HuffPost Detroit

[Goose]

it will be good to have a liberal perspective on issues here in Detroit..... hard to find around here....

[JBMcB]

The Huffington Post has somewhat interesting articles now and then, but they veer yellow too often for my taste. And the Oprah inspired health section is just awful.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sloan-..._b_995154.html

OH NOES there are "toxins" in your body!!! Chemicals, chemicals everywhere!

[Downtown Lady]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sloan-..._b_995154.html

OH NOES there are "toxins" in your body!!! Chemicals, chemicals everywhere!

Do you think that rampant cancer is just a coincidence?

[p1acebo]

Do you think that rampant cancer is just a coincidence?

Rampant cancer is a combination of a number of things. Our processed foods, the fact that we are living much longer than we use to, and the over use/abuse mentality our culture has [[over eating, smoking too much, drinking too much). However, you can't really pin it on one fact not to mention there is no proof that having these prenatal "toxins" is a cause for predisposed cancer.

More over, most of the cancer that children develop is genetically inherited and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the enviroment [[i.e. ALL, different forms of brain cancer, etc).

So yes, the article is bogus and pseudoscience in an attempt to grasp the attention of worried mothers. Scaring people into believing something that is unproven seems to be the American way.

[Downtown Lady]

Rampant cancer is a combination of a number of things. Our processed foods, the fact that we are living much longer than we use to, and the over use/abuse mentality our culture has [[over eating, smoking too much, drinking too much). However, you can't really pin it on one fact not to mention there is no proof that having these prenatal "toxins" is a cause for predisposed cancer.

The article is about toxins in general, it only briefly mentions prenatal toxins. I agree that cancer being so widespread is a combination of a number of things, including everything you mentioned plus our exposure to so many chemicals. I am not pinning it on one fact.

So yes, the article is bogus and pseudoscience in an attempt to grasp the attention of worried mothers.

from the article:
• Of the 80,000 chemicals permitted in the U.S., the EPA required testing of only 500.
• Every day, 42 billion pounds of chemicals are produced or imported -- we don't know the health risks of 75 percent of them.

It is certainly your right to be so dismissive; I just don't choose to be so close-minded.

Scaring people into believing something that is unproven seems to be the American way.

The irony here is that the safety of these thousands of chemicals is what is absolutely unproven.

My apologies to the original poster for participating in this threadjacking.

[p1acebo]

The article is about toxins in general, it only briefly mentions prenatal toxins. I agree that cancer being so widespread is a combination of a number of things, including everything you mentioned plus our exposure to so many chemicals. I am not pinning it on one fact.

from the article:
• Of the 80,000 chemicals permitted in the U.S., the EPA required testing of only 500.
• Every day, 42 billion pounds of chemicals are produced or imported -- we don't know the health risks of 75 percent of them.

It is certainly your right to be so dismissive; I just don't choose to be so close-minded.



The irony here is that the safety of these thousands of chemicals is what is absolutely unproven.

My apologies to the original poster for participating in this threadjacking.

First of all, the burden of proof is on the researcher, not for an unknown to be presumed pathogenic. Keep in mind anyone can manipulate numbers and findings to work in whatever fashion they please. If we took an MRI, CBC, or any other diagnostic test of every healthy person in the United States you would find plenty of abnormal values in otherwise healthy people.


And when you talk about safety, if you truly believe that all of these "chemicals" are so pathogenic then you should probably move to a different country because things are not changing anytime soon in the United States. Quiet frankly people don't understand how the body can handle as many non organic molecules as it does, yet you don't see EVERY person in the United States develop cancer. Wouldn't you expect this if you are so sure all of these foreign substances are the cause of cancer. News flash, we are living longer, cancer is a degenerative disease for the most part. Technically, someone could live the healthiest possible live and at the end of the day they will develop cancer if they live longer enough due to telemerase break down which has nothing to do with external interactions.

And additionally, if anything you are the one being close-minded. Do you keep up to date on reputable medical journals? Have you attended lectures describing the mechanisms of many of these cancers that ACTUALLY have had extensive studying done on them? Do you even have a background in basic physiology and pathology? I highly doubt it. To me it seems like you want to put faith in an article that is distributed in mass media that has no real scientific backing behind it.

