[HN Gopher] 'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens
___________________________________________________________________
'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens
Author : samizdis
Score : 429 points
Date : 2021-02-16 15:04 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencealert.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencealert.com)
| Havoc wrote:
| I thought this is something added artificially exactly because
| people associate it with brand new?
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| The truth is that cars are subjected to a clean room test for
| VOCs. The automakers can get VOCs to an undetectable level, but
| purposefully keep them just under the allowed threshold to create
| new car smell. Adjusting the amount of VOCs was often done by
| tweaking the formula for headliner adhesive. I know this sounds
| like a conspiracy, but people have a strong preference for new
| car smell. You can see that headliners have their own category
| for how much offgassing is allowed:
|
| https://www.issa.com/wp-content/uploads/VOC_Limits_Summary_1...
|
| It is trivial to make a headliner that doesn't offgas. With the
| stroke of a pen, the government could get rid of new car smell
| across the industry.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I suppose it's the same as car door design.
|
| Car doors could absolutely be designed to be shut in near
| silence, but people actually value the car door slamming noise
| as sign of quality/robustness.
|
| Most people would probably assume their car door is not
| properly closed if it was made to be more silent.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The sound of the door is more about the rhythm than the
| actual sound as per se - obviously this is difficult to
| convey via text, but a bad door is chaotic whereas the
| distinctive sound of an expensive car door shutting is
| effectively a sign that it was designed to sound exactly like
| xyz.
| henearkr wrote:
| I think we agree it's stupid.
|
| The amount of accidents because of fingers caught in slammed
| car doors is ridiculous...
| crazygringo wrote:
| So here's what I'd love if other people here could help me
| understand.
|
| Sensitivity to VOC's is extremely dependent on the person. My
| father, for example, had the carpet redone cheaply in his office,
| and worked there happily 8 hrs/day without smelling anything and
| without any ill effects.
|
| For me, on the other hand, the smell was noxious but bearable,
| but I'd start to feel lightheaded after about 15 minutes in
| there. My brother would get a terrible headache after just 5
| minutes. (And this is us as adults, same size as him.)
|
| Memory foam (e.g. in a pillow) also affects me, even after it's
| offgassed for weeks. I don't smell a thing, but it gives me a
| burning sore throat after I'm close to it for a couple of hours.
| But again, zero effect on my dad.
|
| And so my big question is: I'm well aware that people have
| drastically different responses to VOC's. But does that mean
| VOC's harm people differently too, or are we all harmed the same?
|
| In other words, does my dad have some kind of "protective" genes
| where the VOC's don't bother him because they harm him less, so
| he doesn't avoid them? Or are my brother and I better off because
| we're super-sensitive to them, so we escape the harm he might be
| suffering?
|
| It seems like such an urgent public health problem, especially
| given how many people use memory foam mattresses and pillows. It
| just boggles my mind that I get a sore throat after just a couple
| of hours with one, while other people sleep peacefully all night.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The reasons vary person to person, but methylation is one
| reason. There are metabolic pathways that remove these
| chemicals from your body. Some people have pathways that don't
| work as well as others.
|
| MTHFR is one mutation I know of that can cause this. This is
| kind of an emerging field, so there's no shortage of quackery,
| but the underlying metabolic pathway seems clear to me.
| narag wrote:
| Different people has different sensitivity to different
| substances.
|
| Take musk. Musk is an organic substances coming from the glands
| of a few animals. It's one of the most common base notes in
| perfumery. Since perfumes became a mass market product, there
| aren't enough musk deers in the planet by some orders of
| magnitude to fullfill the demand.
|
| So they created "white" (synthetic) musks. Problem is most
| persons are anosmic to this one or that one white musk. Also
| white musks are not exactly biodegradable. Perfumists make
| cocktails of them to make sure you will feel some of them. A
| few people (sigh!) are anosmic to _every_ polycyclic and
| macrocyclic musk.
|
| And this is for substances that their explicit mission is to be
| smelled.
|
| There are newer alycyclic musks much more biodegradable and
| most people can feel them. See Romandolide, Helvetolide,
| Rosamusk, if you're curious.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Would love to know the answer to this. Epigenetics is a thing,
| so I could easily see later generations becoming more and more
| sensitive based on previous generations' exposure.
| abarringer wrote:
| It seems the older generation is so much more tolerant of
| toxins than us younger ones. For instance, at company lunches
| it seems at least 50%+ of the 25-45yrs have allergies/glucose
| issues while the older generation pounds down whatever they
| want. I have so many friends that have crazy allergies and
| sensitivities to toxins and almost no boomers that do. Maybe
| all the weak boomers were weeded out in their youth with lawn
| darts and no bike helmets or something? Or more likely not
| exposed to so many toxins when younger?
| echelon wrote:
| > Or more likely not exposed to so many toxins when younger?
|
| Or perhaps inversely, the older generation was exposed to
| _more_ industrialized chemicals and their immune system
| developed a tolerance. Something akin to the hygiene
| hypothesis [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
| crazygringo wrote:
| There's a big difference between common traditional natural
| substances and industrialized chemicals though.
|
| My understanding is that our immune system learns through
| exposure that things like peanuts, pollen, gluten, etc.
| aren't bad, so lots of exposure to these things and playing
| in the dirt is healthy for kids.
|
| On the other hand, from my understanding, we don't build up
| protection to industrial chemicals. They're just poison,
| plain and simple. The more you accumulate, the more you're
| likely to die.
| abledon wrote:
| the women who 'birthed' the boomers, were also a lot more
| 'hardy', cleaner air, very little electronics, more manual
| labour, outdoor activity etc... i bet that generation of
| mothers gave their infants good gut bacteria that set them up
| for success.... nowadays our best bet is probably to target a
| poop transfer surgery.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Pop a pill of _PowerPoop_! It 's prophylactic!
|
| Persistingly pushing performance to perfection!
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Less plastics in everything is the big difference, IMO. Even
| a can of beans is lined with some sort of plastic film.
|
| My father-in-law was a fireman and was in anything from 10-15
| fires/month from 1965-1975, most of that time in a rescue
| company where he would pull people out, without an oxygen
| mask because they didn't fit. He did it enough that his knees
| were shot. He smoked as well, and in now in his 80s, along
| with a big cohort of his buds.
|
| My brother-in-laws on both sides of the family are in fire
| service, and I've been to several funerals for guys in their
| 30s and 40s, who probably see 3-5 fires a year, are mostly
| fitness buffs and don't smoke. All for stuff like bladder
| cancer, esophageal cancer, etc. I know one of the theories is
| around fire protection gear causing carcinogens to be
| absorbed through sweat, and another issue is the toxic stew
| that is found in car or house fire smoke.
|
| Another factor to consider, newer houses are sealed up with
| poor ventilation and build quality. Your typical >1985 home
| is largely assembled with glue and don't ventilate well and
| tend to have alot of mold. My house is a circa 1920 average
| quality single family. It ventilates well in the summer, has
| few materials hazards other than some lead risk, etc.
| harperlee wrote:
| When I was a kid I knew exactly one child with celiac
| disease; nowadays I know about several people, so I thought
| in that line.
|
| But this very year a childhood friend of mine became aware he
| has it. Nowadays I tend to think we are more attentive to
| these kinds of things, and older people rationalize symptoms
| or grow unaware of them, so they are no longer conscious of
| them.
| nineplay wrote:
| I had a friend who threw up when she ate cheese. Today we
| would call her lactose intolerant. At the time she was told
| she was 'spoiled' and she would eat her mac-and-cheese or
| go hungry.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Our olfactory system has no magic ability to detect what is or
| isn't dangerous. That an unpleasant smell causes
| headache/nausea is one thing, the long-term health impact
| should be expected to be independent of this.
| nwienert wrote:
| It absolutely does have a pretty magic ability to detect
| danger, that's sort of its purpose. As an example, last I
| checked, the human nose is _the most sensitive_ device we
| have to detect spoilt milk.
|
| Taste, smell, touch, all our senses are pretty damn good at
| parsing danger when functioning normally. Though I would bet
| with really un-natural substances the reliability goes down.
| jack_h wrote:
| This is kind of true, but our senses have massive blind
| spots when it comes to dangerous things we encounter in
| nature.
| bromuro wrote:
| VOC?
| tkzed49 wrote:
| volatile organic compound
| sojournerc wrote:
| Volatile Organic Compound(s)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_organic_compound
| [deleted]
| civilized wrote:
| A bit off-topic, but I hate, hate, HATE the smell of airports and
| airplane cabins. I don't know if it's jet fuel or what, but I am
| certain we will one day discover that the fumes cause all sorts
| of maladies.
|
| I feel vaguely nauseous for the entire day after getting off a
| plane, and don't feel myself again until a good night's sleep.
| bloopbloo wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| However, I'd rather smell kerosene than baby-bottle plastic -
| plasticizers known to be endocrine disrupters
| dehrmann wrote:
| I think airplane cabin smell is in part old coffee.
| avree wrote:
| https://viewfromthewing.com/flight-attendant-puts-coffee-
| gro...
|
| Flight attendants commonly use coffee grounds to mask the
| other, worse smells.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| This is not at all what this article is about.
| carlmr wrote:
| I have thought the same thing for a while. When you're at the
| airport it smells like fuel. Everyone's talking about the
| radiation, but I'm wondering if pilots and stewardesses aren't
| exposed to much worse through the cabin air.
| hinkley wrote:
| I got stuck on the tarmac while they tried to sort out a fuel
| problem and we were all huffing jet fumes for half an hour. I
| thought I was going to puke by the end. I really should have
| asked for a refund on that flight. I blame the loss of brain
| cells.
|
| When they start a jet engine, the fuel before it ignites
| would just blow out the exhaust. They catch it in a reservoir
| and pump it back into the engine to burn it off.
|
| Well, that pump was glitching out, in some way they thought
| they could fix without a wrench. After about five minutes the
| fumes started getting sucked into the cabin, and every five
| minutes after they would tell us they were still working on
| it. What a shitshow.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Cabin air comes from the "bleed air", which is air from the
| compressor stage of the engine. Very rarely this air is
| noticeably contaminated due to engine issues, but I think
| it's valid to wonder if it's contaminated in a sub-
| perceptible way more often than that.
| [deleted]
| drewwwwww wrote:
| there are substantial unanswered questions about cabin air
| quality, both from long term chronic exposure as well as the
| acute occurrences known as "fume events."
|
| not surprisingly, airlines, manufacturers, and the FAA are
| all working together to suppress a thorough understanding.
|
| the LA Times did a good investigatory piece at the end of
| last year: https://www.latimes.com/projects/toxic-chemicals-
| planes-covi...
| paol wrote:
| Cabin air is renewed at a high rate form the outside. It will
| contain fumes when the airplane is on the ground, because
| airport air contains fumes.
|
| The vast majority of the time the airplane is at cruising
| altitude, though. That air is as clean as you are going to
| get on planet earth.
| bloopbloo wrote:
| I used to think the same thing, then it was pointed out to
| me that most air comes from engine bleed air. That is, it's
| air that has been compressed by the engine and can contain
| aerosolized engine oil. Oil that has been heated to really
| high T (that's really bad). There are standards to filter
| it before it goes into the cabin.
|
| Some aircraft (Dreamliner?) have separate pumps to avoid
| using bleed air (improves engine efficiency). But even that
| pump will need lubricating. However for that pump you can
| probably use a safer oil and also not expose it to extreme
| heat.
| mint2 wrote:
| *Except during fume events. Which are basically not tracked
| or measured well.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Not sure what airport smell refers to but I actually like the
| sweet cabin smell. I think it's equal part mix of residues from
| years of sweat, detergents, anti-corrosion chemicals and lemon-
| soaked paper napkins that were all carried along.
| eternalny1 wrote:
| > I don't know if it's jet fuel or what, but I am certain we
| will one day discover that the fumes cause all sorts of
| maladies.
|
| A lot of it is oil and jet fuel. This is a known hazard, even
| to the flight crew.
|
| In the industry these are referred to as "fume events" or
| "contaminated air quality events" (CAQE).
