[HN Gopher] Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; au...
___________________________________________________________________
Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; authors say it
doesn't matter
Author : ars
Score : 146 points
Date : 2024-12-17 00:52 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| isaacfrond wrote:
| I was actually seriously considering tossing my kitchenware. It
| was only me inertia that kept me from it. I wonder how long the
| afterlife of this one is going to be; reminds me of the autism
| causing vacines hoax
| crazygringo wrote:
| Well, the original post on HN was front page. This one is
| collecting... barely more than a point an hour.
|
| So if HN doesn't even care...
| marssaxman wrote:
| The discussion of this topic five days ago received 128
| points and 174 comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42400008
| crazygringo wrote:
| Thank you so much!
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The discussion of this topic five days ago received 128
| points and 174 comments
|
| Interesting. My understanding was that HN yanks a thread
| off the front page as soon as it has more comments than
| upvotes, because that's their indicator of being
| "controversial".
|
| Which never made sense to me, because I leave hundreds of
| times more comments than article upvotes.
| echoangle wrote:
| > My understanding was that HN yanks a thread off the
| front page as soon as it has more comments than upvotes,
| because that's their indicator of being "controversial".
|
| I have read that a lot of times but this doesn't seem to
| be the case, I can remember multiple times when I clicked
| on something on the front page and it had more comments
| than upvotes.
|
| This is currently on the front page with 245 points and
| 274 comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42441502
| 6510 wrote:
| We need an AI to pick the correct topics and raise us
| properly.
| jkestner wrote:
| For sure. In the face of bigger systemic changes that feel out
| of our control (eating better, working less, affordable health
| care), we'll try every "one weird trick".
| moron4hire wrote:
| It's not a hoax, though. Vaccines causing autism was. While the
| level of the carcinogen wasn't what they thought it was, it's
| still significantly higher than the 0 that it should be,
| because the only reason it's there at all is because the
| companies are recycling plastic from electronics. I think that
| the researchers saying it doesn't change their conclusion is
| reasonable.
|
| If you had told me that Cocoa Krispies were 50% rat feces, but
| then came back and said you'd made a mistake and was off by an
| order of magnitude, it's only 5%, I think it would be pretty
| reasonable to not update your conclusion that Cocoa Krispies
| were significantly contaminated with rat feces.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > the carcinogen
|
| I love how threat inflation turns chemicals from innocuous to
| deadly in the absence of any strong evidence.
|
| No, we cannot say this chemical is a carcinogen. Read the
| wikipedia page.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decabromodiphenyl_ether
|
| > In 2004, ATSDR wrote "Nothing definite is known about the
| health effects of PBDEs in people. Practically all of the
| available information is from studies of laboratory animals.
| Animal studies indicate that commercial decaBDE mixtures are
| generally much less toxic than the products containing lower
| brominated PBDEs. DecaBDE is expected to have relatively
| little effect on the health of humans."
| zug_zug wrote:
| EPA safe guidelines are changed _all the time_ often by
| much more than 1 order of magnitude. E.G. lead has gone
| from .5ppm being safe (1995) to 20 ppb (2023).
|
| If you adopted a life strategy of "only avoid things
| _after_ scientists have conclusive evidence it 's dangerous
| for you" then you'd have unnecessarily ingested hundreds of
| various poisons over the last 100 years.
| 6510 wrote:
| That people with Alzheimer's cook in aluminum doesn't
| prove causation.
|
| 2024 https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/news/aluminium-
| and-alzh...
|
| > This research has shown higher aluminium levels in the
| brain and the fluids that bathe the brain in people with
| Alzheimer's when compared to healthy individuals. But
| just spotting higher levels doesn't mean they are a cause
| of the disease. > [...] most scientists think that
| aluminium build-up in the brain is more likely to be a
| consequence of Alzheimer's disease rather than a cause.
|
| Ah yes, the _" most scientists"_ card. _" more likely"_
| is also hilarious! Most doctors are more likely to smoke
| camel.
|
| 2010 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21157018/
|
| > The hypothesis that Al significantly contributes to AD
| is built upon very solid experimental evidence and should
| not be dismissed. Immediate steps should be taken to
| lessen human exposure to Al, which may be the single most
| aggravating and avoidable factor related to AD.
