FDA may allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review

163 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by NewJazz
(theguardian.com)

75 Comments

NewJazz

6 hours ago

I posted this because I thought it both interesting and troubling to see the disconnect between RFK Jr's stated goals and values and his actions in practice. Like many out there, I connected with some of the underlying messages and values that his campaign put forward. However, the more I learn about him and his past, the more I question not just his methods and expertise, but his truthfulness and genuineness.

I would really like to see more policy (from whomever: local, state, federal, judiciary, legislative, executive, red, blue, green, black) that actually accomplishes some of the things that RFK Jr says that he wants to accomplish.

swasheck

6 hours ago

For me, so many things he said were not rooted in any form of science or verifiable fact so it was always hard to fully accept and endorse his platform. He has always been a snake oil salesperson trading on his surname.

DonaldPShimoda

6 hours ago

Yeah, it blows my mind how many people I encounter who say things like "I thought what So-and-So was saying when they were added to this administration seemed reasonable at face value, so I was shocked to later discover their actions were inconsistent with what they were saying."

Like... that's the whole MO of the administration. None of the "reasonable" positions are genuine; they only exist to entice leniency from the gullible. It's been that way since day 1.

selectodude

5 hours ago

I find it to be even worse. They’d say exactly what they were going to do and between the stupidity of voters and the sane-washing from the media, people simply did not believe them! And then you ask them now and they say they didn’t vote for this! Yes, you very literally did. Nothing about what ICE is doing was a secret or a surprise.

ryandrake

4 hours ago

How many times did we have to hear "Oh, he's just joking. Of course that's not what he really means!" over the last 10 years?

unethical_ban

4 hours ago

I remember talking with my mom about Trump's immigration policies. They were saying they wanted to round up every undocumented immigrant. They were saying they wanted to go out and find them and do what they've done. I told her I had friends who, despite being citizens, were fearful for themselves being identified as "not white enough". My mom said "They're only going to go after the violent ones". Which is not at all what the campaign or his cabinet said. It was wishful thinking and lies said on the right-wing networks, mixed with problematic stories of the occasional undocumented immigrant who was a repeat offender let out by city processes.

It's a lot of things, but one thing this admin does is take a reasonable grievance that requires reasonable change, and amplify anger in order to take drastic measures for their own benefits and ideology.

mindslight

3 hours ago

> one thing this admin does is take a reasonable grievance that requires reasonable change, and amplify anger in order to take drastic measures for their own benefits

Spot on! The people who actually care the most about the issues the regime champions should really be their loudest critics! Instead they seem to be content just "being heard" or "owning the libs"? They'd better be enjoying it while it lasts, because what it's actually doing is burning (arbitraging) all the political capital that these issues had accumulated.

Like despite being pretty ambivalent about it, I don't want to hear a peep about "immigration enforcement" for the next decade - its proponents had their moment, they had their mandate, and they mostly just squandered it on having an anti-Constitutional tantrum.

> ... and ideology

The only ideologies I've found to line up with the regime's actions are 1. self-enrichment, 2. anarcho-capitalism, 3. malevolent foreign influence, 4. religious fundamentalism. 2/3/4 are essentially all just aimed at destroying the government/society for different reasons.

NewJazz

6 hours ago

For me I am not shocked at the behavior of this administration, and I know many other people had a shift in sentiment toward RFK Jr after he joined the Trump campaign in 2024.

burnte

5 hours ago

He testified in court his brainworm had damaged his brain so much he could not reliably work and pay alimony to his ex wife. I don't think it's too much to say people who have had debilitating brainworn infections should not be in charge of public health.

pvaldes

23 minutes ago

Why blame brainworm? With all the drugs that he has taken as young his brain is guaranteed to be melted cheese by now.

What was the purpose of putting this man at charge if not punishing citizens? All this people are foreign agents.

mindslight

3 hours ago

"Today's mission is for you to go to the brain slug planet ... Just walk around not wearing a helmet"

To be fair, it's the same type of self-perpetuating destruction they've been playing with education the whole time.

