The current explosion in colorectal cancer among young adults, for example, appears to be at least partly caused by our gut being flooded with microplastics in the food and beverages we consume…
Another reason NOT to vote GOP. This country has become a banana republic where evrything and everyone (by far mainly republicans) are for sale. Look at scotus mess.
Same brand of ignorant and inhumane carpetbaggers are currently ruining/ running the UK. The Conservative & Unionists literally partied upon the corpses of the Covid premature dead.
Apparently OSHA is considering rulemaking. OSHA has established a PEL for dust, referred to as Particulates Not Otherwise Regulated (PNOR).) The PELs for PNOR are as follows: 15 mg/m(3) for total dust and 5 mg/m(3) for the respirable fraction. Must perform a separate evaluation for dust exposure using the PEL for PNOR.
NIH can do its own rulemaking.
In 2014, I was "parliamentarian" for OSHSA rulemaking on silicosis as an administrative law judge for DOL.. If OSHA wants to make a rule, it will have to follow the Administrative Procedure Act rules. I called balls and strikes in hearings when OSHA heard from international experts and industry was given an opportunity to be heard.
Plastic production involves using non-renewable resources such as oil and natural gas, which are often extracted using environmentally destructive methods. The production process also releases harmful greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, contributing to climate change.
The March 2023 issue of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) eNews includes an item announcing publication of an article entitled “ Results of the 2019 Survey of Engineered Nanomaterial Occupational Health and Safety Practices” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. According to the abstract, the survey aimed to understand whether workers follow the recommendations of NIOSH’s Nanotechnology Research Center (NTRC). From September to December 2019, NIOSH worked with RTI International to administer an online survey about workplace safety and health practices related to nanomaterials. The abstract states that 45 U.S. and Canadian companies completed the survey developed by RAND Corporation. More than a third (37.8 percent) of the respondents reported using at least one NIOSH resource to acquire information about safe handling of engineered nanomaterials. The abstract notes that the small number of companies that responded to and completed the survey “is a considerable limitation to this study.” The abstract states that the survey data “are valuable for gauging the reach and influence of the NIOSH NTRC on nano OHS and for informing future outreach, particularly to small businesses.”
Are There Nano- and Microplastics in the Workplace?
Posted on February 19, 2020 by Vladimir Murashov, PhD; Charles L. Geraci, Jr., PhD, CIH, FAIHA ; Paul Schulte, PhD; and John Howard, MD
"Presently there are no occupational exposure limits for nano- and microplastics. In the absence of occupational exposure limits for nano- and microplastics workplace safety efforts should focus on minimizing potential exposure through appropriate engineering controls such as isolation cabinets, exhaust ventilation, and utilizing good industrial hygiene practices."
Efforts at rebalancing the branches of government are needed for sure. Congress can and should restrict the jurisdiction of the courts and precedent value of decisions. This has been a lingering issue in the U.S. system since 1803.
Other countries have solved such issues with concepts such as persuasive precedent and not binding precedent. In Germany court decisions are generally of persuasive precedent value. What that means is that cases are decided for the litigants in front of the court but do not carry binding authority for other litigants. The idea is that general problems in society should be sorted out by the legislature not the courts.
1803. Marbury v. Madison? Stands for the proposition that Article III gets to determine "unconstitutionality." U.S. Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals. It also helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
Persuasive precedent. Sorry but that would mean "black letter law" would stand for nothing and everything would have to be relitigated. We come from a common law tradition. Deutschland does not. I'm originally from Pennsylvania where our law wasn't codified until 1977.
Marbury was a power grab where the constitution was not clear. Can and should be corrected by Congress through jurisdictional reform.
The issue with a common law tradition is that it works well in an agrarian society where only the wealthy landed gentry have access to the legal system. Beginning with the APA (1946) we left a lot of common law behind. The change makes sense because a modern administrative state cannot look like and function like early enlightenment England.
Be careful with what you wish, as it would end fairness in adjudication. I used to say the APA was a mini Constitution. There used to be two schools of thought: Bismarck and deference. These days there's the "Hamburger" school that would find the APA and all of Ad Law unconstitutional. I spoke about it the other day. The Federalist Society has consumed a lot of Hamburger. This looks like an anachronism: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/naalj/vol33/iss1/3/
IMHO Marbury "unconstitutionality" is no different than British law circa 1787.
I had Arthur Bonfield as an admin law professor. Lots of the same ideas about the APA were in his class. He was very clear about the tensions between common law traditions and the APA.
Seems like the Hamburger model is an invitation to a failed state.
Well reasoned analysis on the problem and why it is not addressed.