|
| The science folk need an entirely different level of
| evidence than I do.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| In the absence of any strong evidence, a wise man would be
| well-served in treating the ingestion of a novel chemical
| as deadly.
|
| No, the wise man doesn't have strong evidence to the
| contrary. And no, he's not interested in finding out
| either. The consequences of ingesting a novel non-Lindy
| chemical is an unknown unknown that the wise man is not
| interested in discovering.
|
| Of course, if the potential upsides are great enough, the
| risk of downsides might be worthwhile.
|
| In the case of the chemical spatula, the downsides are
| uncertain, but there's the possibility of cancer. The
| upsides are...greater corporate profits?
|
| The wise man is going to have to pass on that one.
|
| Moderns would do well to try and be more like the wise man.
| Scientific studies are not the holy grail of knowledge. New
| studies are coming out all the time, both negating and
| reaffirming old conclusions. Is this schizophrenic flip-
| flopping not enough to convince the modern that Scientism
| isn't the end-all-be-all?
|
| Unknown unknowns emerge at the tails of novel changes
| introduced to complex systems. Scientific studies are
| unable to account for these long-tail events. When it comes
| to your environment and your body, be more Lindy, and stop
| deferring to the myopicity of Scientism to guide you.
|
| >Eat no fruits from the past one thousand years; drink
| nothing from the past four thousand years.
| bigmadshoe wrote:
| I was with you until the quote at the end. What does that
| even mean?
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| It's an aphorism suggesting the importance of the Lindy
| effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
|
| The longer something has been around, the longer it will
| continue to be around. The longevity of something also
| validates its efficacy and resiliency.
|
| If people have been eating figs and drinking wine for
| thousands of years, then it's probably good and safe for
| you to do as well.
|
| If traditional salad recipes avoid the use of conium
| maculatum, then you should probably avoid it too.
|
| If your ancient ancestors didn't cook with margarine,
| then you probably shouldn't cook with it either.
| pfdietz wrote:
| If lead pipes were good enough for the Romans, they
| should be good enough for us!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > If people have been eating figs and drinking wine for
| thousands of years, then it's probably good and safe for
| you to do as well.
|
| This is ignores the amounts consumed. Just because a
| thing is safe at N mg/day doesn't mean it is safe at all
| doses. The change circumstances of human existence make
| attempts to come up with simple, eternal rubrics at best
| a bit chancy, and at worst completely misleading.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Are you cautioning against overdosing on figs?
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| It also ignores the particular size of the figs that
| should be consumed. And it ignores the season that they
| should be consumed. And it ignores the weather conditions
| that you should consume them in. And it ignores the hour
| at which they're consumed. And it ignores the gender of
| the person that should consume them. And it ignores the
| eye color of the person that should consume them. And it
| ignores the hair length of the person that should consume
| them. And it ignores the precise composition of nitrogen
| in the soil with which the fig tree has been grown in.
| And phosphorous. And potassium. And it ignores the day of
| the week in which the fig should be consumed. And it
| ignores the material of the utensils used to consume the
| fig. And it ignores the age of the person that consumes
| them.
|
| Just enjoy your figs, Paul.
| myrmidon wrote:
| I can see the appeal of simple, science-sceptical
| traditionalism.
|
| But it does not pass the smell test.
|
| There is a plethora of substances and practices that are
| _quite_ harmful, but have been used for millenia. This is
| because your suggested methodology fails to detect really
| anything that does not cause traceable _and_ observable
| harm before the next generation is raised. And that 's a
| lot of things.
|
| "Science" adds value compared to pure traditionalism
| because it analyzes precisely how things are harmful, and
| helps discover mitigations and strategies that pure
| outcome-driven traditionalism would never have explored.
|
| Examples:
|
| - Lead pipes (used successfully for over two millenia--
| harmless? no.)
|
| - Basically every carcinogen ever (e.g. Radon: people in
| affected regions did simply not know about keeping it out
| of cellars/dwellings, and just died of lung cancer
| sometimes)
|
| - Salmonella, syphilis, cholera and other pathogens--
| they are non-issues with proper prevention and/or
| countermeasures-- without those, people just suffer
| and/or die.