NewJazz

6 hours ago

Yes, this might be obvious to folks who know a lot. But many folks have limited time or energy to research health topics deeply, even though they care a great deal about outcomes. For me, I'd hear his campaign messaging and flip between tacit agreement and outright disagreement. But the core of the message -- that we deserve to live in a healthier world and be healthier -- deeply resonated.

stouset

an hour ago

Maybe if you care deeply about outcomes, you should expect to want to have a minimum level of familiarity with that topic before weighing in on it.

Maybe it should be generally accepted that to gain a minimum level of familiarity on a topic, you should prioritize hearing from scientists and experts in the field, rather than influencers and political actors.

estearum

3 hours ago

A good heuristic for identifying a piece of shit might be: is he allied with an adjudicated rapist and convicted fraudster?

Even more informative in this case: did he sell his endorsement to said rapist/fraudster in exchange for a cabinet position?

You could know literally zero percent of anything about anything in the world and know that this is not a person to be trusted.

Shame on you. Glad you’re opening your eyes now, but it’s your shame to wear now too.

mulderc

5 hours ago

Everyone agrees and wants a healthier world and for people to be healthier. What RFK has been spouting for as long as I can remember would be the opposite of that. His stance on vaccines has always been clearly crazy and not based on the best available evidence.

nhgiang

27 minutes ago

Denial is truly sad to see

BrandoElFollito

2 hours ago

What are the positive things he wanted to accomplish?

Note that I am French so this question is because over here he has always been seen as a conman

watwut

5 hours ago

> RFK Jr's stated goals and values and his actions in practice.

His long term goals and opinions are 100% consistent with his current actions and decisions.

> would really like to see more policy (from whomever: local, state, federal, judiciary, legislative, executive, red, blue, green, black) that actually accomplishes some of the things that RFK Jr says that he wants to accomplish.

You are getting that and seeing that. Including measles and sick people dying more.

MathMonkeyMan

4 hours ago

True, but recognize the spin. Pretend that in the last election you were skeptical of the reigning government medical establishment and you did buy into some of the conspiracies, or at least thought they had some element of truth. Assume you were wrong and that you have good enough presence of mind to now feel duped.

I was always team "RFK Jr clearly bad," but to be honest I didn't put much work into forming that opinion.

doctorpangloss

5 hours ago

It's complicated in that the fed gov agencies are so big and the top down bossing-around they are trying to do isn't very effective.

It's better to focus on the simple facts about RFKJR, he cares about celebs and cocktail parties, he doesn't really care about leadership or running a health agency.

morkalork

6 hours ago

No matter how genuine and truthful he may or may not be, it was all over the moment they made him eat the McDonald's burger on airforce one for that photo op.

midtake

5 hours ago

Humiliation ritual

krapp

5 hours ago

Over for whom?

andyjohnson0

4 hours ago

Moral Foundations Theory [1] asserts that socially conservative people particularly value concepts of sanctity and purity - particularly when associated with their own bodies. Hence vaccine refusal, mask refusal and belief in conspiracy theories during the pandemic, etc.

I've long suspected the RFK jr's role is simply to exploit that for his, and his political owner's, benefit. Thata all. The man has no redeeming qualities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory

midtake

5 hours ago

I rather like the MAHA messaging, particularly when they claim that Europe has safer food standards and we have to catch. It disappoints me that RFK Jr might just be either corrupt or a useful idiot to chemical companies.

stouset

an hour ago

Might I suggest you listen to scientists and food safety experts rather than members of a political movement just because you like their messaging?

What you are seeing today is the inevitable and wholly consistent outcome of putting the messaging of MAGA into practice.

talon8635

28 minutes ago

The person you are responded to is offering a very reasonable line of thought that you yourself might not disagree with (seeing as you didn’t even respond to the point): “EU has better regulations, we should follow those”.