Two additional points to consider are the risks of aluminum and how a high fiber, starch-based diet may help.
On aluminum, there is research to suggest that the spike in Alzheimer's occurring first with the WWII generation was related to the introduction of aluminum cookware in WWII. Somehow aluminum is suspect in the neuro plaques that are seen in Alzheimer's patients' brains. The TV dinners in the 1960s were in aluminum containers! Strategies are to avoid any cookware made of aluminum and to eat foods containing silica, which seems to have some cleansing effect for aluminum in the body. We also avoid anything like water in an aluminum can.
Following a high fiber, starch-based diet also makes sense. The fiber keeps things moving through the intestines and logically may absorb some of the microplastics. Sticking to starches such as brown rice, beans, potatoes, whole grains, oats, etc. also avoids foods that are less likely to contain microplastics. I am sure that a beef steak has a very different level of microplastics than a bowl of oats.
Industrial and defense policies created the environment of toxic cookware. Farm policy subsidizes toxic food. Both are supported by entrenched interests but we can and should take personal action to avoid the toxicity.
What do you know about the aluminum cans that Americans are addicted to for their beer and soft drinks. I understand that the cans have a lining that is suppose to protect them, but that lining is itself problematic.
I'm thinking of all those plastic bottles of water handed out, especially for disaster relief.
Both good questions. Aluminum cans are lined with a spray coating, often a polymer (i.e. plastic). Some of the coatings contain bisphenol A (BPA), itself a problematic chemical. The coatings are not on the outside or lid where people interact with the beverage if consumed from the can directly.
There are new plastics from plant sources using polylactic acid (PLA), which comes from a fermentation of crops such as corn, sugar cane, etc. These substances are so new that solid research on the biological and ecological fate is not yet fully established.
Moving towards a circular economy of reusable (non-plastic) containers, reduction of packaging, and waste stream segregated recycling is a real necessity and a key part of the ability to reduce microplastics. As an example, the PLA plastics are more biodegradable but require a separate waste stream.
Thanks. I only imbibe one soft drink per day, and that from an aluminum can, It's name is Zevia, it's sweetener is Stevia, made from a relative of the geranium plant. Zero sugars, and unlike Diet (TM) with aspartame soft drinks not addictive, weight gaining and hamful.
Aspatame is a toxic chemical, almost impossible to safely dispose, however Donald Rumsfeld who had been an exec of the Searle was able to get it approved by the FDA for a sweetener.
People drink it because they think i its a diet drink, it isn't, It fools the body into thinking that it has imbimbed sugar, the pancreas floods the zone with insulin, it wipes out the sugar, you become hypoglycemic and gorge on Twinkies and other junk food.
I've stood in lines at the supermarket and watched people with cases, more one, of Diet Soda's, and on top of the cases were cases of Twinkiies or Sno Balls or sugary snack of choice.
I visited my mother in law back in the 1990's and her garage was stacked with Diet Coke case, some full, most empty. I told her that it was addictive and bad for her health, and I ran into usual addictive excuses, denial, rationalizations.. some year later she no longer drinks the stuff, not because of the harm, but because her sole source of income is social security, her withdrawal must have been awful
I know this because I was addicted to alcohol and tobacco.
The doc is clear on this. Why not learn to cook from scratch, more than likely half the people in this discussion room cook mainly from scratch, thats right NO CANS no pre processed foods. Artificial flavor is the monster in the closet. This leads the unknowing to say. This tastes great but in reality it is chemically produced to mimic real spices. Learn to FFFF cook the more you do the better you get and the faster you can fix that meal to eat.
If you have a little strip of land build a raised bed garden using only safe trusted soil and compost...start to grow a few vegees you will feel amazing when you eat what you grow. I can tell you this cause I've had a garden now for 50 years. I'm 75 and mt biking 3 days a week in the warmer weather and feeling great
DR. Gilbert. I am old enough to remember all those aluminum eating items, like canteens and frying pans and plates, which my father's generation used in combat during WWll. They were sold as war surplus in many types of stores for years after the war. Is it possible that those ubiquitous eating items were partially responsible for causing ill effects in that large group of Americans who went to war in those days?
As for Alzheimers, it is now known that the disease does not afflict nearly as many Europeans as Americans. What might be an explanation for this difference?
Differences in aluminum usage might be a factor in incidence rates of Alzheimer's. It was the norm until recently for many drinks such as beer and mineral water to be sold in returnable and reusable bottles. In France some wine is still sold in reusable bottles.
France. We have a very comprehensive list, in every Town/village/city of recycling laws which are sometimes infuriating but I am thankful for them.