|
| - Alcohol consumption during pregnancy
|
| edit: I'm not saying that "sticking with what worked in
| the past" is wrong, or useless information, but its just
| that-- a statistical prior for harm. It won't reliably
| tell you neither which things are harmless nor which are
| harmful, it just gives a rough indication of which it
| might be.
| jcranmer wrote:
| It's funny that you use wine as an example of "obviously
| safe" drink. Because wine is chock full of not-safe-for-
| human-consumption chemicals (e.g., tannic acid) that
| would be illegal to use if it were synthetically
| prepared, but since it's "natural", it gets a free pass.
| And if you tried to remove all of those chemicals, you'd
| find that the resulting flavor profile is absolute
| garbage.
|
| I can also point out--we've been drinking out of lead
| pipes for thousands of years, so they're obviously safe,
| right? ... right?
| tivert wrote:
| >> Unknown unknowns emerge at the tails of novel changes
| introduced to complex systems. Scientific studies are
| unable to account for these long-tail events. When it
| comes to your environment and your body, be more Lindy,
| and stop deferring to the myopicity of Scientism to guide
| you.
|
| >>> Eat no fruits from the past one thousand years; drink
| nothing from the past four thousand years.
|
| > I was with you until the quote at the end. What does
| that even mean?
|
| I think it means "don't consume anything foodstuff that
| doesn't have a _long_ record of safety (v.s. trusting the
| guy in the white lab coat that says the new thing is
| safe, since in 20 years some other guy in a white lab
| coat may find it 's actually very unsafe in some
| previously unknown way).
|
| It appears to be a quote from Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
| here's a fuller version:
| https://manassaloi.com/booksummaries/2016/01/21/bed-
| procrust...:
|
| > Read nothing from the past one hundred years; eat no
| fruits from the past one thousand years; drink nothing
| from the past four thousand years (just wine and water);
| but talk to no ordinary man over forty. A man without a
| heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The problem here is you are asking for the impossible:
| strong evidence that novel chemicals are safe. How could
| you ever get that? It's impossible to prove a negative.
|
| And doesn't this just privilege tradition? Chemicals will
| be grandfathered in for spurious reasons, not because
| they are actually any safer. Famously, chemicals in
| plants very often light up the Ames test for
| carcinogenicity and would be ruled out by your argument
| if they weren't "natural".
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| We have plenty of strong evidence for the safety of tons
| of things. My ancestors have been consuming cow's milk,
| mache, and wine for thousands of years. If these things
| were not safe for consumption, we wouldn't be consuming
| them to this day. My bloodline wouldn't have made it this
| far. We don't add poison hemlock to our mache salads
| because thousands of years ago, some poor souls gave us
| strong evidence that it's not something you should eat,
| and that knowledge was passed down to us.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > wine
|
| Thank you for a most excellent example illustrating my
| point and demolishing yours.
|
| Alcohol is estimated to cause 4.5% of all cancers in
| Europe. It's a Group 1 carcinogen, yet it is privileged
| because of tradition.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/33/6/1128/7295464
| quesera wrote:
| This logic is not formally valid. It's a reasonable basis
| of belief for a pre-science culture, though.
|
| Also, FWIW, cow's milk has objectively changed in the
| last few decades.
| sir0010010 wrote:
| We have to compare potential downsides though, we have
| two choices, we can: * not ingest novel chemicals or *
| ingest novel chemicals that _may_ be carcinogenic, but
| scientific research will not be able to prove anything
| either way
|
| Do you not think that it is rational to choose option 1,
| given our understanding of the Lindy effect?
| pfdietz wrote:
| It depends on the benefit of the chemical vs. the risk.
| One-sided assessment isn't wise.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _In the absence of any strong evidence, a wise man
| would be well-served in treating the ingestion of a novel
| chemical as deadly._
|
| Isn't this why we (used to?) feed things to mice to learn
| about them? To collect additional evidence of safety
| after basic things like knowing what general kinds of
| things interact with people's biology say it's probably
| safe?