And you’re response, like many others here, is basically “you’re dumb”

That type of bad faith divisiveness will keep us locked into a political tension that continues to allow charlatans to gain power by taking advantage of desperate people.

Most people are good, and most people want the same basic things (good economy, fair pay, peace, good outcomes for their family and children). It would be wonderful for people to focus more on these commonalities and the divisive bullshit media feeds us to keep us angry.

stouset

13 minutes ago

It’s wonderful that people are generally good and want good things, but it would be better if people gave more deference to the opinions of scientists and experts in the field, rather than politicians and influencers with no relevant experience but who say things that agree with what they already want to believe.

I too want good things, and I am perpetually frustrated by those who actively work against those outcomes, regardless of their stated intentions.

cwillu

2 hours ago

You voted for Homer, for exactly the reasons Homer got elected in the episode.

estearum

3 hours ago

“I’m so excited for the anti-regulation, anti-healthcare party to ummm… somehow ummm… improve our food supply regulations and healthcare…?”

throawayonthe

7 hours ago

it's weird how they say "One TOR exemption that allows the rocket fuel chemical perchlorate to be used in grain bags..." as well as the article they link to https://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/01/11/fda-perchlorate-in-f... focusing on it being a rocket fuel component

i guess it sounds scary? but it almost implies rocket fuel is somehow involved in grain transport lol. the real reason for its use i guess is to control static electricity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate#:~:text=control-,s...

this is like that one time people came to my school to talk about vapes, and one of their talking points was "vapes can contain formaldehyde, and formaldehyde is used to preserve dead specimens/tissue samples" ; they did not get my issue with the lack of causal reasoning in that argument :P

NewJazz

6 hours ago

I agree the framing is poor, but is the chemical actually safe? The article contained convincing claims that it actually does cause harm.

Still, six months after it published its data, the FDA reapproved perchlorate for use in super sacks. Advocates say the agency used flawed science and manipulated the data. The FDA wrote that there was no meaningful increase in perchlorate across all the 250 foods it measured. But critics countered that the problem was not in all the food – the problem was in kids’ cereal.

The FDA largely ignored the cereal findings, and mostly does not consider endocrine system harms when developing regulations, said Tom Neltner, a former scientist with the EDF who is now director of the Unleaded Kids non-profit. He helped lead litigation over perchlorate, which was ultimately dismissed.

penskymaterial

6 hours ago

They're worried about the sacks when the coffee beans are being grown in lead- and arsenic-contaminated soil.

gucci-on-fleek

6 hours ago

Or for another example (that's not mentioned in the article), saltpeter and ammonium nitrate can be used in rocket fuel too, but saltpeter has been used in food for thousands of years and ammonium nitrate is one of the most common fertilizers.

penskymaterial

7 hours ago

When I lived in California I saw one of those prop 65 cancer warnings on a loaf of bread.

Apparently burning toast can generate trace amounts of acrylamide.

This was enough to convince me a subset of these people are complete lunatics.

maxerickson

6 hours ago

Prop 65 gets a lot of shit, but the way it is implemented makes a reasonable amount of sense. If there is evidence that the substance causes harm, it gets listed and companies producing products that contain it have to either notify consumers that it is in there, or they have to demonstrate that the amount of the substance does not cause harm (there's a very low general threshold and some specific thresholds that are higher).

That leads lots of companies to go the low cost route and use the notification safe harbor, but it also creates an incentive to find alternatives and so on. You get cases like you mention, but the alternative to the evidence based approach is to hand wave that it's not harmful.

Arubis

4 hours ago

Prop 65 appears to have become a victim of its own incentive structure. When it first landed, companies had to balance whether the potential loss of sales from applying a label was worth lowering enforcement risk, so there was reason to think: is the thing I’m selling actually potentially harmful under this regulation’s definition?

But once the momentum of having these labels on _a lot_ of products gets established, customers start to un-see them, and the sales risk of applying the label drops to negligible. So just slap it on everything, which adds more noise to the signal, which further derisks adding the label, etc.