We live right next to the Rhone. 5yrs ago a law was implemented that all waterways have crews cleaning and monitoring the water. We have a whole lot more fish now.
Sometimes I think the US Government hate their people.
Unfortunately money has corrupted our political system to the extent that it will be almost impossible to make long lasting changes that actually support human beings in the near future.
I do believe that sometime this will change but I'm afraid that a whole lot of suffering will need to happen to Americans and our system first before we might see it. Then the meek will inherit this Earth once again
This is so very disturbing. Our government should be utilizing TV, radio, social media to put out public service annoucements, educating the people on these issues. At the same time, make the public aware of the safeguards that are in place due to government regulation as well as the lapses in regulation concerning the products we buy and commonly ingest. In other words, less commercials and more educational content. Let's put some extra money into the national budget for this! We, the people need to be informed. Thank you for informing us Thom.
My condolences Thom on your dad passing from mesothelioma. I had a great-uncle, who for decades worked in ship building and construction as a steam pipe fitter that met the same fate.
Thank you for pointing out, in detail, the danger from micro- and nanoplastics to humans and all animals on every spot on earth; the same dangers also exist from PFAS/PFOS chemicals in the environment. I could list/link dozens of essays, publications, and peer reviewed scientific journal articles stating the same, but this is your SubStack, not my lengthy diatribe platform.
With all of the political, election, courtroom drama in the news now, it’s important to keep this issue on the front page too.
While the GQP opposes regulating pretty much everything, there is one area of human endeavor they will do everything possible to prevent from regulation or oversight: anything the purpose of which is making money. Greed must NOT be regulated. Thus saith the plutocrats, hence their well-greased zombie minions in executive and legislative bodies at every level in our country. I am beginning to think we deserve to go down, which is assured if the Orange Excremental gets to return to the White House in November and resume, in a more frenzied way, breaking crockery and flinging poo. As it is, the way our political system operates (I was going to type “works”, but that would be a lie),our country’s outsized impact makes it a malignancy on the planet.
It turns out you are also what you DON'T eat. At least you didn't mean to eat it.
We cannot succumb to the Republican/Libertarian idea that the market will sort-out what is harmful. That has never worked. Corporations should do better when they know better, but they don't, because they are not people. They have no conscience, just cost/benefit ratios.
Concerning your point on Europe's reverse approach, if we had a rational, normal first-world approach to health coverage, we too would realize the corporations get all the benefit and the public gets all the cost. Real people and their real children get all the pain as well.
In my home as a child growing up, my mother cooked veg's and other things everyday in an aluminum pot. Heating water to boil produced a small scum floating on top. Seventy years later, after almost daily use, boiling water in that same old pot produced the same amount of scum. The political protection absolving the aluminum industry of any culpability is an outrageous travesty. The tightly knit right-wing family controlling most of that market, along with the Sacklers, the Quayles, etc. have produced a small holocaust of their own upon a completely misinformed, completely innocent American public. Only proves that wealthy oligarchs, resting high and free above legal culpability, are not a new American reality.
Simply going back to paper and glass is the path of sanity. No doubt the glass industry would be able to make gallon containers thinner but even stronger. Most plastic bags come from rivers from poor countries. Put a cost to the manufactures for each bag found by those willing and able to collect them as I did for bottles as a kid.
Because of the new covid epidemic where 1 in 3 Americans will get infected by the end of January I suggest Biden declare an emergency and give everyone Medicaid for the year and make exporting of raw oil and gasoline illegal only to be waived for gasoline when there is in place a windfall profit act in place.
Again, Tom is on this one like tics to a Moose. So much plastic, what do we expect as a culture and society. We need to go after all the industries using plastic packaging . Beverage industry is the big one. All the manufacturing industry needs to convert asap. While we wait for this conversion.we begin Large law suites filed directly against any and all manufacturers of single use plastic!!! these ying funds need to assist in care and paying damages for cancer patients likely to have overdosed over exposed to microplastics.
If we do not financially go after the manufacturers we will never get ahead of the problem and will only get worse. Lobbyists for the single use plastic industry should also be liable for civil law suites.