| tivert wrote:
| > In the case of the chemical spatula, the downsides are
| uncertain, but there's the possibility of cancer. The
| upsides are...greater corporate profits?
|
| > The wise man is going to have to pass on that one.
|
| We should be all happy to deliver increase value to the
| shareholders, in whatever way we can. After all, they are
| the most important people in the world. The wise man is
| not too wise if he doesn't believe that.
| pfdietz wrote:
| In the absence of monopoly, advances in technology result
| in improvement in value for the customers. Profit margins
| are constrained in any competitive industry.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Idk, plastic in contact with hot/acidic food/surfaces gets a no
| from me. Even before the apparently incorrect paper.
|
| Really, you bought Tupperware? Even if you don't ask yourself
| whether any contaminants were released by it in your food,
| maybe the fact that it gets stained by pasta sauce to a point
| where it becomes an Internet meme makes it shitty kitchenware?
|
| Even without exposure to food, plastic deteriorates with
| sunlight exposure or even just age... Why spend money on stuff
| like this? Buy a porcelain salad bowl instead, get a wooden
| spatula, put some oil on it so it endures washings.
| Tomte wrote:
| I did. And today I wouldn't, but still, the silicone set is
| nicer than the hard plastic one. So I don't mind too much.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Likewise: after throwing out all of our cheap black plastic
| utensils, we replaced them with much nicer wood, metal, and
| silicone implements. It was a pleasant little upgrade, even
| if it wasn't strictly necessary; no regrets.
| emilamlom wrote:
| They're $5 spatulas that melt and shed bits of plastic over
| time. Wood, silicon, or stainless steel are all better and not
| too much more expensive. Even if this was a hoax (which it's
| not), there's plenty of reason to upgrade anyways.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| As long as some famous nude model doesn't make it a personal
| crusade to spread disinfo, I don't think it'll quite reach
| "autism causing vaccines" levels.
| croes wrote:
| So you are ok with getting a dosis of 8% of the EPA limit when
| alternatives with much less toxicity exist?
| EE84M3i wrote:
| Was this originally discovered by Adam Ragusea? He mentioned it
| in his video about it before all the press came out about the
| error, and said he emailed the authors.
| thebetatester wrote:
| I wondered that as well. Shame they didn't give him credit if
| he truly was the first one to point it out.
| savanaly wrote:
| I've never been too sure how closely he's reading those papers
| he refers to in his informational vids; if he actually
| discovered a flaw himself from reading one that is highly
| indicative he's doing a good job!
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Obviously it doesn't matter. If it mattered, the paper might get
| retracted.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| You forgot the sarcasm font there....
| phoronixrly wrote:
| It's not even sarcasm. The authors state that the correction
| does not alter the conclusion
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| As I pointed out in my comment above, that's the same thing
| all authors say when someone shows massive problems in
| their data.
| coreyh14444 wrote:
| Also see this from Ethan Mollock on Twitter:
| https://x.com/emollick/status/1868329599438037491 -- o1 was able
| to spot the error on the first try. It has now led to a whole
| initiative called the Black Spatula Project:
| https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/the-black-spatula-proj...
| oidar wrote:
| People are missing the forest for the trees on this one. I agree
| with the author here - unfortunate error, but the conclusion
| should lead to the same actions.
| jtc331 wrote:
| At minimum it changes the urgency for individuals with existing
| cookware.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| We are talking about black plastic spatulas and spoons,
| right? Existing cookware? Non-plastic replacements' price is
| less than 5 euro at IKEA, possibly less at local kitchenware
| stores... What urgency would there be apart from 'oh I need
| to pick up a wooden spatula for eur 0.50 next time I go to
| IKEA'...
| coldpie wrote:
| So the main concept people are having a disagreement here is
| around the concept of _risk_ versus _hazard_. A thing can be a
| hazard, without being a risk. The data you should use to decide
| to take action is the amount of _risk_ , not the amount of
| _hazard_. In the specific scenario of humans ingesting
| potentially dangerous substances, usually risk is directly
| related to the amount of _exposure_ to a hazard. In other
| words, you can think of it as "risk = hazard * exposure."