At this point it probably just needs a hard reset; tear out prop 65 in the process of replacing it with something that learns from these lessons. Maybe make the warning label cost something e.g. mandate that its application include quantitative risk backed by a third party lab test.

maxerickson

4 hours ago

Be interesting to see how the new requirement to name the chemical goes.

CamperBob2

6 hours ago

No, it doesn't "make a reasonable amount of sense." When everything causes cancer, nothing does. No useful information is being communicated to the consumer.

Meanwhile, the credibility of the scientific establishment in Joe Sixpack's eyes takes another hit, with all-too-predictable consequences.

Retric

6 hours ago

The flaw in that argument is a great number of chemicals do not cause cancer.

nsagent

5 hours ago

The sun's radiation causes cancer, yet placing a blanket warning stating the sun causes cancer likely leads many to wholesale avoid the sun, which would be folly (humans need some amount of sunlight).

Similarly, imagine if nutrition facts labels only had to state whether the food could be potentially unhealthy, without any other nuance.

A sensible version of Prop 65 would acknowledge the specific substance, its dosage, and the best known safe dosage. Equipped with that information a consumer can make an informed decision.

toast0

5 hours ago

Since the sun is outside the jursdiction of California, it doesn't need a prop 65 warning.

gcanyon

4 hours ago

I would love to see prop 65 stickers at the exits to Starbucks(1) warning that going outside exposes you to the sun, a known carcinogen.

1. Starbucks because they are a particular case where acrylamide is a normal byproduct of roasting, and there's basically (as I understand it) no way to have it not be part of the result.

CamperBob2

6 hours ago

And the flaw in that argument is that every product is made with many different chemicals, at least one of which almost always seems to be on the Prop-65 list.

Regardless of the strength of the evidence, which is yet another problem with the whole idea.

maxerickson

3 hours ago

Seems like a lose lose with joe six pack. He gets to be stupid and lazy and blame you no matter what you do.

You are also begging the question, asserting that the law has no useful impact and is thus useless or even harmful.

CamperBob2

3 hours ago

It's not my job to prove that the law has a negative impact. It's on the legislators to show that it has a positive impact before passing it.

That didn't happen. Instead, Proposition 65 was a case of "Oh, no! Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, it must be done."

maxerickson

13 minutes ago

I'm not saying it is your job to do anything, I'm saying your argument against it is fallacious.

NewJazz

6 hours ago

That shouldn't be enough. Have you considered that the authors of the law did not foresee the issues like those you mentioned? And struggled to either find ways or prioritize finding ways to better communicate risks?

Note that the state did eventually modify the communications that the law required.

https://oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/crnr/proposition-65-clea...

penskymaterial

6 hours ago

> Have you considered

No, I didn't consider, I muttered "this is fucking stupid" under my breath and tossed the bread in my cart.

When you dilute the meaning of a warning so much, it becomes meaningless.

NewJazz

6 hours ago

I agree. The people who made the law that led to that happening might agree. Yet companies might feel the warning is necessary. Where is the lunatic? Just people trying their best acknowledging we can do better.

techjamie

6 hours ago

Overexposure to Dihydrogen Monoxide kills around 300,000 people a year, and it's used in a number of culinary and industrial applications. Yet there have been NO serious attempts to regulate it, and it isn't even classed as hazardous waste.

Madmallard

5 hours ago

Always comments like this on these kinds of posts. The Plant Slant fans acting condescending while literally not knowing anything about what they're talking about. Need less of this in the world.

flufluflufluffy

22 minutes ago

Might be sarcasm in this case, regarding how certain molecules might be cherry-pick-regulated vs others. Although it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison to equate drowning with “overexposure” to water.

illusive4080

4 hours ago

Explain the term “Plant Slant” please. I don’t follow.

stackghost

4 hours ago

Americans are so bizarrely tolerant of having a food supply chock full of highly-processed, artificial everything.