There is growing resentment and reaction to the many poisons corporations contaminate their products with, especialy food products. Most can be attributed to simple greed, but the toxic side effects are to corporations acceptable cons, simply part of their recipes, baked in. Recently, Google issued an imperial mandate that prohibited unlicensed medical advice not sanctioned by AMA licensed contributors to pass through their skeins, thus giving to perhaps the most corrupt of all corporate structures--big Pharms and their now bitches the AMA, the FDA, etc.--complete protection from drastically needed debate and provision of free-speech dissention. I could go on. Perhaps the most powerful tool they rely on is the inculcated reflex provided to Joe Sixpact--"conspiracy theory". Calling something "conspiracy theory" cancels all need for thought and consideration, and sets Joe Sixpact free to feel good again quickly, unperplexed and questioned. Corporate powers have spent significantly $$$ and effort to create an unbalancing society of "feel good". These days, moving through all the intellectual wreakage carefully created by corporate manipulators and the politicians they have purchased, I ken carefully those who decry "conspiracy theory" that THEY are not indeed the real conspirators to dismantle dissenting theories.
Cliff.. Thank you so much for your comments and information. I will share it with my friends and on FB! I didn't know about the Soviet Union's plans... but it sure makes sense. They have always wanted a way to get their ships out through the north. WOW WOW WOW! (And read wow not in a good way!)
Thanks for noticing! We're a group of citizen researchers some of whom have been on the project for several decades. I'd love to send you a book that our senior member has just completed 1.5 years ago about this issue. I'm certain that it will fill in even more information gaps and you'll see a lot of Hans Neu efforts throughout the book. Send me an email
I know a lot of people who went down there for their trip of a lifetime, Antarctica tour... and they were all lefties who talked about how much they love the environment. Happily, we have scientists who can relay credible information about what's happening in Antarctica, and we all don't have to go down there to see it, touch it, feel it for ourselves. The time has past to be doing "bucket list" trips like this. We need to protect Antarctica.
We need to protect the poles BOTH of them. ParticuIarIy the North PoIe Arctic
Is heating at a rate 4-5x faster than the rest of our pIanet. This is what scientists are teIIing us. UnfortunateIy what they are not teIIing us is why.
I'm part of a citizen research group. We've combed thru hours of research and archives. Here is what we know now. The Soviet Union announced in 1950 to the United Nations, its intentions to use water vapor emissions from its hydroelectric reservoirs to warm the Arctic. And As early as the 1960’s, the weather data confirmed the success of their experiments.
Hydro-Quebec and Manitoba Electric in the 1970’s and 80’s aIso built huge reservoirs on rivers flowing into James, Hudson and Ungava Bays and the Labrador Sea. With the same outcome as Soviet Siberian hydroelectric plants and their reservoirs. The increased water vapor emissions from these Canadian reservoirs have been just as devastating as the Russian hydropower projects at warming the climate and downstream rivers and coastal currents, including the Inner Labrador Current.
What's really alarming comes from the Canadian Oceanographer, the late Hans Neu, head of oceanography at the Bedford institute in Nova Scotia from 1960S-1980'S. He for a brief few years was contracted by Hydro Quebec to study the affects of storing in sea-size reservoirs major Northern rivers, impounding their waters behind huge dams 500-800' tall thru summertime and discharging the waters only in the wintertime to generate hydroelectricity. Drawing, then discharging water well below the top of these dams here waters were well above freezing then sending water out into the severe cold of the Arctic would create an inexhaustible supply of water vapor.
And from another publication: "Clouds and Precipitation published in "Fire Weather", a publication of the National Wildfire Group. Here. we find:
“The total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is very large. All of this water comes from condensation of vapor in the atmosphere. For each ton of water that condenses (from Liquid to gas)almost 2 million B.T.U.’s of latent heat is released to the atmosphere.”
Please keep in mind that within the subarctic/ Arctic regions, for almost 70 years, many of the major rivers are impounded with multiple dams on them . All summer rates of evaporation emissions are high and water vapor emissions have been enormous due to the temperature differential fom waters heated irradiated for months, then released into sever cold by massive regulated volumes of water discharging WV emissions (heat)all winter throughtout these regions."
Another reason NOT to vote GOP. This country has become a banana republic where evrything and everyone (by far mainly republicans) are for sale. Look at scotus mess.
Same brand of ignorant and inhumane carpetbaggers are currently ruining/ running the UK. The Conservative & Unionists literally partied upon the corpses of the Covid premature dead.
Apparently OSHA is considering rulemaking. OSHA has established a PEL for dust, referred to as Particulates Not Otherwise Regulated (PNOR).) The PELs for PNOR are as follows: 15 mg/m(3) for total dust and 5 mg/m(3) for the respirable fraction. Must perform a separate evaluation for dust exposure using the PEL for PNOR.
NIH can do its own rulemaking.
In 2014, I was "parliamentarian" for OSHSA rulemaking on silicosis as an administrative law judge for DOL.. If OSHA wants to make a rule, it will have to follow the Administrative Procedure Act rules. I called balls and strikes in hearings when OSHA heard from international experts and industry was given an opportunity to be heard.