|
| For example:
|
| - If you're a smoker, your exposure to the hazardous substances
| in cigarette smoke is sky-high. The risk to your health of
| being a smoker is so high and so clear that societies spend
| millions of dollars to try to convince people of the risk.
|
| - If you're living with a smoker, but not a smoker yourself,
| then your exposure is lower, but still high enough to be
| actionable. So we see indoor smoking bans and 2nd hand smoke
| information also included in anti-smoking campaigns.
|
| - If you're walking down the sidewalk and pass by a smoker for
| three seconds, you're still encountering the exact same hazard,
| but your exposure is so low that the risk is not really
| actionable. It's not like we see big public campaigns about
| crossing the street to avoid the risk of 3 seconds of exposure
| to second hand smoke. That's because the _risk_ isn 't there.
|
| - Someone smoking in their house 50 miles from you is obviously
| zero risk to you at all, even though the hazard still exists.
|
| You can see the same kind of pattern everywhere: car exhaust is
| the same hazard everywhere, but whether it's a _risk worth
| actioning_ depends on whether you live in a dense urban center,
| or next to a busy freeway, or out in the exurbs.
|
| So back to the plastic stuff. The study authors were claiming
| that the level of _risk_ was high enough to justify everyone in
| the world throwing their utensils away and buying brand new
| ones. When it came out that the exposure factor of their "risk
| = hazard * exposure" formula was actually off by a factor of
| 10, they... stuck with the exact same story? I don't know, man.
| The original claim was below the acceptable risk threshold, and
| now it's even ten times lower than that. Surely that has some
| impact on the level of risk? Does this drop the risk from
| "smoker" to "passing by a smoker for 3 seconds"?
|
| The distinction matters when deciding how much effort
| mitigating this risk requires: should I throw everything out
| right now, or just buy something else when my current ones wear
| out, or is the risk actually so low that it really does not
| matter? If I replace them, what is the level of risk of the
| things I replace them with? Should society put in the effort to
| ban these chemicals? What are the pros/cons of that? Are the
| risks mitigated worth the costs?
|
| The authors' refusal to acknowledge this really makes me doubt
| that their conclusion is not affected by some kind of bias. The
| jury's still out, sure, but I'm not yet sold on their risk
| claims.
| oidar wrote:
| I think the paper's authors contribution to common knowledge
| here isn't the risk/hazard/exposure calculation - it is that
| there is a risk at all.
| coldpie wrote:
| I don't think so. The authors recommended stopping using
| these utensils based on their faulty risk analysis, and all
| of the media coverage repeated that. Even after the
| correction, the authors are still pushing their conclusion.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Why? The risk is much much lower than they stated.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| Because risk is still high. It's not astronomically high, but
| it's still quite high.
|
| And it's trivial to replace with materials that don't have
| that risk. For a couple bucks you can remove fire retardants
| from your food. Why wouldn't you?
| JoshGG wrote:
| What amount of fire retardants would you like in your food? How
| about zero? I would like zero.
|
| These have already been banned in CA from furniture because it
| creates household exposure. Why would it be ok in cooking
| utensils?
|
| BTW the chemicals don't actually prevent house fires it's
| basically an industry scam to put them into products.
| infecto wrote:
| Your information is incorrect.
|
| Flame retardants were introduced into everything because of CA
| and Federal laws requiring items to smolder and not catch fire.
| While I don't believe flame retardants should be as prevalent
| as they are today, I also think its unfair to say they don't
| prevent house fires. They absolutely have done some saving but
| I don't think across the entire population its a net positive.
| These rules were originally put into place because of a number
| of high profile cases where kids died, the biggest vector were
| beds, people smoked and dropped the butt on their mattress and
| poof.
|
| That rule in CA is in the right direction, glad they are
| helping right some of the wrong they did but it is still in
| everything. I think its more helpful to paint the accurate
| historical picture as opposed to yours which is using hyperbole
| to generate a reaction.
| JoshGG wrote:
| """ Flame retardants were widely adopted in the 1970s, when
| in-home smoking was more prevalent and electronics frequently
| overheated. New research, however, shows that flame
| retardants are not very effective at slowing or preventing
| fires. """
|
| https://www.sfenvironment.org/how-can-i-avoid-flame-
| retardan...