I could potentially go on and on about this but we kind of already hijacked the threat which is rude... however it just really bothers me when people try to stand on a soap box about something when they don't know what they are talking about. This is how false information gets spread.

[Downtown Lady]

P1acebo, you have a hell of a lot of nerve to complain about somebody being on a soapbox when you are doing the exact same thing.

You say I can't prove the chemicals are unsafe, I say you can't prove that they are safe. You live your life however you want and I will do the same.

I find it amusing that I am considered close-minded just because I don't agree with you, because I don't accept wholesale that these thousands of random, untested chemicals that we are breathing and eating are perfectly fine.

[It reminds me of the people hundreds of years ago who were "close-minded" because they didn't agree that the earth was flat.]

Years ago people scoffed at the notion that asbestos was unsafe, and how many people have died unnecessary deaths from mesothelioma?

The suggestion to move to another country is moronic. A practical plan of action would be to avoid what is avoidable: aspartame, monosodium glutamate, mercury, aluminum, fluoride, BPA, triclosan, non-organic produce [[pesticides) and genetically-modified foods [[pesticides have been bred into the food) is a good place to start.

Finally, how the hell do you have the right to assume that I have done no research except to put my faith in *an* article [[singular)?

You live however you want and I'll do the same.

[JBMcB]

The irony here is that the safety of these thousands of chemicals is what is absolutely unproven..

This statement belies your ignorance on the topic. People throw around the term "chemical" without knowing what it is. Water is a chemical. Table salt is a chemical. Chlorophyll is a chemical. Any substance with a homogenous set of physical properties is a chemical.

Also, nearly every chemical is toxic once you reach a certain dosage. You can get water poisoning. Pretty much every vitamin is toxic at a certain level.

Add to that, it's not only the chemical but how it's compounded. Table salt is made up of two incredibly toxic elements - chlorine and sodium. As a compound they are relatively harmless. But your body needs a certain amount to survive.

[Downtown Lady]

This statement belies your ignorance on the topic. People throw around the term "chemical" without knowing what it is. Water is a chemical. Table salt is a chemical. Chlorophyll is a chemical. Any substance with a homogenous set of physical properties is a chemical.

Also, nearly every chemical is toxic once you reach a certain dosage. You can get water poisoning. Pretty much every vitamin is toxic at a certain level.

Add to that, it's not only the chemical but how it's compounded. Table salt is made up of two incredibly toxic elements - chlorine and sodium. As a compound they are relatively harmless. But your body needs a certain amount to survive.

Oh, do you mean like when two hydrogen atoms combine with one oxygen atom? Or when Na combines with Cl?

Uh, thanks...I learned all of that in high school chemistry just like you did. I don't know if you thought your post would be some exciting new information for me?

Some reading on this subject might be beneficial to you, instead of just deciding that you know the unknown -- the effects of thousands of untested chemicals. That, to me, belies ignorance.

And plenty have been studied and show a clear link to health problems. Just for kicks open your eyes and see what the studies say.

I understand about dosage, and yes, I even know about water poisoning. I'm talking about the cumulative effect of long-term exposure to a seemingly innocuous daily dosage.

An example is the carbonation in pop. When transported on its own, the truck carrying the carbonation is required to display a hazardous material sign. Now, when mixed with the other ingredients in pop, what other ingredient do you suggest neutralizes that hazard? When mixed with caffeine or caramel coloring or corn syrup is suddenly the carbonation no longer hazardous?

And the carbonation in pop is now being linked to esophagus cancer. What I'm saying is that people consume this daily for decades and call it safe, and then don't see the causation when they develop cancer of the esophagus.

[JBMcB]

Do you think that rampant cancer is just a coincidence?

These types of articles started popping up en masse about fifteen years ago, when new, super-sensitive models of mass spectrometers came on the market. They can detect as little as a few molecules of a substance in a given compound. You can find trace amounts of just about any compound known to man just about everywhere - from man-made and natural sources. Notice that they never say how *much* of a "toxin" was found - that's because it is usually such an insignificant amount that it wouldn't be worth writing an article about otherwise.

In any case, our average life expectancy keeps climbing and climbing...