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47740523
| varelse wrote:
| Buy yourself an air quality monitor and experience the wonder of
| how fast your household air becomes dangerously crappy with the
| windows closed. The formaldehyde will be with us always
| apparently...
| kenned3 wrote:
| I've always thought this was very obvious. I mean it is clear
| something is in the air if you can smell it.. and if you are in a
| new car and it smells, it must be glues, oils, etc.
|
| last new car i bought i left it sit outside with all the doors
| open to let it 'air out' until it did not smell.
| ilmiont wrote:
| And yet almost everyone's smelt it and we're all still here.
| young_unixer wrote:
| Maybe if we hadn't damaged our brain cells we wouldn't be using
| Javascript though.
| 1experience wrote:
| By now I have the heuristic that every strong artificial odour I
| smell is somehow toxic and I have created the muscle memory to
| step away and get fresh air without even thinking about it.
| minitoar wrote:
| I love fake new car smell scent. They are all so different. Pine
| scent or lemon fresh is basically always the same. New car is
| always novel. I also love that it's emulating a scent that's from
| off gassing that we've known for years is probably terrible for
| you.
| knz wrote:
| > I also love that it's emulating a scent that's from off
| gassing that we've known for years is probably terrible for
| you.
|
| Is an artificial air freshener much better from an air quality
| perspective though?
| hyperpape wrote:
| So much hate for California's prop 95 in the comments, so few
| people noticing that the article referred to benzene and
| formaldehyde as meeting the thresholds. It doesn't matter what
| chemicals are included in prop 95, you can't deny that benzene is
| not a serious carcinogen.
|
| The only part that I'm not super clear on is the dosing
| information--the article used dosing information in
| micrograms/day, whereas OSHA gives occupational limits in terms
| of safe atmospheric concentrations for an 8 hour work day. The
| question becomes: are the RFDs used consistent with standard
| health authorities, or are they a super-conservative California
| threshold.
| ginko wrote:
| Ever since I was a kid I hated the smell of new cars. It boggles
| my mind how anyone could like that noxious solvent smell.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Yup, the smell always gave me nasty headaches.
| gugagore wrote:
| Are you sensitive in a similar way to other fragrances, like
| some strong perfumes or candles?
| hanniabu wrote:
| Nope, in fact I used to work in a manufacturing plant
| routinely handling drums of concentrated fragrance for use
| in products and never any issues.
| anotheryou wrote:
| Same. I also get headache and nausea from it. I'm totally fine
| in old cars.
| gugagore wrote:
| Some people really like the smell of gasoline or jet fuel or
| rubbing alcohol, or acetone, which is the order in which I
| would rank how much I like them from mind-boggling to okay-
| that-smell-is-kind-of-nice.
| userbinator wrote:
| If you grew up in the first half of the last century, chances
| are you'd recognise the smell of chlorinated solvents --- and
| they're even described as "sweet" by a lot of people. Due to
| their widespread use, many associated it with the smell of
| "clean". Unfortunately, they're also most if not all
| carcinogenic.
| minitoar wrote:
| I like gasoline but weirdly avgas is gross for me.
| sgt wrote:
| Burned two stroke oil!
| minitoar wrote:
| Ah is that what it is about avgas I don't like? More
| burned oil?
| datameta wrote:
| I'm a glow fuel degustateur myself! 85/15 methanol to
| nitromethane is the sweet spot for the RC planes I fly
| zwieback wrote:
| Memories of my Vespa in the 80s!
| sgt wrote:
| Makes you think two strokes are long obsolete, but I
| actually ride a two-stroke in the year 2021. An enduro
| bike - KTM 300 XCW 2017 model. Occasionally with proper
| blue smoke coming out when giving it proper gas!
| kleton wrote:
| It's amazing that they still allow lead in that.
| gruez wrote:
| AFAIK that's only for general aviation (aka. people
| flying their cessnas), rather than jetliners.
| minitoar wrote:
| It's actually required to have lead. It's hilariously
| called "low lead".
| StillBored wrote:
| The LL avgas situation is odd because while we have quite
| a number of additives to reduce knocking (ugh MTBE) valve
| erosion has been one of the listed reasons for not using
| it.
|
| Yet, most aircraft engines have strict servicing
| guidelines and mandating replacement valves/seats with a
| more resistant design could have been done 40 years ago
| as part of engine overhaul/rebuild guidelines. Then the
| usage would have slowly declined. Yes its expensive, but
| so is GA aircraft maintenance.
|
| *MTBE was another of those chemicals where the
| replacement was quite likely just as bad if not worse
| than the original. Similar to the refrigerant bans where
| we went from a chemical that broke down in the atmosphere
| fairly quickly (and caused ozone holes doing it) to one
| that lingers basically for eternity and causes global
| warming.
| dekhn wrote:
| I am definitely an aficionado of distilled petroleum products
| although I wouldn't recommend sniffing gasoline.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I did as a kid but it went away after a few years
| avereveard wrote:
| part of owning a busso engined alfa romeo is the 'alfa smell'
| - the blowback of gasoline in the cabin from an 80s' design
| engine brought into the two thousands kicking and screaming
|
| and I love it
| yks wrote:
| My favorite speculation along those lines is that people are
| addicted to motorcycling because they are addicted to gas
| fumes/exhaust (and I'm riding myself).
| yummypaint wrote:
| I feel like i have a normal palette and preferences for
| smells, but for some reason diesel exhaust (like from a
| school bus) has always been in my top 5. Makes me wonder how
| common this kind of thing is and how much random variation
| there is among people.
| iamatworknow wrote:
| +1 for diesel exhaust. It gives me weird flashbacks of
| being on like a Greyhound bus or Amtrak train when I was
| little and with my family which are somehow comforting.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I bet a lot of people worked on cars with family and have
| a similar association.
| MayeulC wrote:
| I hate diesel exhaust. New car smell makes me want to puke
| (and did, on numerous occasions, as a kid) so bad that I
| have to take breaks and open windows. The absolute worst is
| burnt heavy fuel like mazut, and other two-stroke engines
| that burn oil. It smells like cigarettes to me, but worse.
|
| On the other hand, gasoline is kind of nice to smell. Go
| figure, chemicals react weirdly with our sense of smell, I
| don't think it's wise to rely on it for synthetic compounds
| (cue bitter almond smell).
|
| Edit: And it is commonly accepted that odors are wired to
| memories, so living on a boat when I was young and having
| family members that smoke are probably linked to these
| sensations.
| stuaxo wrote:
| I thought it was the smoother ride on newer cars (or when
| I was really little associated it with green cars), but
| probably was the smell all along.
| [deleted]
| nitrogen wrote:
| I've heard that certain mineral deficiencies in an extended
| family member of mine caused them to love the smell of
| gasoline, and to crave and eat dirt.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Fascinating. Of all the 'sharp' smells in my environments
| over the years, diesel exhaust has always been one of the
| absolute harshest to me. Feels like it's actively damaging
| my lungs perceptibly in real time. It's the primary reason
| I keep my car's climate control on internal circulation
| almost constantly. I flinch whenever I detect the slightest
| trace.
|
| Maybe I got exposed to a little too much of it as a kid.
| sfink wrote:
| I have that reaction to the exhaust that airplanes
| introduce to the cabin when reversing out of the gate
| before takeoff. It boggles my mind why all outside air
| isn't shut off when reversing. I get an instant headache
| and have difficulty breathing, and I'm generally not
| sensitive to much of anything.
| arsome wrote:
| Yuck, I hate diesel exhaust but that slight unburnt fuel
| smell from a 2 stroke small engine is what I'm all about.
| ticmasta wrote:
| 2-stroke exhaust and new tires... Maybe it's the
| association with memorable activities like visiting a
| motorcycle dealership with my dad as a kid, or a mowed
| lawn and warm summer rain? Meanwhile diesel exhaust makes
| me think of those cold, cold winter days, waiting for the
| car to warm up on an ice-cold vinyl seat...
| kevincox wrote:
| I don't like the exhaust but I like the smell of unburnt
| gasoline. Certainly not good for you and I have been lucky
| enough not to smell it frequently for years now.
| jagger27 wrote:
| I absolutely loved the smell of my RX-8's rotary engine
| dumping fuel into the catalytic converter on a cold day to
| warm it up faster. It also burned a bit of oil while
| running.
| brundolf wrote:
| School bus diesel is associative for me; it makes me think
| of field trips and band stuff. I can see how "new car
| smell" would be associative for getting a new car,
| regardless of the appeal of the smell itself
| SpikedCola wrote:
| Same! From the other comments it appears "not very common".
| Or maybe just selection bias! I find it interesting
| noticing the different kinds of "diesel smells" - new cars
| vs. older, tractors, semis, etc. For the record I also
| enjoy the kerosene-type fuel smell of jet engines.
| alpha_squared wrote:
| Smell is tightly coupled with emotion and memory. I think that
| leads to things that smell bad being registered positively
| because of what that smell is associated with. A "new car
| smell" is a very big, emotional moment for people in the US;
| especially within the lower/middle-class, where new car
| purchases are uncommon and infrequent.
|
| You see this with food quite often, where those who grew up
| with certain foods/meals have a positive reaction to the scent
| of those foods while those who haven't can be very put-off by
| them.
| symlinkk wrote:
| Yes, the same reason is why some people hate the smell of
| cigarettes and others love it.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Same, for some reason my uncle's car constantly smelled like
| that even after years of use. Not sure what causes it, whether
| it was intentional, but would make me nauseous!
| MengerSponge wrote:
| You can buy products with that scent.
|
| For example: https://www.chemicalguys.com/new-car-smell-air-
| freshener/new...
| SeanFerree wrote:
| Unreal! I never thought of this, but it makes a lot of sense
| Proven wrote:
| Oh let me panic before it's too late!
|
| (Of course even a millisecond spent in a new car would "expose"
| you. But that doesn't mean anything. Walk in the park exposes you
| to radiation.)
| lalaithion wrote:
| > research has found that Californian car commuters can be
| exposed to above-acceptable levels of unhealthy chemicals during
| their daily work trips
|
| Whew! Good thing I'm not a Californian.
| bloopbloo wrote:
| (southern) California cars get really hot year round. Therefore
| the exposure will be higher
| dirtyoldmick wrote:
| It's worth the cancer. I love that smell.
