> Current chlormequat concentrations in urine from this study and others suggest that individual sample donors were exposed to chlormequat at levels several orders of magnitude below the reference dose (RfD) published by the U.S. EPA (0.05 mg/kg bw/day) and the acceptable daily intake (ADI) value published by the European Food Safety Authority (0.04 mg/kg bw/day).
The levels reported in this study are so negligible but it gets a lot more clicks on your study if you present this data as "chlormequat was detectable in X% of samples." Statistically significant but they don't mention the concentration at all in the abstract, which is just as an important finding.
I think they are worried about this. Perhaps the levels are set too high?
> Current chlormequat concentrations in urine from this study and others suggest that individual sample donors were exposed to chlormequat at levels several orders of magnitude below the reference dose (RfD) published by the U.S. EPA (0.05 mg/kg bw/day) and the acceptable daily intake (ADI) value published by the European Food Safety Authority (0.04 mg/kg bw/day).
My two takeaways. The main source in the US seems to be from import and it's several magnitudes lower than acceptable daily intake. This might obviously change, but still reasonable to keep in mind.
The burden of proof is upon those introducing novel substances into my food.
People are going to scream about the cost of remediating all of this (hundreds of billions, if not trillions), but it was just shareholders through limited liability corporations stealing from taxpayers (who will end up with the remediation bill through taxes) by way of the market and government, with enormous aggregate harm a second order effect. So long, and thanks for all the poison.
> The estimated cost to the federal government of cleaning up environmental contamination, referred to as environmental liabilities, was $613 billion in fiscal year 2021. This is an increase from $465 billion in fiscal year 2017.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104744
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/news-and-stories/groundbreaking-... ("Groundbreaking study shows unaffordable costs of PFAS cleanup from wastewater")
https://gispub.epa.gov/oeca/WOS/ ("Superfund Settlements and Work Orders Mapper")
Could you name even one organic implement that is “worse” than the conventional alternative?
Which is such an incredible shame for my country, Canada. It is shameful how often we trade risks to human health for minor production benefits. Canada and the US produce vastly more food than they consume, so the arguments about the necessity to push production efficiency at the cost of health is a non-starter.
America has the worst public health care / food safety system in the industrialized world, and not even a pandemic that killed over a million American citizens resulted in any political pressure to change the system.
Is it just me or are yearly physicals and primary care doctors nearly worthless in practice (not in theory)? For adults, not kids.
Anything truly urgent is better served by urgent care or emergency room. They are useful for referrals for specialists when you actually have a serious issue. The screening you suggest seems like a good idea yet so far beyond the type of care they actually offer.
Its like they are the 1st tier tech support who cant really do anything and exist as a filter.
Lab work is the one area that seems worthwhile. Bloodwork can give you early signals for tons of potential problems.
Initially I thought there was some test involving the combustion of a biopsy sample.
On the other hand, yeah these particular convenience samples seem almost deliberately weird. The entire apparent spike in 2023 seems to correspond to a one-off total switch to buying random bulk urine from Florida.
Perhaps I'm a bad looker-up but I can't find the relative answer (seemingly) in various animal studies linked, outside of noting reproductive issues. Thanks in advance!
More details:
https://www.agdaily.com/insights/dirty-deception-ewg-dirty-d...
Yet nothing has changed, nor should anyone expect otherwise. Big Ag achieved regulatory capture and can afford to delay indefinitely (if not outright stop) any meaningful change from happening.
"Don't ask how the sausage is made" predates any of us still alive by a fair margin
You can dip your hand into a bucket of pure elemental mercury, and you're generally fine (though I wouldn't recommend it if you have open cuts or wounds).
On the other hand, dimethylmercury (an organic compound with mercury in it) will readily absorb through your skin (and latex gloves!) and is so potently toxic that a few drops of the stuff will kill you.
None of this is tob say that synthetic, non-orhanic compounds are in any way certain to be safer. However, organic compounds certainly do have advantages in integrating in the body.
I don't get what you mean with organically derived. Organic chemistry covers a lot of synthetic chemicals. There is no reason to assume that organic pesticides are more readily absorbed by the body. There is also no agreed upon definition of organic pesticides, they are not limited to pesticides synthesized from plants. It also includes several minerals.
They funded a state-of-the-art ecotoxicology research lab next to where I live, that was going to do pioneering work in the field, within a university-industry cooperation framework. As coincidence would have it, once the first results started coming in, there was a lot less interest from the industry in cooperation. The lab now runs at a fraction of its capacity.
But in the case of interaction between substance A and B from different vendors, who's responsible?
More than straight up synthetic nitrogen fertilizer? Or any of the many other commonly used inputs that stick around for way longer than the organic alternatives?
You sound like you’re not convinced that I actually do this for a living, and continue to make up a reality that suits your preconceptions.
Here’s a source that doesn’t fit your buddy’s description…
Along the central coast of California, conventional strawberry growers apply chemicals like methyl bromide, an internationally banned substance that is no longer being manufactured, but is stockpiled for exemptions to the ban, which these growers exploit. Alternatively they have been experimenting with methyl iodide and other hardcore synthetic chemicals. They hire undocumented laborers to apply them.
Organic strawberry growers, on the other hand, use crop rotation of a brassica crop as a bio-fumigant, and they grow rows of alfalfa as a trap crop where pest infestations can be literally vacuumed up with a tractor implement.
In this case, there is a huge difference.
It is true that the National Organic Program is a joke, since they let the board get taken over by corporate big ag long ago. That doesn’t mean “it just makes people feel good and there is virtually zero difference”. In some cases it does, but to paint the whole thing as such is denying the larger reality.
The national program is the one that matters, right? Most people consuming organic produce in the US are affected by this. Isn't that the larger reality? The people who know and buy from their local organic strawberry farmer has to be the .0001 edge case.
It is at the same time also much less adherent to the philosophy of organics than it could be.
Both are true at the same time. The standards are weakened by big ag, but they are still much less toxic and polluting than conventional standards (or lack there of)
?
You are an organic strawberry farmer?
Not currently focused on strawberries, but cannabis has a similar story. The organic alternatives, even the hardcore ones, are less toxic and have much less residual than what is regularly used in conventional agriculture.
But at least naively, these all seem like the least concern: Fairly well behaved nutrient stuff like phosphate rock, nitrates, sulfur, etc.; while all the concerning compounds are synthetic or semisynthetic (besides arsenic lead etc. which have been out of use for a long time right?!)
AFAIK there is no natural source for most of the concerning pesticides/herbicides like glyphosate, chlormequat, paraquat, aminopyralid, maybe synthetic/semisynthetic pyrethrenoids etc. while the much smaller list of "natural" pestidides (pyrethrum, any others?) aren't concerning because they degrade quickly etc.
But I'm also assuming here that "approved for organic use" means "the substance can be trivially extracted from natural sources" which might not be true
But locally I've visited some of the small farms we buy produce from, and they use very minimal sprays, or none at all and instead plant companion plants that attract the pests to them instead of the main crop.