| infecto wrote:
| Is that supposed to prove something? That site is all
| fluff.
|
| I am not here defending flame retardants, I absolutely
| believe they don't provide a net positive to the
| population. Your lack of information and hyperbole is what
| I am after. These were not "scams". Your SF website does a
| good job of leaving out California's TB117 which is one of
| the pivotal laws that created widespread adoption of
| retardants in items. There were also some prior Federal
| laws but TB117 is seen as one of pivotal ones.
|
| Now, I don't know the history behind the chemical
| manufacturers and if they were behind the fear mongering
| but there absolutely were tragic cases that moved the
| nation to implement these laws. It was not just a "scam"
| that gets added to everything.
| zug_zug wrote:
| I think they could be called a scam. Having flame
| retardent in our bedding by law, all so smokers could
| smoke in bed safely, feels like some sort of regulatory
| capture to me.
|
| They should make flame-retardent bedware and non-flame-
| retwrdent bedware, and should be legally obligated to
| disclose every flame-retarded chemical and daily expected
| daily exposure levels on the tags and box.
| infecto wrote:
| Well things have gotten better in the past 20yrs but
| there is a long way to go. Childrens sleepware is the
| notable item that still contains retardants and at least
| there is mandatory tagging for when its present.
|
| when I have done readings before I honestly could not
| find note of regulatory capture but sometimes these
| things get muddied with history. Saying its a scam is
| just hyperbole. Most of the laws on the book are tied in
| time to some fairly large (100+ person) fire death
| events. There is a reason those laws were created and we
| were still in a period of time where chemicals could
| solve all problems.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Flame retardant bedware is called "the bedware your great
| grandparents had".
|
| Problem is, in capitalism's endless march towards ...
| well, who knows what, precisely ... companies began to
| make bedware out of synthetic fabric because it was (a)
| cheaper to make (b) allowing lower retail prices and
| potentially (c) higher profit margins. There's also some
| sense in which synthetic fabrics can be longer lived than
| non-synthetics.
|
| Once this stuff was out in people's lives, we realized
| that there was (at least) one downside: these fabrics
| also ignite much more easily than non-synthetics, and
| when they do, they generate flame which spreads a fire
| even more rapidly.
|
| One option would have been to just ban any fabrics that
| ignite more easily than (say) cotton. That would have
| been cast by some as a move against the interests of
| lower income people (not necessarily incorrectly).
|
| Another option would have been to just leave things
| alone, and let the people who choose to buy synthetic
| bedware sans flame retardants deal with the consequences
| themselves. Alas, that's not actually how our society
| works. When your neighbor's house goes up in flames
| because of their bedding choices, you still want your
| fire department to show up and get things under control,
| lest you lose your home too.
|
| So .. we set standards for how much and what types of
| flame retardants were acceptable (standards that are
| subject to and have been changed over time), and let
| people continue to buy synthetic bedware (and furniture
| and clothes and ....) all of which contribute to the fuel
| load should a fire break out.
|
| I am a firefighter (II), and the increase in the speed
| with which homes can now be fully engulfed because of the
| decline in the low of low-flammable materials and the
| rise of synthetics is utterly terrifying.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Zero is an impractical goal. I would like zero cars on the
| road. Zero litter. Zero CO2 emission. Zero idiots on the
| internet.
|
| Sadly we both live in the real world. "A small fraction of the
| recommended limit" is perfectly acceptable.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| Is 8% a small fraction? I don't think it is... sure it's not
| 80%, but it's definitely not 0.08% either.
| godshatter wrote:
| I am unlikely to use a black plastic spatula more than 12.5
| times more often, daily, for enough days in a row for this
| to really be a risk I need to worry about. Having said
| that, the next time I need to buy a spatula I'll probably
| buy one made of something else.
| exabrial wrote:
| > it's basically an industry scam to put them into products.
|
| This assertion cannot possibly be correct, regardless of the
| study
| OJFord wrote:
| > Ars has reached out to the lead author, Megan Liu, but has not
| received a response. Liu works for the environmental health
| advocacy group Toxic-Free Future, which led the study.