| traveler01 wrote:
| AH! Glad I'm only able to afford used cars... oh wait...
| isoskeles wrote:
| Hey, many people can't afford new cars, but that doesn't stop
| them from getting a loan. (Not saying you should.)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| What about new trainer smell? Same?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sure, but how bad can it really be? It has existed for like 60
| years and those people are still living to be 80.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| That's horrifying. I prefer the new smell of PCB.
| bloopbloo wrote:
| It's good it's up for the many to read, but this is not
| surprising to anyone who has remotely worked on chemical systems.
|
| I've only done Computer simulation of polymers. I haven't even
| taken a single chemistry class past freshman year. And yet
| there's no way anyone is going to convince me that smell is OK.
|
| That smell is the slow degassing of all the chemicals used in the
| production of the car. It will include foaming agents,
| plasticizers, solvents, curing agents, dyes, paints, etc.
|
| When I but a plastic baby bottle (we try to use glass, but for
| some things plastic works best) I always put it through several
| dishwasher cycles. I'll never pour a warm liquid into it. And I
| always do a smell test to make sure there's no unatural smell
| (rotted milk vomit I'm "ok" with. "Can't place it" freaks me out)
|
| I always air out the car if I buy a new one (even used! God knows
| what's in air fresheners and detailing products) by running the
| fan at 75% if I can't have the window open.
| eugenekolo wrote:
| I'm more surprised the average American only commutes 1 hr
| (total?) each day to work. Considering most cities during rush
| hour seem like they take 30 minutes to go 5 miles, and most
| Americans cannot afford to live near prosperous jobs.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Most Americans do not work in city center and can avoid driving
| the super congested trips into downtown. And most job growth in
| the US over the past years has been eds and meds, which are
| more dispersed and local.
| ghaff wrote:
| Even in engineering/tech, most people are probably commuting
| from suburban houses/apartments to suburban office parks. And
| while that can still involve congested traffic, most people
| would consider an hour each way a pretty long commute.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| And now there is traffic everywhere and it's impossible to do
| any sort of planning for having good public transit! Isn't it
| awesome?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| An observation of reality is not an endorsement of it.
|
| That being said, a fair amount of transit cities are also
| multipolar and with generally long commutes; Paris and
| Tokyo come to mind.
| danans wrote:
| > Most Americans do not work in city center and can avoid
| driving the super congested trips into downtown
|
| They often can't avoid very congested trips to the
| neighboring suburb where their job is located. Even if many
| jobs aren't located downtown, they are located in suburban
| industrial or office clusters that severely lack in public
| transit, and are subject to severe traffic congestion.
|
| Furthermore, the effect of this increasing dispersal of jobs
| has been to _increase_ average commute times, not decrease
| them [1].
|
| Anecdotally, over my career, I've experienced this sort of
| long suburb-to-suburb commute in states as varied as
| Michigan, Texas, Washington and California.
|
| 1. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/07/Srvy_Jo...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Most Americans still spend a ton of time in their car though,
| thanks to sprawl, lack of public transit and urban design
| geared towards cars.
| crtc wrote:
| What about "Old Car Smell'?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The smell of oil dripping on exhaust manifold that makes people
| who don't know the difference between flash point and
| autoignition temperature clutch their pearls.
| Lammy wrote:
| That's more like B.O. and weed, so it will depend on the unique
| preferences of the car's previous owner :)
| 1-6 wrote:
| If we're talking about VOC's here, then in-cabin air filters
| should have carbon in them so it can adsorb all those bad off-
| gassing.
| londons_explore wrote:
| But clearly they don't, because you can still smell it...
|
| Part of that will be because the fan doesn't run before you get
| into the vehicle... And part of it is because activated carbon
| absorbs only some of the smell-producing chemicals, and human
| noses are rather sensitive to even tiny amounts of stuff in the
| air.
| switch007 wrote:
| Do all new cars come equipped with activated carbon filters as
| standard?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Definitely not. Cabin air-filters are usually just tiny
| versions of the filters you have in your HVAC unit.
| exabrial wrote:
| Like WiFi causes cancer in California or like Benzene causes
| cancer? To me it seems like it's the former, not the latter or
| we'd have a metric crap ton of people dying.
| everdrive wrote:
| Yet another reason to never buy new.
| timw4mail wrote:
| Someone has to buy new.
| mhh__ wrote:
| There are more than enough rich people who don't need to care
| and people who should know better for that to be a problem.
| wayneftw wrote:
| I wonder if there is a higher rate of cancer among people who
| work around new cars, i.e. car sales people.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Prop 65 went off the deep end a long time ago. When you call any
| and everything a carcinogen then people stop paying attention.
| I'm willing to take the risks to drink coffee for example. I know
| french fries are bad for me, but cancer isn't my first concern
| there.
| 0xquad wrote:
| The main problem with Prop 65 is that it was done by ballot
| proposition -- through California's initiative process. That
| is, the proposed law was voted up or down by the people AS IS.
| As opposed to being created through the normal legislative
| process that would have allowed for sensible changes (as well
| as probable neutering by opponents). The initiative process is
| a form of direct democracy intended to bypass/override the
| legislature. As such, it is difficult to tweak Prop 65
| legislatively for needed fixes that would make it more
| effective.
|
| This is one example of why most things that are proposed should
| not actually be done through the initiative process, IMHO. As a
| Californian, my default bias on ALL ballot propositions has
| become NO until proven well-written.
|
| That said, I'd rather have Prop 65 as imperfect as it is than
| nothing. It occasionally gives me actionable information.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| There is a spot somewhere between abstinence and gluttony
| where you can live well and keep your risks under control. I
| think I'd rather live a little and take my chances - as long
| as its my choice. I'm with you generally, its good to have
| notice, but not all science is correct/settled and we need
| thresholds.
| [deleted]
| bookmarkable wrote:
| Exactly. Life is bad for you and leads to death. New car smell
| is just another minute of pleasure that someone felt compelled
| to discredit by research and documentation.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Maybe I don't realize the threat level.
|
| Chance of dying in a car crash, 1 in 77.
| https://www.cars.com/articles/are-the-odds-ever-in-your-
| favo...
|
| Chance of dying from cancer, 1 in 5.
| https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/lifetime-
| probabi...
| gruez wrote:
| That's not really a fair comparison because you can only
| accumulate car crash risk when you're commuting, but you're
| accumulating cancer risk for every moment you're alive.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > car crash risk when you're commuting
|
| Pedestrians are killed by cars, quite often. They are 1
| out of every 6 vehicle fatalities. There's also per-trip
| associated risk which is separate from per-mile risk.
| triceratops wrote:
| Walking is also a form of commuting.
| stuaxo wrote:
| OK, but when I walk to the nursery every morning, we can
| take the quick route down the big road with traffic jams,
| or I can go 5-10 minutes out of our way on roads with no
| traffic and through a park.
|
| Similarly, every time I'm out walking I try and not walk
| on the large roads with lots of traffic, it all adds up.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Per my french fry comment, I'm still more worried about
| my heart.
|
| https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-
| death-o...
| true_religion wrote:
| You can remove your risk of dying in a car crash simply by
| staying at home, away from roads.
|
| You can't remove your risk of cancer.
|
| If you were enclosed in a windowless box with sufficient
| food, water, and air to live then it would be a race to see
| which would kill you first: boredom or cancer.
| snarf21 wrote:
| If you live long enough, everyone will get cancer. Lots of
| people abuse their hearts enough that they die from that
| first but some disease get more and more prominent as you
| age. These are the reasons that we don't recommend testing
| for colon cancer at age 15 for most people.
| Jakobeha wrote:
| I once heard that almost everything that gets into you slightly
| increases your risk of cancer (water is the exception), but
| there are different levels of risk. Some compounds will
| practically guarantee that you get tumors (like radiation, also
| benzene is really bad), but others are really negligible (like
| coffee or junk food, especially if you consume it rarely).
|
| So the important part is _how much_ these compounds increase
| your risk of cancer. If a single day 's exposure to a new car
| increases your risk of cancer enough to be noticeable than
| there's an issue. Otherwise just don't expose yourself to the
| smell often and you should be fine.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Can't they just grade the carcinogenic risk? Maybe color-code
| it into different levels?
| sfink wrote:
| It would increase cost of compliance -- or mostly everyone
| would just stick to the most extreme level, to cover their
| asses.
|
| Many things marked with the Prop 65 warning do not actually
| contain anything carcinogenic (or rather, since everything is
| carcinogenic to some degree, they contain no more than trace
| amounts.) Legally, if a business has a Prop 65 warning,
| they're safe; if they don't, they're not.
|
| The only teeth Prop 65 has against excessive warnings is that
| it makes consumers like me nervous, so it's better to not
| have it. If it were a little more sane -- like being based on
| actual exposure from reasonably expected usage -- then I
| think I'd like it, even if the list of chemicals is still a
| bit overzealous.
|
| The system _is_ too heavily tilted in favor of exposing
| people to nasty crap, and I appreciate having something that
| pushes against it. It 's a hard thing to do well, and
| legislating via ballot initiative is a blunt instrument. So
| the best we generally end up with is stuff like Prop 65,
| which does some good, some harm.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > It would increase cost of compliance
|
| What's the mechanism that the proposition puts in place?
| What makes an article be marked by the warning? Does the
| vendor have to report on the compounds their product
| contains? Or is there a state-conducted examination?
| president wrote:
| Seems it would make more sense to either ban the chemicals
| completely or do nothing at all. Most people have essentially
| learned to ignore the P65 warning and I have noticed that not
| all businesses are compliant with it anyway.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| > not all businesses are compliant with it anyway
|
| Pretty risky, just waiting for the wrong lawyer to notice.
| albeit wrote:
| That's why I left my windows open in the garage when I got my
| current car.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| Having just picked up a _very_ heavily new-car-smelling rental
| car in which to transport my firstborn from hospital sometime in
| the next two weeks, this was not a reassuring read. Here 's
| hoping 20 minutes of exposure as a newborn doesn't have any
| lasting effects. All the same, I guess I'll blast the blowers on
| maximum with all doors open for a few minutes before we hit the
| road, and maybe drive with windows cracked.
| jiofih wrote:
| The study uses decades old data. Since the late 90s cars have
| very little smell, they actually use a perfume to imitate it.
| coryfklein wrote:
| Isn't the appropriate procedure here to add a sticker and call it
| a day:
|
| > This product contains chemicals known to the state of
| California to cause cancer
| skemper911 wrote:
| Convertible car, let in the fresh smog.
| orange_tee wrote:
| The same chemical formaldehyde is responsible for the off-gassing
| from cheap furniture. That smell of chipboard (also called
| particleboard) that all the new cheap furniture is made of.
| derekp7 wrote:
| The funny thing is that the furniture really isn't that cheap.
| I built a couple 3-drawer desks for a couple grand kids (48 x
| 16 inch top) out of solid wood with 1/4 inch plywood around the
| drawer unit, and only spent $130 on materials (this was at the
| beginning of the school year). Most flat-pack desks you see are
| starting around $350 or higher, for garbage board.