Plastic production involves using non-renewable resources such as oil and natural gas, which are often extracted using environmentally destructive methods. The production process also releases harmful greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, contributing to climate change.
The March 2023 issue of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) eNews includes an item announcing publication of an article entitled “ Results of the 2019 Survey of Engineered Nanomaterial Occupational Health and Safety Practices” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. According to the abstract, the survey aimed to understand whether workers follow the recommendations of NIOSH’s Nanotechnology Research Center (NTRC). From September to December 2019, NIOSH worked with RTI International to administer an online survey about workplace safety and health practices related to nanomaterials. The abstract states that 45 U.S. and Canadian companies completed the survey developed by RAND Corporation. More than a third (37.8 percent) of the respondents reported using at least one NIOSH resource to acquire information about safe handling of engineered nanomaterials. The abstract notes that the small number of companies that responded to and completed the survey “is a considerable limitation to this study.” The abstract states that the survey data “are valuable for gauging the reach and influence of the NIOSH NTRC on nano OHS and for informing future outreach, particularly to small businesses.”
Are There Nano- and Microplastics in the Workplace?
Posted on February 19, 2020 by Vladimir Murashov, PhD; Charles L. Geraci, Jr., PhD, CIH, FAIHA ; Paul Schulte, PhD; and John Howard, MD
"Presently there are no occupational exposure limits for nano- and microplastics. In the absence of occupational exposure limits for nano- and microplastics workplace safety efforts should focus on minimizing potential exposure through appropriate engineering controls such as isolation cabinets, exhaust ventilation, and utilizing good industrial hygiene practices."
https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2020/02/19/microplastics/
I'm sure the industry will come up with its own experts.
But if the GOP and corrupt SCOTUS get rid of all regulatory agencies there will be no rules. And few choices it seems!
Efforts at rebalancing the branches of government are needed for sure. Congress can and should restrict the jurisdiction of the courts and precedent value of decisions. This has been a lingering issue in the U.S. system since 1803.
Other countries have solved such issues with concepts such as persuasive precedent and not binding precedent. In Germany court decisions are generally of persuasive precedent value. What that means is that cases are decided for the litigants in front of the court but do not carry binding authority for other litigants. The idea is that general problems in society should be sorted out by the legislature not the courts.
1803. Marbury v. Madison? Stands for the proposition that Article III gets to determine "unconstitutionality." U.S. Constitution is actual law, not just a statement of political principles and ideals. It also helped define the boundary between the constitutionally separate executive and judicial branches of the federal government.
Persuasive precedent. Sorry but that would mean "black letter law" would stand for nothing and everything would have to be relitigated. We come from a common law tradition. Deutschland does not. I'm originally from Pennsylvania where our law wasn't codified until 1977.
The idea that we have a weak federal government, in part, is why we had a civil war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_and_Virginia_Resolutions#:~:text=Provisions%20of%20the%20Resolutions,-The%20resolutions%20opposed&text=They%20argued%20that%20the%20Constitution,declared%20unconstitutional%20by%20the%20states.
Marbury was a power grab where the constitution was not clear. Can and should be corrected by Congress through jurisdictional reform.
The issue with a common law tradition is that it works well in an agrarian society where only the wealthy landed gentry have access to the legal system. Beginning with the APA (1946) we left a lot of common law behind. The change makes sense because a modern administrative state cannot look like and function like early enlightenment England.
Be careful with what you wish, as it would end fairness in adjudication. I used to say the APA was a mini Constitution. There used to be two schools of thought: Bismarck and deference. These days there's the "Hamburger" school that would find the APA and all of Ad Law unconstitutional. I spoke about it the other day. The Federalist Society has consumed a lot of Hamburger. This looks like an anachronism: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/naalj/vol33/iss1/3/
IMHO Marbury "unconstitutionality" is no different than British law circa 1787.
I had Arthur Bonfield as an admin law professor. Lots of the same ideas about the APA were in his class. He was very clear about the tensions between common law traditions and the APA.
Seems like the Hamburger model is an invitation to a failed state.
Well reasoned analysis on the problem and why it is not addressed.
Two additional points to consider are the risks of aluminum and how a high fiber, starch-based diet may help.
On aluminum, there is research to suggest that the spike in Alzheimer's occurring first with the WWII generation was related to the introduction of aluminum cookware in WWII. Somehow aluminum is suspect in the neuro plaques that are seen in Alzheimer's patients' brains. The TV dinners in the 1960s were in aluminum containers! Strategies are to avoid any cookware made of aluminum and to eat foods containing silica, which seems to have some cleansing effect for aluminum in the body. We also avoid anything like water in an aluminum can.