|
| Clearly the authors had their conclusion even before _doing_ the
| study, so of course the error doesn 't affect it.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| No. The authors state that their conclusion is not altered by
| the change in calculations. As per TFA:
|
| > "This calculation error does not affect the overall
| conclusion of the paper," the correction reads. The corrected
| study still ends by saying that the flame retardants
| "significantly contaminate" the plastic products, which have
| "high exposure potential."
| ajkjk wrote:
| How is that clear? Perhaps they are a group that exists to do
| studies like that.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Groups that exist to do studies like that can be biased
| toward gainful employment and suppress anything that
| threatens the revenue stream.
| croes wrote:
| Can but in this case it's still unnecessarily toxic with 8%
| of the EPA limit
| ajkjk wrote:
| And they can also do real studies with plenty of scientific
| legitimacy. Without evaluating the studies you have no way
| of knowing if they're biased or not and you're just
| spreading conspiracy theories.
| OJFord wrote:
| That is pretty much my point, yes.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| 80% of maximum fire retardants entering food or 8% of maximum
| fire retardants entering food are both "too much fire
| retardants entering food".
|
| Seems like the conclusion very obviously still holds, so I'd
| agree with the study authors here, that error doesn't alter the
| conclusion.
| coldpie wrote:
| > 80% of maximum fire retardants entering food or 8% of
| maximum fire retardants entering food are both "too much fire
| retardants entering food".
|
| OK, but that's not what this study was about, right? The
| original claim by the authors was that these utensils brushed
| up against safe limits. When that turned out to be false, the
| claim has shifted to the safe limits are too high. But that's
| a different study. You need to do a safety analysis of
| exposures to the substance. That's not what their study did.
| portaouflop wrote:
| It doesn't affect the conclusion so who cares what the
| study was about initially?
| coldpie wrote:
| Their conclusion that these utensils are dangerous
| depended on the results that showed these utensils are at
| or about the FDA's maximum safe dose. But after
| correcting the math error, it turns out they're actually
| about 1/10 of that. That invalidates their conclusion.
| ternnoburn wrote:
| 1/10th is still high? And doses aren't a on/off amount.
| It's not like there's no risk until you hit 100% and then
| there's max risk. Exposure is exposure.
|
| There's a lethal dose for alcohol, but having 1/10th of
| that dose can still strongly negatively impact me.
| coldpie wrote:
| > 1/10th is still high
|
| Based on what? The FDA's safe dose by definition means
| there are no known significant risks. They build in
| pretty hefty safety margins in these things. It
| definitely could still be too high! We get things wrong
| all the time. But you need a different kind of study to
| show that.
| croes wrote:
| So instead of 80% toxic limit it's ,,only" 8%.
|
| Sorry but I don't want any toxic material in the tools I use
| for food.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Fun fact: oxygen is toxic in high enough concentrations.
| 7bit wrote:
| Wtf bro. So is 0 oxygen intake. But 0 toxic intake isnt, so
| it's fair to say you want 0.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Are you familiar with the phrase "the dose makes the
| poison"?
| 7bit wrote:
| Are you challenged or something?
| OJFord wrote:
| It's not 'toxic material', it has a toxic _dose_. Too much
| water and you die. You do want some percentage of that level
| of water, though.
| croes wrote:
| The brominated flame retardants are inherently toxic and
| are therefore considered toxic materials.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Especially since it can build up in the body. Kind of
| like some vitamins you can have 1000% of the RDA because
| they are very water-soluble and go through like a sieve
| anyway, but others get toxic much quicker because they
| are fat soluble and get stored in fat cells for the long
| haul.
| OJFord wrote:
| How many spatulae are you planning on eating?
| danielschreber wrote:
| It's important to consider that the average person is
| probably much less likely to eat a spatula that is on
| fire.
|
| Therefore, simply averaging the flame retardant content
| of a random sample of spatulas could result in a bias.
|
| It's precisely the ones that are the most toxic that one
| would expect to be the most edible.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| First, you have to find a spatula with the specific
| compound in question.
|
| Less than 10% of items studied contained the specific
| compound in the article.