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| Being patient and buying used is entirely the way to go for
| furniture. I'm typing up this comment sitting at a nearly
| perfect condition solid oak desk my girlfriend found at an
| estate sale and paid $100 for. In a similar story, we found
| our vintage solid wood pineapple bed for $35 on craigslist.
| There's no way you could buy, let alone make, either of these
| pieces for 10x the price.
|
| In a past life I owned a full size metal tanker desk I bought
| $40, stripped down to bare metal and I loved that desk until
| I had to give it up when I moved countries.
|
| People don't like buying used, but furniture doesn't wake up
| one morning refusing to work because a dependency is no
| longer available.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Something you bought for $350 in a flatpack box would easily
| be > $1000 in real wood and weigh one decimal point place to
| the right more.
| magikaram wrote:
| From my experience, MDF and particleboard furniture usually
| weighs more due to the higher density of the wood and glue
| vs. traditional wood furniture.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Nah, wooden stuff usually has thicker walls/everything,
| usually weighting significantly more. I guess we compare
| some old wooden furniture with similarly designed ikea
| particle board one.
|
| If its 1:1 then yes particle board should weight a bit
| more.
| souprock wrote:
| Well, let's do this right.
|
| Make plywood with the middle being balsa, and the surface
| being lignum vitae.
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| My recollections of helping people move disagree with you.
|
| I've only had one piece of real wood furniture that was
| ever close. That was made out of rock maple, which turns
| out to be a very accurate name.
| derekp7 wrote:
| That is something that really surprised me, how light this
| "real wood" desk was (made from Poplar wood), compared to
| another similar desk that the wife bought a few months
| earlier (before the covid at-home back-to-school rush
| caused a desk shortage).
| orange_tee wrote:
| I totally agree with you.
|
| The irony is that a lot of people throw away good furniture
| made from real wood to buy IKEA particle board. As a result
| of which I can acquire good solid furniture from charity
| shops and online classifieds for close to nothing.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| How much were your tools and how long have you trained and
| learned? And the sweat equity...I'm a woodworker too and it's
| incredibly faster to buy anything that to build it oneself.
| derekp7 wrote:
| I grew up with my Dad doing woodworking, so I picked up a
| lot from there. For tooling, I don't have a lot -- My Dad's
| old table saw when he got a new one, a compound miter saw,
| drill, hand held router, and recently acquired a pocket-
| hole jig.
|
| For this particular project we were under pressure, so I
| picked up the wood from a big-box store a couple nights
| before the grand-kid started remote kindergarten. The next
| day took about 3 hours to cut the boards (1 hour), drill
| pocket holes (1 hour), and assemble the unit (1 hour)
| (minus drawers). Since I hadn't done drawers before, it
| took probably another 4 hours to bang out 3 drawers (each a
| different size). But that all was all "fun time", I had
| already put in my 8 hours of work, and doing shop work is a
| good distraction and this gave me a worth-while project.
| The wife ended up doing the stain and finishing (about an
| hour or so applying it, and a day or so to dry).
|
| I ended up doing another one, where I took more time to do
| multiple coats of Danish oil (steel-wool treatment on the
| last couple coats), so I have a bit more time in that one.
|
| If you are interested, I documented the second desk and put
| it up on reddit https://new.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/iprn2
| n/made_a_desk_for...
|
| This design was originally supposed to have plywood on the
| inside of the seating portion, so that's why the pocket
| holes are visible. Turned out it was strong enough without
| it, so if I do another one I'll add additional 1x2 boards
| on the inside framing in that section, and taper the legs
| to make it look better.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Not the person you're asking, but also a woodworker. If you
| just want a basic table, you can put one together crazy
| fast with the right tools.
|
| Not counting milling time, because if this wasn't my job, I
| wouldn't have a jointer and planer, I've put together a
| basic bench in an afternoon, which is fundamentally the
| same construction as a joined table. It would take longer
| for sure without a router to cut the mortises and a table
| saw to cut the tenons, but probably still only a day. If
| you put a gun to my head and made me pick only one of
| those, I'd keep the router.
|
| I built a staked table for my partner entirely by hand
| (including milling the top) last April, and had that pretty
| well put together in a week. I didn't have a way to turn
| the tenons, so that part was a very slow and iterative
| process. That I did twice, because I kind of botched it the
| first time and had my rake and splay pretty inconsistent.
| Fortunately, I left the legs long.
| derekp7 wrote:
| If you want even faster (and can hide the holes as part
| of the design) then pocket holes can get the framing
| together really fast. They have good tensile strength,
| and decent bending strength in one direction but not the
| other. So your design has to account for that, however
| for putting together a basic desk (see the plans in my
| Reddit thread I linked in the other comment), or the
| carcass for a dresser unit, they work wonderfully (even
| if it is "cheating" a bit).
| d33lio wrote:
| Most people live too long to begin with - I'm okay relishing the
| smells and scents of modern society and not worrying too much
| about it. Yes, everything is killing us and we're all slowly
| dying - why not enjoy the ride?
| rightbyte wrote:
| I have suspected this. When I spray my 22 yo car with anti-rust
| oil in the body it smells exactly like a new car for a while. No
| suprise it is chemicals that smell in a new car ... I kinda
| thought it was the leather.
| souprock wrote:
| It is the leather too, which is cured with truly horrible
| chemicals. Think about why your seats don't just rot like any
| normal animal skin would. That's the formaldehyde and
| hexavalent chromium.
| burnt_toast wrote:
| Having spent too much time in the car industry I've noticed each
| brand has it's own variant of "New Car Smell". A Hyundai doesn't
| smell like a Honda, nor does a Subaru smell like a Nissan.
|
| I know it's probably just due to differences in the manufacturing
| process but it's funny that we group them all together.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| Keep in mind this is a meta-analysis using data published in
| papers that are up to 30 years old and from overseas including
| China, then applying it to California's carcinogen list (prop 65)
| and California commute times.
|
| I am sure a followup study will be done to see if this is
| actually a problem in the USA in 2021.
|
| The article is published here (Open access) :
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
|
| Edit: I found this news article from 2003 discussing the issue of
| carcinogenic new car smells and how manufacturers were trying to
| eliminate the the dangerous smells while simulating what
| consumers expect a new car should smell like:
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15133792/new-car-smel...
| GTP wrote:
| A bit off-topic, but I never liked the "new car smell" and I'd
| prefer they just eliminate that or substitute it to something
| else rather than they trying to emulate it.
| x86ARMsRace wrote:
| > then applying it to California's carcinogen list
|
| I've seen prop 65 warnings in _hotel rooms_ , likely due to
| lead pipes in the toiletry. The application, and to an extent
| the compounds included, are a little overkill. Keeping that in
| mind, It would be worth scrubbing through the article and
| seeing what the components are that are not just "California
| Carcinogens". That's what would be the really valuable
| information here.
| davidcsally wrote:
| Even the jar of hoisin sauce I bought at Safeway has a prop
| 65 warning.
| dawnerd wrote:
| The bread Franz sells has the warning too.
| x86ARMsRace wrote:
| Perhaps someone misread it as poison sauce?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| No, I think most fermented sauces (soy, hoisin,
| worchestershire) have to carry a prop 65 warning
| zests wrote:
| California "may cause cancer warnings" may cause people to
| ignore "may cause cancer warnings". Is this coffee carcinogenic
| or cigarette carcinogenic?
| ratsmack wrote:
| The "This product contains chemicals known to the State of
| California to cause cancer ..." warning is so common that I'm
| sure most people just ignore it.
| DennisP wrote:
| In other news, 600K people in the US die from cancer every
| year.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The point isn't that cancer doesn't matter. It's that by
| putting cancer warnings on things with a 1-in-a-trillion
| lifetime chance of causing cancer, you desensitize people
| to cancer warnings on things that actually do pose a
| significant cancer risk.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Yup. The joke around here is that 'everything causes
| cancer in California'. Nobody takes those labels
| seriously because they're on everything and give 0
| indication of risk level compared to other items with the
| same label.
| paconbork wrote:
| Reminds me of a similar observation with drug side-
| effects on WebMD:
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-
| tragedy-...
|
| When the side effects for ibuprofen read similarly to
| those of far more dangerous prescription drugs, then
| they're really not helpful
| shockeychap wrote:
| It's just another example of feel-good legislation that
| does more harm than good.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's an example of well intentioned legislation poorly
| implemented.
| shockeychap wrote:
| Name one piece of modern legislation that isn't regarded
| as "well intentioned" by those passing it.
| slavak wrote:
| That's true, but it likely has more to do with pollution
| from industry and cars and harmful habits like smoking,
| and less to do with eating baked goods.
| leephillips wrote:
| And a lot to do with eliminating a lot of death from
| infection, being prey to animals, and war. Cancer is
| largely a symptom of old age: it's what's left.
| brewdad wrote:
| No doubt, the warning _could_ be helpful. But when they
| are on literally everything, they get ignored. Am I just
| not going to eat or buy home appliances because
| "something" in the box or part of the build _may_ cause
| cancer?
| cgriswald wrote:
| One of the key problems with the California Prop 65
| warnings is that there is no penalty for erroneously
| posting the sign. As a result, the sign is posted on
| nearly every building and establishment and many goods--
| without necessary need, in order to protect from
| lawsuits. It doesn't take much effort to see that this is
| roughly equivalent to not having the warning signs at
| all.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| If you look at the list of chemicals, the signs probably
| aren't erroneous; almost all buildings will have at least
| trace amounts of one of those chemicals.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Your post is correct but overly generous. The
| aforementioned lack of penalty for erroneous sign postage
| means that even if the list was a single chemical, every
| building would still contain the notice 'just in case'
| and because it is cheaper to not bother to keep track of
| materials or to test.
|
| There are of course other problems as well, including
| lack of context (do you need direct contact, exposure
| over time, _etc_ ), and lack of a requirement to list the
| particular chemicals. As a result, there's no actionable
| information and the signs are entirely devoid of meaning.
| nickff wrote:
| I can guarantee you that _every_ building will contain
| something on that list. The problem is that Prop 65
| requires notice of chemicals whether or not you 'll
| actually be at risk from that chemical. For instance, BPA
| is in many plastics, such as those in light fixtures, but
| you're not at much risk of consuming it unless you drink
| warm/hot liquids from the light fixtures.
|
| The light bulbs/tubes/LEDs also contain a number of P65
| materials, as do all the electronics...
| appletrotter wrote:
| I think that you're just reiterating things that OP
| understands.
|
| We know that if the chemicals are there, we have to have
| the sign. And we know that the chemicals are everywhere.
|
| So what benefit does the sign bring?
|
| None.
| nickff wrote:
| I agree that the signs are usually useless, but the
| parent says a/the problem is that there is no penalty for
| erroneous signs. The problem is that the law doesn't take
| context into account, and those signs are actually
| required.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| This isn't true anymore. The laws was changed, prop 65
| warnings are required to have the specific chemicals
| listed. There are penalties if this is not done.
| uncledave wrote:
| Yeah my multimeter has it on it. And I'm not even in the
| US.
| ip26 wrote:
| The biggest problem is not even prevalence... it's the
| content-free message. What part of the product contains
| these chemicals? What chemicals are they? Will I be exposed
| just by touching the product, or only if the product is
| burned? etc. It's almost completely non-actionable
| information.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Not only that but I have nothing to base it off of. What
| concentration is thought to cause cancer? What
| concentration would I expect to be exposed to it?