Following a high fiber, starch-based diet also makes sense. The fiber keeps things moving through the intestines and logically may absorb some of the microplastics. Sticking to starches such as brown rice, beans, potatoes, whole grains, oats, etc. also avoids foods that are less likely to contain microplastics. I am sure that a beef steak has a very different level of microplastics than a bowl of oats.
Industrial and defense policies created the environment of toxic cookware. Farm policy subsidizes toxic food. Both are supported by entrenched interests but we can and should take personal action to avoid the toxicity.
Thanks Dr Doug.
What do you know about the aluminum cans that Americans are addicted to for their beer and soft drinks. I understand that the cans have a lining that is suppose to protect them, but that lining is itself problematic.
I'm thinking of all those plastic bottles of water handed out, especially for disaster relief.
Are there any safe plastics ?
Both good questions. Aluminum cans are lined with a spray coating, often a polymer (i.e. plastic). Some of the coatings contain bisphenol A (BPA), itself a problematic chemical. The coatings are not on the outside or lid where people interact with the beverage if consumed from the can directly.
There are new plastics from plant sources using polylactic acid (PLA), which comes from a fermentation of crops such as corn, sugar cane, etc. These substances are so new that solid research on the biological and ecological fate is not yet fully established.
Moving towards a circular economy of reusable (non-plastic) containers, reduction of packaging, and waste stream segregated recycling is a real necessity and a key part of the ability to reduce microplastics. As an example, the PLA plastics are more biodegradable but require a separate waste stream.
One store that I learned about during Covid but have yet to visit is Original Unverpackt in Berlin. The retail concept is aimed at making organic food more available by eliminating costly and wasteful packaging. The Guardian did an article in English on this https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/16/berlin-duo-supermarket-no-packaging-food-waste
Thanks. I only imbibe one soft drink per day, and that from an aluminum can, It's name is Zevia, it's sweetener is Stevia, made from a relative of the geranium plant. Zero sugars, and unlike Diet (TM) with aspartame soft drinks not addictive, weight gaining and hamful.
Aspatame is a toxic chemical, almost impossible to safely dispose, however Donald Rumsfeld who had been an exec of the Searle was able to get it approved by the FDA for a sweetener.
People drink it because they think i its a diet drink, it isn't, It fools the body into thinking that it has imbimbed sugar, the pancreas floods the zone with insulin, it wipes out the sugar, you become hypoglycemic and gorge on Twinkies and other junk food.
I've stood in lines at the supermarket and watched people with cases, more one, of Diet Soda's, and on top of the cases were cases of Twinkiies or Sno Balls or sugary snack of choice.
I visited my mother in law back in the 1990's and her garage was stacked with Diet Coke case, some full, most empty. I told her that it was addictive and bad for her health, and I ran into usual addictive excuses, denial, rationalizations.. some year later she no longer drinks the stuff, not because of the harm, but because her sole source of income is social security, her withdrawal must have been awful
I know this because I was addicted to alcohol and tobacco.
The doc is clear on this. Why not learn to cook from scratch, more than likely half the people in this discussion room cook mainly from scratch, thats right NO CANS no pre processed foods. Artificial flavor is the monster in the closet. This leads the unknowing to say. This tastes great but in reality it is chemically produced to mimic real spices. Learn to FFFF cook the more you do the better you get and the faster you can fix that meal to eat.
If you have a little strip of land build a raised bed garden using only safe trusted soil and compost...start to grow a few vegees you will feel amazing when you eat what you grow. I can tell you this cause I've had a garden now for 50 years. I'm 75 and mt biking 3 days a week in the warmer weather and feeling great
My one addition is also to avoid all aluminum in cooking. No foil, no aluminum pans, no aluminum pressure cooker, no aluminum utensils.
DR. Gilbert. I am old enough to remember all those aluminum eating items, like canteens and frying pans and plates, which my father's generation used in combat during WWll. They were sold as war surplus in many types of stores for years after the war. Is it possible that those ubiquitous eating items were partially responsible for causing ill effects in that large group of Americans who went to war in those days?
As for Alzheimers, it is now known that the disease does not afflict nearly as many Europeans as Americans. What might be an explanation for this difference?
Differences in aluminum usage might be a factor in incidence rates of Alzheimer's. It was the norm until recently for many drinks such as beer and mineral water to be sold in returnable and reusable bottles. In France some wine is still sold in reusable bottles.
France. We have a very comprehensive list, in every Town/village/city of recycling laws which are sometimes infuriating but I am thankful for them.