|
| FTA: The study examined 203 black
| plastic household products, including 109 kitchen
| utensils, 36 toys, 30 hair accessories, and 28 food
| serviceware products. Of those 203 products, only 20 (10
| percent) had any bromine-containing compounds at levels
| that might indicate contamination from bromine-based
| flame retardants, like BDE-209. Of the 109 kitchen
| utensils tested, only nine (8 percent) contained
| concerning bromine levels. "[A] minority of
| black plastic products are contaminated at levels >50 ppm
| [bromine]," the study states. But that's
| just bromine compounds. Overall, only 14 of the 203
| products contained BDE-209 specifically.
| croes wrote:
| It's adds up with all the other sources of toxic material
| we are exposed to.
| jcranmer wrote:
| On the most charitable level, the "huge math error" occurred in
| the calculation of the FDA's limits on exposure, so if the
| group feels that the FDA set its limits too high and the amount
| of chemicals being leached is worrying, then the math error
| really doesn't affect their conclusion at all.
|
| But digging into the study, it becomes clear that the authors
| are really reaching in their methodology--subjecting utensils
| to rather implausible scenarios (when was the last time you
| microwaved your sushi tray?)--to try to get some samples that
| would exceed the limit. The hyperbolic media coverage of "ditch
| all your black plastics" isn't really sustained when the
| research finds that just a few specimens, when subjected to
| unusually high heat stresses, managed to just barely cross the
| incorrectly-calculated FDA threshold (itself likely set at a
| factor of a tenth to a hundredth of the lowest threshold
| observed to cause issues in previous studies!). That the
| authors aren't willing to disavow that media coverage is more
| telling then their unwillingness to adjust their conclusions in
| response to their math error.
| tivert wrote:
| > subjecting utensils to rather implausible scenarios (when
| was the last time you microwaved your sushi tray?)
|
| That's not implausible. Sushi actually tastes better a little
| warm than chilled.
|
| Also I think it would make sense to test all food trays the
| same way, as some of those _do_ get heated quite a bit (e.g.
| I 've microwaved take-out noodles in plastic trays _very_
| similar to a take-out sushi trays). It 's not like it's
| plausible that there's some special sushi-tray supply chain
| where they've carefully determined they can safely get away
| with using e-waste plastic. It's almost certain that industry
| consists of many takeout tray companies that each make a
| whole line of takeout trays for different uses _using the
| same raw materials_ (e.g. the sushi cart at my employer sold
| sushi and _hot_ noodle soup in black plastic trays, which
| plausibly could come form the same manufacturer).
| EasyMark wrote:
| In general with all the microplastics floating around, I
| found it not a large investment to divest of 95% of the
| plastic in my kitchen (there was a lot), including the black
| variety, and only cook in stainless/carbon steel, ceramic
| enameled cookware, and glass with wood or stainless steel
| utensils and only drink filtered water. It's not hard to get
| most of the plastic out of your kitchen at least, but there
| are tons of other sources; clothes, furniture, devices, etc.
| I'm working on minimizing some of that as well. One of the
| most frustrating things is you can't find a drip coffee maker
| with an all metal full path for the water to grounds path.
| Everything I looked at had a ton of plastic unless it was
| $700+, so I live with the ritual of the french press for now
| dazed_confused wrote:
| Pour-over funnels have glass and ceramic options, and the
| coffee turns out quite tasty.
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| Basically a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42400008
| animanoir wrote:
| Click bait article.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I would say it's a factor of 10 times less clickbaity than the
| click-bait of the original article if 80% to 8% is indeed
| correct.
| spacemark wrote:
| Maybe it's just too early or there are other posts, but I find it
| an interesting insight into human behavior - supposedly
| intelligent human behavior - that there were hundreds of comments
| on the posting of the original study here at HN, the vast
| majority of which accepted the study's conclusion, yet there are
| much fewer comments on the "adjustment" to the study's
| conclusion.
|
| I shouldn't be too cynical, but it's a reminder to be skeptical,
| always.
| marssaxman wrote:
| There was a discussion of this retraction last week which
| received many more comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42400008
| theshaper wrote:
| Update: "Journal that published faulty black plastic study
| removed from science index"
|
| https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/journal-that-publishe...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-12-21 18:02 UTC)