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| They've actually started including the names of the
| specific chemical(s), example:
| https://news.llu.edu/patient-care/california-s-cancer-
| warnin...
| gnopgnip wrote:
| There have been significant changes to the law in the
| last few years. The chemical that causes cancer needs to
| be listed on the label. A lot of products that never
| should have had these labels don't have them anymore.
| ballenf wrote:
| It also bothers me on a pedantic level that "the State of
| California" is portrayed as a sentient being.
|
| I can't think of an equally concise but more accurate
| phrasing so long as a reference to California remains,
| but maybe brevity isn't such a high priority.
| vmception wrote:
| Every judge does that with their court and if you look
| close enough "the state" does this everywhere. All of
| them.
|
| The California notices are one of the only examples of it
| being put in your face everywhere
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It goes even farther than that. "Not for sale in
| California" is practically a marketable feature on any
| chemical nobody expects you to ingest, anything that could
| cost you a limb if used wrong enough and anything powered
| by a small engine because it signals to the buyer that the
| manufacture didn't jump through a bunch of hoops, often
| compromising the product, for compliance.
| steve918 wrote:
| Proposition 65 is such garbage that pretty much any
| manufacturer wishing to sell ANYTHING in the state of CA just
| puts a blanket warning on things. It's a real problem that
| they want to address, but a really lazy solution that doesn't
| accomplish anything.
| rjmunro wrote:
| I suspect the cigarette companies love it. If everything
| else causes cancer as well, then they look less bad.
| advaita wrote:
| It's basically equivalent of cookie pop-ups on websites or
| ToS.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gnopgnip wrote:
| There have been some important changes to the law in the last
| few years. Coffee doesn't have a prop 65 label.
| einpoklum wrote:
| (deleted)
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's not an additive, it's byproducts of roasting.
|
| And it's not just coffee you see these labels on. You see
| them all sorts of random places, and often not in a way
| that helps you make informed decisions.
| josephcsible wrote:
| GP was using "coffee" and "cigarette" as adjectives. In
| other words, asking "is this thing as carcinogenic as
| coffee, or as carcinogenic as cigarettes?", not "do
| cigarettes cause cancer?".
| zabzonk wrote:
| What about "new laptop smell"?
| code_duck wrote:
| I've been around laptops which seem to be a health hazard. It
| makes sense they could expose users to harmful chemicals, since
| they're essentially a bunch of plastic and metals that get hot
| and have air blown over them into the room. Various flame
| retardants have been used in the past which have been phased
| out over health concerns, but manufacturers did this at
| different rates and many older machines manufacturered with
| various noxious chemicals are still in use. Who knows about
| what they use now (the last time I looked into this was c.
| 2013). TV sets have a similar history, as do space heaters and
| electric blankets.
|
| As part of various health problems, I have some sort of high
| sensitivity to fragrances and cleaning chemicals. I had a
| roommate with a Dell that would make the room smell like ozone
| and plastic. I looked into it and Dell used various chemicals
| on those models that they later pledged to discontinue. I
| couldn't be in the same room as his laptop for more than 5
| minutes.
| xyst wrote:
| probably not on the same level as a new vehicle, but the
| plastic wrapping/film that protects the laptop has to adhere to
| the surface somehow
| angry-tempest wrote:
| I think that the proper hierarchy is as follows: new Magic card
| smell > new GPU smell >= new laptop smell > old book smell
| tvb12 wrote:
| I was going to mention the smell of opening a booster pack of
| trading cards! It was probably the same smell as opening a
| new video game and taking out the instruction booklet (back
| when they still printed those).
| jpswade wrote:
| Isn't it mostly just glue?
| fulafel wrote:
| Wow, hour per day driving on average. The spurious co2 emissions
| really boggle the mind.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Yeah, it is horrifying to think about how much air pollution we
| inflict upon ourselves. It's very hard to stop even in a two-
| person household, because so many of the "products" most people
| in the Western world are used to buying and using since an early
| age are violators. I am blessed with being quite sensitive to
| most of them, so it's an endless struggle with partners and
| cohabitants.
|
| Basically anything bought new has it: furniture, clothes, cars,
| anything plastic, dyed, glued, particleboard.
|
| "Cleaning" products: sprays, detergents, most "soaps", shampoos,
| creams, conditioners, have this type of crap in them.
|
| Even most stuff which claims to be "eco-friendly" is bullshit,
| and has all the same crap in it if you look at the ingredients.
|
| And it feels like online there is a whole army of "rational
| scientific defenders" ready to jump into action anytime I mention
| it. It feels like there is a whole playbook for discrediting this
| type of comment, and calling into question how "scientific" it
| is, etc.
| raws wrote:
| Do you know www.ewg.org/skin deep Do they do a good job? How do
| you take care of this for yourself?
| pfortuny wrote:
| You are right. However, imagine a world in which you sleep with
| a log-fire burning...
| cptskippy wrote:
| The scary part is that you become desensitized to VOCs the more
| you're exposed and people willingly increase their exposure by
| using air fresheners, scented candles, fabric softeners, and
| incense burners. It gets to the point where they can't even
| smell moderate amounts.
|
| My partner has severe allergies and will break out in hives
| when exposed to many fragrances so we've cut them out of
| everything. We avoid most cleaning products and stick to water,
| salt, baking soda, vinegar, and peroxide for most household
| cleaning.
|
| My MIL is very desensitized to fragrances and my partner has
| asked her on multiple occasions not to "freshen up" the house
| before we visit. My MIL swears up and down that she doesn't but
| the moment you walk in the door it's like a punch in the face.
| My partner unfortunately will break out in hives and
| immediately becomes congested.
| mleonhard wrote:
| There are many kinds of VOCs, some harmful and others benign.
| The human nose is sensitive to certain substances and
| insensitive to others. For example, the human nose can barely
| smell 1ppm of formaldehyde [1] or 0.000002ppm of damascenone
| (the fragrance made by roses and added to many products) [2].
| That's a difference in concentration of 500,000. Put another
| way, an overpowering rose smell shows a tiny and harmless
| concentration. While a light formaldehyde smell indicates a
| harmful concentration. So you cannot trust your nose to tell
| you if VOC levels are harmful or not.
|
| I used to be like your partner. A whiff of perfume would
| trigger nasal congestion, itchy eyes, and irritable mood. It
| got worse over 5 years. It became unbearable, interfering
| with my work and personal life. I consulted with an allergy
| doctor. They told me it was incurable and probably won't get
| better, just avoid perfume.
|
| I started doing my own research. I found a study result [0]
| showing that perfume allergy is psycho-somatic. Then I
| learned stress-reduction techniques and used them to cure
| myself. Specifically, whenever I smelled perfume, I would
| practice slow breathing, go for a short walk, or get a drink
| of water. Gradually, I stopped feeling stress after smelling
| perfume. After about one month, I used lightly-perfumed
| (normal) hand soap at my friend's home and felt no discomfort
| afterward. My life improved a lot.
|
| Allergy is a very specific physical process involving the
| immune system. Doctors have reliable methods to measure this
| process. Perfume sensitivity is something different. People
| develop emotional habits of reacting with fear when smelling
| perfume. When the body enters that triggered emotional state,
| it releases stress hormones. The stress hormones cause the
| symptoms of perfume sensitivity.
|
| Your partner can cure their-self, as I cured myself four
| years ago. After they do it, please reply here so I can point
| others to this thread.
|
| [0] http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(06)01696-4/a
| bst...
|
| [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00022470.1969
| .10...
|
| [2] http://www.leffingwell.com/odorthre.htm
| cmckn wrote:
| Shout out to vinegar! The huge jugs of "cleaning vinegar"
| changed my life a couple years ago. I still use diluted
| bleach for the bathroom every once in a while, but vinegar is
| sufficient for almost everything day-to-day. And it's so much
| cheaper than most "cleansers".
| cptskippy wrote:
| Peroxide is a surprisingly good stain and odor remover. I
| prefer it to vinegar because it doesn't have a pungent odor
| that masks the odor you're trying to get rid of.
|
| But yes vinegar is awesome. It's fantastic at water stains
| like nothing else.
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| Acetic acid also works great as fabric softener, and it
| works against limescale in the washing machine. Anecdotally
| it also keeps colors vibrant.
| briefcomment wrote:
| Having your relatives and friends finally take you seriously
| is such a relief when you're dealing with MCS.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Fun fact, I'm actually mildly allergic to salt. Docs didn't
| believe me and just tried to say it was GERD or similar.
| Finally found one that did some more tests and yep.
|
| I also can't be around any strong perfumes or I'll break
| out in hives. It sucks when someone on a plane comes on
| like they just took a shower in the stuff.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I received similar skepticism from people for coconut but
| after a few times of my lips turning purple they started
| to believe me. I seemed to have aged out of it though as
| more recent accidental exposures haven't resulted in a
| reaction.
|
| I'm not about to tempt fate and willing subject myself to
| it.
| cptskippy wrote:
| It's crazy how dismissive people are. My partner had a
| comprehensive allergy test done, the kind where they draw a
| grid on your back and apply different substances in each
| square.
|
| You're supposed to leave and come back a few days later but
| my partner had a reaction in every square before she left
| the doctor. They asked if the interns could come take a
| look because they'd never seen such a complete reaction.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Not sure if it's what you meant, but I had a similar
| story where I reacted to everything, even the control.
| The allergist took that to mean "you're really allergic
| to everything," but I went looking for a second opinion
| who was able to get both the positive and negative
| controls to work. Turns out I'm not allergic to
| everything, the first allergist just didn't recognize
| benign dermatographia and was a bit too quick to ignore
| my positive reaction to the negative control. In all, it
| saved me a good chunk of change and sensitization risks
| that would have come from having unneeded components in
| my allergy shots.
|
| I don't know the details of your case or if any of this
| applies, but if by chance you were in the same boat wrt
| the negative control it might be worth circling back for
| a confirmation test at some point.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I'm exaggerating a little, my partner has extensive
| allergies but not absolute. I joking say my partner is
| allergic to life but in reality it's just life on earth.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| This is me basically, minus MIL with crazy fragrances. Every
| time I walk past a fragrance shop,I wonder how people survive
| in there...
|
| Bicarbonate soda is an amazing product: we've been using it
| instead of washing-up liquid for our daughter's cutlery and
| crockery. Also to clean the bath before she goes in.
|
| 5 years ago,we bought a sofa, which came with a massive
| stench because of VOCs and fire retardants it gets soaked
| into.. After we complained, they sent in a guy,who pretended
| he can't smell shit and suggested going to the doctor for
| allergies.. to my knowledge, California is one of very few
| places, where furniture foam doesn't need to be soaked in
| harmful chemicals.
| jancsika wrote:
| > My partner unfortunately will break out in hives and
| immediately becomes congested.
|
| normalize_relation(OP.MIL, OP.partner) == partner.mother
|
| Right?
|
| So, your partner's mom uses products that she knows will
| cause an allergic reaction to her kid.
|
| Kid asks not to use said products for fear of allergic
| reaction.