We live right next to the Rhone. 5yrs ago a law was implemented that all waterways have crews cleaning and monitoring the water. We have a whole lot more fish now.
Sometimes I think the US Government hate their people.
Unfortunately money has corrupted our political system to the extent that it will be almost impossible to make long lasting changes that actually support human beings in the near future.
I do believe that sometime this will change but I'm afraid that a whole lot of suffering will need to happen to Americans and our system first before we might see it. Then the meek will inherit this Earth once again
This is so infuriating! THIS should be a big part of Biden’s campaign!
This is so very disturbing. Our government should be utilizing TV, radio, social media to put out public service annoucements, educating the people on these issues. At the same time, make the public aware of the safeguards that are in place due to government regulation as well as the lapses in regulation concerning the products we buy and commonly ingest. In other words, less commercials and more educational content. Let's put some extra money into the national budget for this! We, the people need to be informed. Thank you for informing us Thom.
My condolences Thom on your dad passing from mesothelioma. I had a great-uncle, who for decades worked in ship building and construction as a steam pipe fitter that met the same fate.
Thank you for pointing out, in detail, the danger from micro- and nanoplastics to humans and all animals on every spot on earth; the same dangers also exist from PFAS/PFOS chemicals in the environment. I could list/link dozens of essays, publications, and peer reviewed scientific journal articles stating the same, but this is your SubStack, not my lengthy diatribe platform.
With all of the political, election, courtroom drama in the news now, it’s important to keep this issue on the front page too.
While the GQP opposes regulating pretty much everything, there is one area of human endeavor they will do everything possible to prevent from regulation or oversight: anything the purpose of which is making money. Greed must NOT be regulated. Thus saith the plutocrats, hence their well-greased zombie minions in executive and legislative bodies at every level in our country. I am beginning to think we deserve to go down, which is assured if the Orange Excremental gets to return to the White House in November and resume, in a more frenzied way, breaking crockery and flinging poo. As it is, the way our political system operates (I was going to type “works”, but that would be a lie),our country’s outsized impact makes it a malignancy on the planet.
It turns out you are also what you DON'T eat. At least you didn't mean to eat it.
We cannot succumb to the Republican/Libertarian idea that the market will sort-out what is harmful. That has never worked. Corporations should do better when they know better, but they don't, because they are not people. They have no conscience, just cost/benefit ratios.
Concerning your point on Europe's reverse approach, if we had a rational, normal first-world approach to health coverage, we too would realize the corporations get all the benefit and the public gets all the cost. Real people and their real children get all the pain as well.
In my home as a child growing up, my mother cooked veg's and other things everyday in an aluminum pot. Heating water to boil produced a small scum floating on top. Seventy years later, after almost daily use, boiling water in that same old pot produced the same amount of scum. The political protection absolving the aluminum industry of any culpability is an outrageous travesty. The tightly knit right-wing family controlling most of that market, along with the Sacklers, the Quayles, etc. have produced a small holocaust of their own upon a completely misinformed, completely innocent American public. Only proves that wealthy oligarchs, resting high and free above legal culpability, are not a new American reality.
The right to lifers are pushing more mass extermination. Do not abort that baby, give it warm cow's milk in a plastic bottle?
Simply going back to paper and glass is the path of sanity. No doubt the glass industry would be able to make gallon containers thinner but even stronger. Most plastic bags come from rivers from poor countries. Put a cost to the manufactures for each bag found by those willing and able to collect them as I did for bottles as a kid.
Because of the new covid epidemic where 1 in 3 Americans will get infected by the end of January I suggest Biden declare an emergency and give everyone Medicaid for the year and make exporting of raw oil and gasoline illegal only to be waived for gasoline when there is in place a windfall profit act in place.
Glass is silica.
Again, Tom is on this one like tics to a Moose. So much plastic, what do we expect as a culture and society. We need to go after all the industries using plastic packaging . Beverage industry is the big one. All the manufacturing industry needs to convert asap. While we wait for this conversion.we begin Large law suites filed directly against any and all manufacturers of single use plastic!!! these ying funds need to assist in care and paying damages for cancer patients likely to have overdosed over exposed to microplastics.
If we do not financially go after the manufacturers we will never get ahead of the problem and will only get worse. Lobbyists for the single use plastic industry should also be liable for civil law suites.