The answer always seems to be “we don’t like these big companies putting additives in food but we’ve tried nothing and are all out of ideas”

Madmallard

5 hours ago

No matter what you may argue about whether or not these specific chemicals are safe at the contaminant dosage, we do not NEED more poorly studied chemicals present in our environment.

6510

4 hours ago

Someone once told me that if you have an ingredient that may have 0.3% toxins and you bought a cheap badge with 0.4% and a quality badge with 0.25% it is awfully tempting to mix them as close to 0.29% as possible. You might even convince the quality supplier to aim for 0.2% so that you can use the almost worthless 0.5% It isn't unthinkable that some would use the food supply to somewhat legally dispose of 100% toxic materials. Properly mixing is really hard and you cant really trust people who would do such a thing to mix in the poisons "properly".

Havoc

6 hours ago

The self regulation worked great for Boeing so why not

shevy-java

6 hours ago

This is the outcome when you have lobbyists control a government. In this regard the Trump-administration is by far the most hostile to people. You still have to wonder why Trump has a 30% support base; that should be at 0% already but some people can not think on their own (excluding the 5% who benefit personally from the Trump clique).

ck2

7 hours ago

it's really hard to pick the first few impeachments based on urgency in preventing further death and destruction

so many clowns to chose from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump

Hegseth, Kennedy and Vought I think would be most productive focus

But if Dems don't get Senate country is doomed anyway so pointless

jmclnx

7 hours ago

>many chemicals, especially hormone disruptors linked to brain damage and reproductive harm in children, are considered dangerous at levels far below 0.5ppb

I guess US people are not damaged, dumbed down enough. Now the Trump admin wants to make sure kids are at high risk for brain damage. At least the cuts to colleges by Trump will not matter once TOR hits "critical mass".

rozal

7 hours ago

FDA has been horrible for decades. Trump didn’t make it bad

lisplist

7 hours ago

My car had a few dents in it and leaked oil so I decided the best course of action was to set it on fire.

3eb7988a1663

7 hours ago

FDA was not perfect, so might as well burn the entire thing down?

Surely there is a middle ground, where processes can be improved.

devin

7 hours ago

You know what I think the FDA needs? A genius like you to get in there and fix it.

gustavus

6 hours ago

Wait till they get wind of that toxic dihydrogen monoxide. It is in almost every beverage in the US and is the same chemical used in pesticides, fertilizer, its even used in many toxic waste industrial processes.

Beyond that there are numerous repeated and scientifically proven to cause permanent brain damage or even death in sufficient concentrations. How long will Washington insiders profit while our nation continues to sicken.

swasheck

6 hours ago

This comment seems detached from the basis of the article. If anything you’re describing the standard MAHA RFKj acolyte

londons_explore

5 hours ago

If a chemical coating on a 2000 lbs grain bag was enough to harm children who ate grain stored in the bags, then think about the impact on the person in the coating factory who probably receives a dose 10^9 x bigger without PPE, and probably 10^6 bigger with PPE, because very little PPE keeps out more than 99.9% of whats outside.

Something about the story doesn't add up. Either people are dying every day in the coating factory (unlikely), or the coating, whilst measurable, isn't as dangerous as the article implies.

midtake

5 hours ago

Inhalation is different from ingestion, for one. I can handle gallons of liquid hydrogen cyanide, but it takes much less than that to kill me if it contaminates my food. The articles say perchlorates are harmful at 0.5 ppb. That's pretty demanding, so to me the article makes sense.

kozd

5 hours ago

> probably 10^6 bigger with PPE

How did you arrive at six orders of magnitude? Are the workers ingesting the bags?

KaiserPro

4 hours ago

Or, perhaps the exposure is controlled because there is a legal obligation to not let your employees ingest perchlorate

https://www.fishersci.co.uk/store/msds?partNumber=10031501&p...

anigbrowl

4 hours ago

Perhaps. Or perhaps the factory knows that there's no effective oversight and that reports of bad working conditions can be smoothed over with a political donation or a negligible fine, and starts deprioritizing safety, monitoring, and maintenance of existing safety systems.