|
| Kid enters mom's abode.
|
| Kid has immediate allergic reaction.
|
| So I have to ask-- what is your MIL's reaction to clearly
| causing her kid to predictably suffer every time you visit?
|
| I also have to ask-- why do you two keep visiting?
| tigen wrote:
| Eh, old people can be weird and stubborn. (Or people in
| general.) Some don't really believe in something and might
| even be having early stage dementia (i.e. memory loss).
|
| My own mother had a dismissive attitude towards dietary
| intolerances and even basic hygiene sometimes.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Some are just assholes. My aunt told a vegetarian once
| that she'd get some color back once she started eating
| meat again.
| cptskippy wrote:
| In her defense, she has toned it down considerably. She
| thinks however that the amount she still uses is so trace
| that it's undetectable, possibly because she's fried her
| sense of smell. She also has anxiety issues about not
| adhering to social expectations, like she can't arrive
| empty handed or will spend all day cleaning and then
| apologize for a "filthy" home that's cleaner than a
| laboratory clean room. So it's a struggle for her to hold
| back.
|
| My partner is quite literally allergic to everything so
| it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation a
| lot of times.
| wizzard wrote:
| > home that's cleaner than a laboratory clean room
|
| > My partner is quite literally allergic to everything
|
| ... and now research is showing those two statements may
| be cause and effect to some degree, ironically.
|
| I asked my mom to switch to unscented fabric softener and
| it took MONTHS for her clothes to stop smelling like
| being punched in the face with a bouquet. It's amazing
| how desensitized people are, and how long it takes those
| fragrances to dissipate.
| code_duck wrote:
| I have very serious problems with fragrance chemicals and some
| VOCs also. It slowly emerged over time in my twenties, well at
| the same time I was also experiencing what I now know is
| undiagnosed celiac disease.
|
| I've gone through times where almost anything made out of
| plastic and most indoor furniture made me feel sick, but these
| days it's mainly just artificial fragrances. Shampoo,
| conditioner, air freshener, carpet cleaners, garbage bags, dish
| soap, incense, laundry soap, pesticides, dryer sheets, and so
| on. I have to use all of these in special unscented versions
| and try to get any roommates to do so as well. Some are
| difficult to avoid in public, other people's clothes and hair,
| fumes coming from laundry vents outdoors, or areas where large
| amounts of these products are stored such as groceries and
| hardware stores. The distancing and masks from covid have
| helped a bit, plus I'm staying home more which is a safe place.
|
| This is a problem that's been somewhat peripheral to my other
| health problems, but has been very disruptive for me. in terms
| of interpersonal relationships, maybe even worse than type 1
| diabetes or celiac because it can make it uncomfortable to get
| near other people physically, either for a hug or to be in
| their house or car. Having to convince girlfriends to change
| hair products has been a major source of stress, too. There are
| times when I've been forced to be around people who use typical
| fragrances products on a visit, or at a hotel, and that's
| difficult.
|
| I've tried to look into what health problems could be related
| to this. There is a syndrome that used to be called MCS
| (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) and is now called TILT
| (Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance). Mainly I have found
| people with Multiple Sclerosis and an immune disorder called
| MAST cell activation. I have celiac and type 1 diabetes, which
| are very closely related to MS, so it makes sense. This is the
| sort of thing that's very difficult to work on with doctors,
| and it seems likely the best treatment currently available is
| like an allergy - avoid the triggers.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| that's because you call it "this stuff" and bundle everything
| from new cars to soap into the same category. So you're just
| sensitive to every industrial material? it's hard to take
| seriously.
| code_duck wrote:
| I have serious problems with many of the same chemicals as
| GP. Well I understand different ones are harmful or not in
| theory, I only know what I react to. It's almost uniformly
| products to which artificial fragrances are added
| intentionally, or exhaust that's known to be harmful such as
| diesel and gasoline. I only have issues with certain natural
| fragrances (essential oils) with extended exposure or large
| amounts. Most likely it's members of several large categories
| that I react to. Could be VOCs, phthalates, teflon relatives,
| and synthetic fragrance compounds.
|
| Like gluten intolerance, one of the difficult things about
| reacting negatively to common consumer products is the number
| of people who refuse to believe it's a real problem.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| > So you're just sensitive to every industrial material? it's
| hard to take seriously.
|
| Our bodies are essentially "legacy code" that's been evolving
| not for a decade or two, but for millions of years.
|
| If you've ever maintained an old software system, you know
| that old-tried-and-true inputs are probably good, but trying
| anything previously untested may cause unpredictable issues.
|
| I look at any new substance which my ancestors haven't
| encountered (and been selected for tolerating) as basically
| alpha testing, which I'd rather avoid with my irreplaceable
| hardware-software installation.
| tptacek wrote:
| In this thread, you've managed to derive axiomatically a
| theory of toxicity in which peanuts are suspicious because
| they trigger allergies, which implies our immune systems
| see something wrong with them. I feel like a grain of salt
| (if our systems can tolerate it) would do us well on this
| thread.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| It _IS_ the same category when it makes you suffer. Be it
| sneezes, running nose, coughing, swelling throat, burning
| eyes, sometimes itching skin, feeling unwell in general after
| being in contact with or near _that stuff_.
|
| Maybe our bodies have different tresholds for exposure to
| _that stuff_ , and after oversaturating them for some time,
| there is no buffer available anymore?
|
| Resulting in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_chemical_sensitivity
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I call it the canary system. Some people are more sensitive
| than others, but we're all being harmed with it.
|
| For my part, I pay attention to what others are sensitive
| to and avoid it as well.
|
| If someone else has trouble coping with a substance but I'm
| "fine", that probably means that underneath my constituents
| are still struggling to deal with it and just not telling
| me.
| shard wrote:
| With the existence of lactose intolerance and gluten
| intolerance, that seems like a difficult policy to live
| with.
| ramblerman wrote:
| Ssome people are allergic to peanuts, doesn't seem like a
| well grounded theory.
| pmoleri wrote:
| Peanut, Egg, and Milk protein (CMPA) allergies are common
| in babies. My understanding is that the digestive system
| is not mature enough to process them, so it rejects them.
| Some of these allergies develop even while breast fed
| (baby colic). I take that some allergies stick once
| developed. But you should consider that something that
| creates an allergy response in a baby may be not harmful
| at all for an adult. And sometimes, once the allergy is
| triggered it sticks.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I wonder why they weren't common 30 years ago. Not a
| single person in my entire family from my generation and
| before has a single allergy, nor was it ever a big thing
| in school I attended in various US states in the 90s and
| early 00s.
|
| It's like between the time I went to college and my own
| kids started school, they exploded and now all of the
| sudden a PB&J sandwich isn't allowed in school. That
| would have been unfathomable to me in my youth.
| orwin wrote:
| Its untrue, peanuts and milk allergies were very common
| 30 years ago, probably more than now in percentage. My
| genetic grandmother can't eat most of processed food
| without having an allergic reaction. Probably people were
| a bit ashamed of their non-threatening food allergies
| (most food allergies just give a lot of gas and small
| stomachaches).
|
| Also related, Distilbene did not only wreck fecondity, it
| gave a lot of children food allergies, and i'm pretty
| sure distilben distribution stopped in the late 70s, so
| maybe we should just get the numbers and compare, but i'd
| bet food allergies were more prevalent in the 80s.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Interesting, I might have been in a bubble then. My
| parents and their generation immigrated to the US from a
| developing country, much poorer, but in all of our family
| gatherings, there was never a concern for allergies. And
| we use basically everything in our cooking.
|
| I specifically remember weddings and whatnot when snacks
| were given out to everyone that there was no hesitation
| in offering anyone else's kids food for fear of them
| having an allergy.
|
| I wonder then what the catalyst was for schools banning
| nuts and airlines no longer serving peanuts. Assuming
| people were always allergic in similar or higher
| proportion with similar severity, was it simply changes
| in the political winds?
| lupire wrote:
| It's because
|
| (1) the internet and social media means you know about
| far more people with allergies than before,
|
| (2) you are a adult and not a child, so you know more
| people now
|
| (3) institutions have adopter broad inclusionary policies
| even if no one with an allergy is present
|
| (4) institutions are being far more careful now (you
| eating a your granola bar poses no significant risk to
| someone with a peanut allergy, but it's still banned
| sitewide).
| geoffmunn wrote:
| I asked my parents about this, and they said that peanuts
| weren't common back then - they were expensive and a
| luxury so as a result we didn't have such widespread
| visibility of the problem.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I think that the immune system "correlates" them with
| other harmful substances which are sometimes but not
| always present. The number of possible culprits is long:
| pesticides, random cleaning products used on the
| processing equipment, sometimes mold can grow on peanuts
| if they're stored improperly, the list goes on.
|
| Our immune systems are in many ways similar to police
| forces, and if they hear "a problem being reported" often
| enough while peanuts are around, they may just bunch them
| together with the offender.
|
| The problem is compounded by a dirty baseline
| environment. In the early stages, the immune system is
| "primed" with a "baseline" of what should and shouldn't
| be there, but if the VOCs and such are already there, it
| just learns that they are OK and doesn't react to them.
| bawolff wrote:
| I attended school in the late 90s early 2000s (in
| canada).
|
| It was a big deal then, there were kids i knew who were
| deathly alergic to peanuts.
|
| Severe allergeries seem to be on the rise but i think
| your timeframe is wrong.
| modoc wrote:
| Attending K-12 in the late 80's/early 90's I didn't know
| anyone with a serious allergy in school. There was never
| any concern about peanut butter food/snacks, or anything
| like that. A few kids with inhalers, that was it.
| [deleted]
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I went to to 8 different schools between K to 12th grades
| in 6 different states, and I don't recall meeting anyone
| who was deadly allergic to anything. I'm pretty sure I
| didn't even learn about epipens until maybe later in high
| school or possibly college.
|
| The only ailment in kids that I think I had heard of was
| asthma, for which people had inhalers.
|
| Of course, my data is weak and anecdotal, but based on
| the fact that a staple American food isn't allowed in
| schools anymore, I assume something must have changed.
| rypskar wrote:
| Allergies where common 30 years ago, but you are right
| about the percentage of people that have allergies is
| raising and getting more severe. You can even find
| references to allergy going back to Aristotle's time, so
| not exactly a new thing. I haven't got a link to it, but
| did take a webinar on allergy some weeks ago.
|
| None know exactly why where are getting more allergic,
| but since allergy most often is the immune system
| attacking harmless things some theories is that we have
| to clean an environment in our homes.
| bialpio wrote:
| Allergy != Intolerance. When you have an allergy, you
| suffocate, when you have intolerance to something, it'll
| be unpleasant to be around you and you may spend some
| time on the toilet. This is an oversimplification, but
| one is an immune reaction and the other isn't. Inability
| to digest something to me sounds like neither of those
| cases.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Peanuts are a great example. I am not allergic to peanuts
| myself, but I avoid eating them.
|
| I don't know why people become allergic to them, but
| there must be something in some peanuts which sets off
| their immune system.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| This assumes that if your immune system reacts negatively
| to something, it is guaranteed to be actually harmful to
| the body.