There is growing resentment and reaction to the many poisons corporations contaminate their products with, especialy food products. Most can be attributed to simple greed, but the toxic side effects are to corporations acceptable cons, simply part of their recipes, baked in. Recently, Google issued an imperial mandate that prohibited unlicensed medical advice not sanctioned by AMA licensed contributors to pass through their skeins, thus giving to perhaps the most corrupt of all corporate structures--big Pharms and their now bitches the AMA, the FDA, etc.--complete protection from drastically needed debate and provision of free-speech dissention. I could go on. Perhaps the most powerful tool they rely on is the inculcated reflex provided to Joe Sixpact--"conspiracy theory". Calling something "conspiracy theory" cancels all need for thought and consideration, and sets Joe Sixpact free to feel good again quickly, unperplexed and questioned. Corporate powers have spent significantly $$$ and effort to create an unbalancing society of "feel good". These days, moving through all the intellectual wreakage carefully created by corporate manipulators and the politicians they have purchased, I ken carefully those who decry "conspiracy theory" that THEY are not indeed the real conspirators to dismantle dissenting theories.
Cliff.. Thank you so much for your comments and information. I will share it with my friends and on FB! I didn't know about the Soviet Union's plans... but it sure makes sense. They have always wanted a way to get their ships out through the north. WOW WOW WOW! (And read wow not in a good way!)
Hi Tula,
Thanks for noticing! We're a group of citizen researchers some of whom have been on the project for several decades. I'd love to send you a book that our senior member has just completed 1.5 years ago about this issue. I'm certain that it will fill in even more information gaps and you'll see a lot of Hans Neu efforts throughout the book. Send me an email
bcountry@psouth.net If you like I can snail mail a book to your address.
You are right about microplastics, but I was surprised that you went to Antarctica on a carbon intensive vanity trip. Your trip contributed to continued destruction of one of the last remote places on earth just so you could say goodby to it. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/antarctica-tourism-overcrowding-environmental-threat/674600/
I am glad that Thom went down there and actually saw what was really going on. Not too many lefties go down there.
I know a lot of people who went down there for their trip of a lifetime, Antarctica tour... and they were all lefties who talked about how much they love the environment. Happily, we have scientists who can relay credible information about what's happening in Antarctica, and we all don't have to go down there to see it, touch it, feel it for ourselves. The time has past to be doing "bucket list" trips like this. We need to protect Antarctica.
We need to protect the poles BOTH of them. ParticuIarIy the North PoIe Arctic
Is heating at a rate 4-5x faster than the rest of our pIanet. This is what scientists are teIIing us. UnfortunateIy what they are not teIIing us is why.
I'm part of a citizen research group. We've combed thru hours of research and archives. Here is what we know now. The Soviet Union announced in 1950 to the United Nations, its intentions to use water vapor emissions from its hydroelectric reservoirs to warm the Arctic. And As early as the 1960’s, the weather data confirmed the success of their experiments.
Hydro-Quebec and Manitoba Electric in the 1970’s and 80’s aIso built huge reservoirs on rivers flowing into James, Hudson and Ungava Bays and the Labrador Sea. With the same outcome as Soviet Siberian hydroelectric plants and their reservoirs. The increased water vapor emissions from these Canadian reservoirs have been just as devastating as the Russian hydropower projects at warming the climate and downstream rivers and coastal currents, including the Inner Labrador Current.
What's really alarming comes from the Canadian Oceanographer, the late Hans Neu, head of oceanography at the Bedford institute in Nova Scotia from 1960S-1980'S. He for a brief few years was contracted by Hydro Quebec to study the affects of storing in sea-size reservoirs major Northern rivers, impounding their waters behind huge dams 500-800' tall thru summertime and discharging the waters only in the wintertime to generate hydroelectricity. Drawing, then discharging water well below the top of these dams here waters were well above freezing then sending water out into the severe cold of the Arctic would create an inexhaustible supply of water vapor.
NASA research on WV- Steamy Relationships:
How Atmospheric Water Vapor Supercharges Earth’s Greenhouse Effect by Alan Buis, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, February 8, 2022) https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/3143/steamy-relationships-how-atmospheric-water-vapor-supercharges-earths-greenhouse-effect/
And from another publication: "Clouds and Precipitation published in "Fire Weather", a publication of the National Wildfire Group. Here. we find:
“The total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is very large. All of this water comes from condensation of vapor in the atmosphere. For each ton of water that condenses (from Liquid to gas)almost 2 million B.T.U.’s of latent heat is released to the atmosphere.”
Please keep in mind that within the subarctic/ Arctic regions, for almost 70 years, many of the major rivers are impounded with multiple dams on them . All summer rates of evaporation emissions are high and water vapor emissions have been enormous due to the temperature differential fom waters heated irradiated for months, then released into sever cold by massive regulated volumes of water discharging WV emissions (heat)all winter throughtout these regions."