would. She got comfortable with that, but don't go across the river at the edge of the neighborhood. I would. Then it was stay on this half of town. Don't take your bike all the way to the Wal-Mart at the other end of town. Don't drive into Madison. Don't drive into Milwaukee. Don't drive too far into Milwaukee. Now I've gone clear out to Lake Michigan with no ill effect and we're up to 'don't drive into Chicago'. Every time, I was told of the dangers of traveling too far, but every time I weighed the risks, made the decision to go ahead with it, and the only ill effect I've ever had was a punctured bike tire at Wal-Mart.
WRONG
god, I hate seeing this bandied about. DDT resistance emerged too quickly in target populations for it to be useful for more than a decade. Its ban was almost an afterthought, it was already becoming useless in huge areas of the globe. Single-simple-molecule, high-toxicity solutions like DDT always wind up going down that path. Its the nature of the beast.
Far more effective (and lasting) are the larval biological warfare type treatments emerging now. You breed up a barrel of teeny critters that prey on mozzie larvae, you spray them everywhere during breeding season, hey presto. Sprays that screw with the surface tension of water, making it hard for mozzies to breed at all, are popular here. There's a bunch of other quite innovative solutions in the pipeline. DDT isn't going to magically save the planet. And yes, it does fuck up the ecosystem, even in relatively small doses. Its called bioaccumulation, look it up.
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To address the OP, I think this is more about shitty reporting than anything else. Most of those studies find that substance X increases the risk of developing cancer by a certain factor. They don't "give you cancer". That risk factor is in some cases substantial enough to pay attention to, but in many other cases you're going from 0.0005% risk to 0.0006%. Somehow, these little tidbits magically get left out of "science journalism". Largely because media outlets use fear as a carrot to keep you watching. Its already solid fact that the more TV news you watch, the more you overestimate how dangerous the world around you is. I don't see any reason medical and science reporting would be different to the crime report.
(smacking FCC very, VERY hard with something very, VERY heavy)
Please do everyone a favor and don't trot out discredited bullshit. It just makes you look like an idiot.
Tell your micro teacher to stop fluffing Steve Milloy.
I hope you aren't saying that malaria isn't the number one killer, though.