|
| If our immune systems and bodies were all-knowing and
| perfect, then sure, that would be a valid assumption, but
| they're far from it.
| jbarberu wrote:
| That's not how allergies work. People with allergies get
| an immune reaction to a harmless compound.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I don't think you have a clue about how allergies work,
| with all due respect. A harmless compound can be cross-
| associated by the immune system just by being correlated
| with a harmful one.
|
| Meaning if something harmful is present in peanuts
| sometimes but not all the time, the immune system will
| associate peanut compounds with it and reject peanuts as
| well.
| namibj wrote:
| Yes, peanut proteins.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| The true irony of this statement, and I want to emphasize
| I am not a doctor, is that you are more likely to _cause_
| a peanut allergy by avoiding it!
|
| https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2017/01/10/peanut-allergy-
| earl...
|
| Similar to germ theory, some exposure is actually good.
| im3w1l wrote:
| From my understanding, some types of exposure promote
| allergy while other types of exposure prevent it.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| How far do you take that theory? People have allergies to
| many (normally) benign substances. Melons, natural latex,
| ibuprofen, pollen, etc.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Generally speaking, if it wasn't in my ancestors'
| environment, I avoid it. Otherwise, approach with
| caution.
|
| Nature can be dangerous, too, but at least it's likely
| that someone in the past has dealt with it and lived to
| reproduce.
|
| With new synthetic substances, you're essentially doing
| alpha-testing with your irreplaceable hardware/software
| system...
| e_y_ wrote:
| Pollen in particular is weird because simply being
| outside should expose you to some level of pollen,
| compared to foods like melons or peanuts that may or may
| not be part of your diet. I'm mildly allergic to dust
| mites and they're literally everywhere.
| kergonath wrote:
| That's pseudo-science. There are lots of things that can
| kill some people and are harmless to others.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Better safe than sorry, don't you think?
|
| Would you say VOCs are harmless to people who are not
| sensitive to them?
| antasvara wrote:
| I see your point, but I think that you're most likely
| being overly careful when regulating your exposure to
| substances. As the person responding to your point about
| allergies stated, individual's bodies respond to (or
| don't respond to) substances in different ways.
|
| Peanut allergies are an example of this: a person with
| allergies is having an immune response to the substance,
| while most humans don't experience this immune response.
| This doesn't necessarily indicate that peanuts are always
| inducing a low level "bad" reaction in people without
| allergies, just that those with allergies have an immune
| system that isn't properly reacting to a non-threat. Do
| you also not eat eggs, shellfish, every kind of tree nut,
| strawberries, or red meat? Because these are all possible
| allergies.
|
| This isn't to say that VOC's aren't harmless, because I
| believe they are. But your assertion that sensitivities
| in one person indicate something about the entire human
| population is scientifically false and is most likely
| casting too wide of a net. You've essentially defined a
| process with high sensitivity (which means you catch all
| of the possible bad chemicals/substances), but very low
| specificity (you often identify substances as harmful
| when they are not). This is fine for ensuring safety but
| is unnecessarily restrictive.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I think that all those things are "approach with caution"
| territory.
|
| Immune system can become sensitized not just to harmful
| substances, but also to ones "correlated" with them,
| meaning it's likely they've been exposed to e.g. peanuts
| which had something bad in them and associated it with
| the peanuts themselves.
|
| Of course, there's also the fact that when a child is
| growing up in this VOC environment, their immune system
| never gets a chance to establish a good baseline for what
| should and shouldn't be in the system, and that is
| another reason allergies develop.
| donatj wrote:
| Life as a whole is balancing risk and reward. My desire
| to experience life outweighs my desire for safety.
|
| If I could live infinitely long but never experience
| anything, what's the point? Safety is the largest danger.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I've done many dangerous things, but where is the
| experience reward for breathing VOCs?
|
| Certainly riding in a new car is not worth it, is it? Or
| having a "fresh-smelling" house with nice-looking
| furniture?
| donatj wrote:
| Everything listed there is very enjoyable. New car smell
| _has a name_ because people like it so much.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Sure, but I can find other enjoyable things which are not
| proven harmful.
|
| Not to mention the insane amount of "biocide" which
| happens in the process of producing a new car.
|
| I consider animals and plants to be my close relatives
| (and dependencies, meaning I won't live long without
| them), so if I can avoid money-voting for stuff which
| harms them, I choose that.
| kergonath wrote:
| I am not commenting on VOCs specifically, just pointing
| out that the logic is flawed.
|
| We should ban or control the substances for which we have
| strong suspicion, I think most sane people would agree.
| But where to put the line is difficult. Some trees have
| pollen that causes asthma attacks and several deaths
| every year; should we cut them all?
|
| So we need more nuances than black or white.
|
| Now if you want my opinion, I would agree that reducing
| volatile substances is good; we still need to be careful
| about the things we put in their place.
| mcav wrote:
| From that article:
|
| > Blinded clinical trials show that people with MCS react
| as often and as strongly to placebos as they do to chemical
| stimuli; the existence and severity of symptoms is
| seemingly related to _perception_ that a chemical stimulus
| is present.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I don't believe this study for a second based on personal
| experience. It sounds about as trustworthy as tobacco-is-
| harmless and fat-not-sugar studies of the past.
| civilized wrote:
| The study may be true on average but not in every
| particular case. The way we do most medical studies
| today, with relatively small samples and coarse aggregate
| statistics, isn't well-suited to detecting rare but
| genuine issues with a high false positive rate.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| There are also two major issues with science today.
|
| The first is that a lot of studies are simply careless.
| They use a "placebo" which has a scent to give the
| indication that there is something there, but then the
| "placebo" unintentionally contains VOCs. Or the lab's
| janitor uses them to clean the lab, things like that.
|
| The second is that a lot of studies are funded by people
| with agendas. It's all too easy to get an invalid result
| by accident, much less on purpose.
|
| See also replication crisis.
|
| So then you either have to know and trust the authors of
| the study or spend the time to go through it with a fine
| toothed comb and find replications from independent
| scientists before you can trust it. Which nobody really
| has the time to do, so the default position becomes to
| dismiss anything the reader disagrees with.
|
| It's a problem.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| This is why people don't take your claims seriously. If
| you aren't even willing to consider an opposing
| viewpoint, why should anyone consider yours? What's the
| point in having a discussion?
|
| Clearly you have some kind of hypersensitivity to indoor
| environments. I'm not convinced it's VOCs. They've been
| with us for a long time now, spanning a few generations,
| and life expectancy is only increasing. Maybe I'm wrong;
| I'm open to that possibility.
|
| On the hand, the only other people I've met with issues
| similar to yours have allergic histamine reactions to
| particulates that are benign to everyone else. Like dust
| and grass. I have a friend that gets a shot every few
| months for it, and doesn't have a problem when treated.
| Have you considered speaking with a doctor?
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I don't have allergies, and I am not sensitive to indoor
| envornments by themselves. I just get very tired and a
| migraine-like reaction when exposed to synthetic cleaning
| products and new furniture, as far as recently.
|
| I don't need scientific consensus to prove it to me, I
| live it myself.
|
| People I am close with do take me seriously, and the
| problem is fixed when the VOCs are taken away.
| sojournerc wrote:
| VOC's aren't all man-made. You'd need to live in a vacuum
| to avoid them altogether.
|
| The nice smell after a rain storm? VOC
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_organic_compound#B
| iol...
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| What are you saying, that because some VOCs are found in
| nature, any man-made VOC is OK too, just because it is
| part of the same chemical compound family?
| bawolff wrote:
| I think the appropriate conclusion would be your
| sensitive to something more specific than just the very
| broad class of VOCs in general.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| So... the ones I am not sensitive to, are they not
| harmful?
| foerbert wrote:
| You aren't receiving pushback from people who are
| attempting to deny your experience. I don't think anybody
| here doubts the experiences you have mentioned.
|
| Instead people are questioning your analysis of the root
| cause. You can be meaningfully and honestly impacted and
| also be wrong about why you are having trouble. Even in
| the most extreme case where somebody wants to claim you
| effectively experiencing the placebo effect, that does
| not detract from the realness of your issue.
|
| I think many people have trouble really groking this
| separation. Questioning the root cause can often feel
| like questioning the problem. Additionally it is easy to
| become attached to an explanation that may be faulty.
| Humans are not well-evolved to be perfectly rational and
| completely detached observers of their own lives. And
| faulty explanations don't necessarily cause faulty
| solutions, which can make things even harder to
| disentangle.
|
| However I think it's important to try to keep in mind
| that all of these aspects are distinct in important ways
| despite being related. It is possible to question or even
| refute these aspects individually without casting
| aspersions on the other aspects. You can have a real
| problem, and a working solution, and still be completely
| wrong about why. That's fine, and actually pretty normal.
| urda wrote:
| > I don't believe this study for a second
|
| You don't get to throw away opposing evidence because it
| does not agree with the point you're attempting to sell.
| You don't actually want to have a conversation, you just
| want to push an agenda.
| SilverRed wrote:
| This reminds me of the people moving out to the middle of
| no where because they claim to be sensitive to wifi.
| 4eor0 wrote:
| Is it hard to take pollen allergies from dozens of different
| plants seriously?
|
| How about dust and smoke? How can someone be allergic to
| both! The temerity.
|
| It's less about chemistry of the materials, more about the
| sensitivity of the squishy, arbitrary human body.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Pollen I don't avoid, because it's not a new substance.
|
| "Dust" allergies often have to do with the substances which
| are on the dust, which is covered above.
|
| Smoke is certainly not good for you.
|
| This squishy arbitrary human body is the only one I've got
| for today, so I avoid whatever I think may harm it, even if
| there is no dots on the i's and crosses on the t's with
| regards to scientific proof.
|
| If you look at the history of teflon, plastics, cigarettes,
| VOCs, synthetic food ingredients, you'll see that this
| strategy would have served a human well in the past, and
| it's the best one I can think of to follow for the
| foreseeable future.
| tptacek wrote:
| One problem with this kind of reasoning is that it's the
| same thing that the people with the 5G allergies say.
| It's tricky because VOCs probably are very bad for us, so
| there's a kernel of truth in it, but you don't want to
| balance your entire house on a single kernel, if that
| makes sense.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Jesus Christ comparing allergies to chemicals to 5G
| conspiracy theories, everyone's a paranoid conspiracy
| theorist now :shrug
| codr7 wrote:
| How about judging each case on its merits rather than
| shoving them all in the conspiracy box to feel better?
| tptacek wrote:
| I agree that's how we should do it, and think we are both
| making the same critique.
| briefcomment wrote:
| From personal experience, once you become sensitized, you
| become sensitive to literally anything synthetic.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > "this stuff"
|
| Is it less hard to take seriously when the proper term is
| utilized?
|
| Volatile Organic Compounds (a.k.a. VOCs)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_organic_compound
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Well, VOCs are in almost all new products on the market...
| e7fyeuuerg wrote:
| Reading between the lines they're that room mate who harasses
| you over their grievance every day while feining politeness.
| I'd rather move to a longer commute than live with someone
| like this.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Think what you will, I've converted several households to
| only use Dr. Bronner's and be generally clean of VOC
| pollutants. Sure, it's fucking annoying when someone's
| making you change the ways you've been settling into for
| decades, and it's also the truth, and a fight worth
| fighting, in my opinion.
|
| It's also easier than you think to change these habits.
| e7fyeuuerg wrote:
| Thankyou for demonstrating my point.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| What is your point? That I shouldn't communicate to
| people I'm close with about about harm they're doing to
| themselves and myself and help them change their ways?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Think of the kitties! It's good for them too!
| NickBusey wrote:
| You mean the same Dr. Bronner's who's label is completely
| covered with religious insanity? Thanks, but I think I'll
| pass on supporting such a company.
|
| Edit: Link to the full text for those who feel the need
| to down vote my shopping preferences. http://dev.null.org
| /psychoceramics/collection/bronner.html
| astrange wrote:
| It's not Dr. Bronner's fault he's schizophrenic.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| Dr. Bronner escaped from Nazi Germany while the rest of
| his family were murdered. I think he gets a pass for
| writing "all one" and "love one another" on the bottles.
| It actually is not that insane if you take the time to
| read it without anti-religious bias.
|
| Aside from that, it's the only brand I've seen which
| reliably does not put literally poisonous substances in
| their main product.
| NickBusey wrote:
| http://dev.null.org/psychoceramics/collection/bronner.htm
| l
|
| It is definitely not just "all love".
| Judgmentality wrote:
| Holy fuck. I use that soap as I believe it's a wonderful
| product, and I always knew the label was crazy but I've
| never bothered to look at just how much insanity was on
| there.
| spicybright wrote:
| Fucking love Dr Bronners, I'm happy I'm glad at least
| that is good.
|
| Most people I know see it only as a body wash, and get
| freaked out when I use it for other things like mopping
| the floors.
| samizdis wrote:
| I've been to the US only a few times, and have never come
| across Dr. Bronner's, but the comments here piqued my
| interest and so I looked up Emanuel Bronner and read his
| Wikipedia entry [1].
|
| It describes a fascinating, if partly tragic, life and
| I'm surprised not to have seen a movie about it. Anyhow,
| at the bottom of the Wiki page is a link to a piece in
| Inc. magazine from April 2012 [2], _The Undiluted Genius
| of Dr. Bronner 's_.
|
| This gives a brief biog of the man and also interviews
| family members running the company now (or, at least, in
| 2012). Weird doesn't do the company's early or recent
| history justice; a cracking article - and the next time I
| go to the US (if I get to, Covid etc) I am definitely
| going to pick up some product.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Bronner
|
| [2] https://www.inc.com/magazine/201204/tom-foster/the-
| undiluted...
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| The brand's popularity has exploded lately, in part
| because many people are waking up to the badness of most
| other products. Amazingly, they have held up their
| quality for now, unlike e.g. Seventh Generation or Mrs.
| Meyers.
| varelse wrote:
| So I have an allergy to Aloe. And it got blind tested one
| night when I slept on a friend's floor and woke up with a
| rash 100% unaware he used his Aloe plant right where I slept.
|
| I also have whatever the hell the MSG allergy is, though
| obviously it isn't to pure MSG because they can't reproduce
| it with pure MSG (from which they conclude it doesn't exist),
| but if someone wants to throw money at figuring out its root
| cause from some sort of breakdown product or adulterant that
| travels with commercially produced MSG, I'm happy to be the
| guinea pig. The last time it hit, at a Chinese restaurant in
| SF, the left side of my body was nearly paralyzed. It is
| _bizarre_ whatever it actually is. And the number of you-
| know-whats I give about randos taking it seriously or not is
| precisely zero.
|
| A former co-worker would projectile vomit if exposed to
| avocado. I saw that get evaluated blind as well.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| If you're curious about the MSG sensitivity I recommend
| trying other foods that are high in MSG and looking for
| similar sensitivities to foods like tomatoes, snack foods,
| and meat seasoning mixes, and condiments. If you don't have
| sensitivities to those, it may be something else that's
| causing the issue, like ginger, soy sauce, oyster sauce,
| etc.
| srg0 wrote:
| Actually, in case of MSG, it's easier to try it directly,
| in chemically pure form.
| varelse wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's not reactant grade MSG. But I wonder
| about breakdown products and adulterants that travel with
| kitchen-grade MSG.
| dialamac wrote:
| > The last time it hit, at a Chinese restaurant in SF,
|
| Not to not take it seriously, but isn't there a lot more
| stuff in American Chinese food other than MSG? Like of the
| 1000s of chemical substances that would be in a plate of
| Chinese food, why of all places would that be where you
| would isolate an MSG allergy?
|
| > or adulterant that travels with commercially produced MSG
|
| Then that wouldn't be an MSG allergy. Oats are gluten free
| but celiacs have difficulty with them, not because of the
| oats but because of contamination.. we wouldn't say they
| have an oat allergy though.
| [deleted]
| rhizome wrote:
| It's like my brother says when there's a food or candy that
| doesn't taste the same as when we were kids: "they took the
| cancer out of it." Items that are no longer on the market had
| to remove so much cancer from their ingredients that it wasn't
| the same anymore, so they take it off the market.
|
| They say "regulations are written in blood," which makes you
| wonder what "new car smell" was composed of 50 years ago.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I think it's actually the opposite. They put the cancer in it
| by swapping out expensive ingredients like sugar and fat for
| high fructose corn syrup and palm kernel oil. Evey time you
| see the "same great taste" or "new formula" on a box it means
| they've re-engineered it to cut costs by substituting
| ingredients, usually for some engineered compound that's
| cheaper or more shelf stable.
|
| Hershey's chocolate is now just rancid swill that just tastes
| of sugar with a hint of vomit.
| Spivak wrote:
| Of all the things to point out in commercial food
| production you chose basically the two most benign things.
|
| Swapping refined sugar for HFCS 55 (the most common type)
| is basically an even trade sans some extra water content in
| the syrup and palm kernel oil is just saturated fat but
| sourced from a plant instead of animals.
|
| I don't think anyone is gonna argue that a high sugar and
| saturated fat diet is healthy but no worse than the same
| things sourced from other places. In an alternative
| universe palm oil and corn syrup would have been the
| standard and people would complain about the switch to lard
| and white sugar.
| souprock wrote:
| Hershey's chocolate was like that on day 1, about 120 years
| ago, because they wanted to use milk without having to keep
| the supply refrigerated. Lipolysis of the milk fat produces
| butyric acid, which does taste a bit like vomit or parmesan
| cheese. People got addicted to the taste, so today the
| flavor is intentional. Some companies, targeting the
| American market, even add butyric acid to mimic the
| Hershey's taste.
| cptskippy wrote:
| That's interesting. I don't recall it being quite so bad
| 30 years ago.
| bawolff wrote:
| In terms of vegetables, much of the difference is selective
| breeding for varieties that look pretty in the store and can
| survive transport easily instead of for taste. No cancer
| involved.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| The cancer is in the pesticide residue.
| bawolff wrote:
| The pesticide residue wasn't what made it taste good,
| which was the context of the parents comment
| hh3k0 wrote:
| > "Cleaning" products: sprays, detergents, most "soaps",
| shampoos, creams, conditioners, have this type of crap in them.
|
| Yeah, that's awful stuff. Your partners and cohabitants should
| be grateful that you're somewhat of a canary in a coalmine for
| them:
|
| > Regular use of cleaning sprays has an impact on lung health
| comparable with smoking a pack of cigarettes every day,
| according to a new study.
|
| https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201706-131...
| trophycase wrote:
| I know, I don't get it. People's laundry steam is pumped out of
| their basements and when I walk around the city in the
| wintertime you get an overwhelming scent of unpleasant laundry
| fragrance every now and then. Some friends of mine had their
| carpet replaced a month or two ago and there was incredible
| offgassing. I got an absolutely terrible headache accompanied
| with nausea after 2 hours but they all seemed to be sitting
| there inhaling it just fine. I couldn't believe it. I'm just
| saying "how can you guys handle this?"
|
| Dishsoaps too, I find the Dawn dish soap scent absolutely
| repulsing, mostly because of poor associations with 3 month old
| sponges, freezing cold houses, and mildewy sinks from college.
| I don't know how anyone stomachs the stuff. The smells are so
| "artificial" in the sense that they are one note, they don't
| feel organic. They lack the nuance of something that contains
| 50 terpenes might have.
| code_duck wrote:
| A few years ago I found occasion to rent a car. The clerk noted I
| was lucky - it had only 400 miles. I thought that was great until
| I remembered what it meant. The car smelled strongly like glues,
| and unfortunately the windows were designed in a way that I
| couldn't get air blowing on my face.
|
| I was doing a run about an hour away to Los Alamos. While
| driving, I started feeling tense in the face. My arms were
| stiffening and my mouth going into a circular shape. I felt
| strange like I was going to pass out. I was so concerned that if
| I went home I might be calling an ambulance. Luckily there was a
| fire station . I couldn't figure out how to ring their doorbell
| and collapsed in the front.
|
| The EMTs there came out, stuck me in an ambulance and took me to
| the ER, where the doctors couldn't find anything wrong besides a
| low potassium level. I'm still wondering what happened exactly.
|
| I have some sort of sensitivity to all sorts of fragrances,
| especially synthetic, probably related to my immune/autoimmune
| diseases. It's extremely uncomfortable for me to be near air
| freshener, dryer sheets, laundry detergent, cologne, perfume,
| shampoo, hairspray, and other scented products. The fragrance
| industry has been hard at work expanding fragrance into new
| products as well, like garbage bags. Prior to the ER incident
| above I had been weakened by digestive problems (apparently the
| aftermath of celiac/precursor of type 1 diabetes) and weighed 8%
| under a healthy minimum weight, so I can't surmise it was 100%
| the car fumes.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Hi. Your symptoms (minus the collapse) sound very similar to a
| close friend of mine.
|
| Digestive problems continued until almost all foods were
| eliminated. A few things seemed to work over a period of a few
| months with a Dr's supervision. First, treatment for MTHFR.
| This was basically taking some methylated B vitamin available
| on Amazon, they're not very expensive. Next, great improvements
| were found with traditional chinese medicine. My friend found a
| practitioner from China trained in the 80s that lives in our
| area, rather than a western person. They prescribed a number of
| supplements to aid in digestion issues. The final component is
| electrolyte water. That seems to be the best way for my friend
| to stay hydrated.
|
| Since doing this, while still intolerant of certain perfumes
| and such, my friend is living a normal life now.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| True story, I learned I must be allergic/sensitive to "new car
| smell" the hard way. I threw up in my friend's parents new car.
| Like all over the back of their like <1 month old car.
|
| It has it advantages because used cars are cheaper.
| vilhelm_s wrote:
| Similarly, newly built or renovated houses will have some "new
| house" smell, which is also VOCs. I have been told there is a
| cultural difference between China and the U.S., where Chinese
| people will let a house be empty for a few weeks to get rid of
| the smell before moving in (since the chemicals are believed to
| be bad for your health), while in the U.S. people don't seem to
| be concerned by them.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Somebody built a house from natural materials. He said that the
| biggest difference when he moved in was that it didn't feel new
| - there was none of that plastic / solvant smell.
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