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Toxic metals in baby food

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Some of the references cited in the paper:

Arsenic and Lead Are in Your Fruit Juice: What You Need to Know

Too much cadmium and lead in kids’ food according to estimates by FDA

95 Percent of Baby Food in the United States Contains Toxic Metals | Soren Dreier

"Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) tested 168 baby foods and found toxic heavy metals in 95 percent of all containers tested."

"A quarter of the foods tested contained all four of the metals that the lab tested for—arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury."
That is terrible news, and it indicates the possible source of problems many children have. The food supply has become more toxic due to the lead spewed all over the country and the false assurances of the oil companies which fought with fake science the truth about the effects of toxins in leaded gasoline. Now lead is over the place and in the food supply. Plus we have arsenic (from mining operations) showing up in fruit juice, and I have to wonder what is going to wind up on the dinner plate next. The paper lists other agents like glyphosate and cadmium. It reads like a horror show, and these are not agents which get rid of themselves in nature or just go away. They have to be carefully extracted, so it takes energy and work to clean them up. No one wants to pay to do that. Parents (in this paper) are being told that they actually need to avoid buying juice for kids and even that tap water is safer.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
It is safe to say that the American inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. Is responsible for more deaths and illness and has caused more damage to the world environment than any other person who has lived.

First came up with the idea that lead in petrol would reduce engine knock. The legasy is that millions of additional people die each year from respiratory problems.

Next, not content with that he went on to discover that chlorofluorocarbons (cfcs) made exceedingly efficient refrigerants.

He has succeeded in poisoning of three generations of children with future generations to be effected, increased the risk of skin cancer and other skin problems related to UV rays, and has contributed greatly to global warming.

Finally, he contracted polio. He invented a device to help him get out of bed in the morning. In an accident he was strangled in his own device.

My thought on this is that is could not happen to a more deserving person.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
It is safe to say that the American inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. Is responsible for more deaths and illness and has caused more damage to the world environment than any other person who has lived.

First came up with the idea that lead in petrol would reduce engine knock. The legasy is that millions of additional people die each year from respiratory problems.

Next, not content with that he went on to discover that chlorofluorocarbons (cfcs) made exceedingly efficient refrigerants.

He has succeeded in poisoning of three generations of children with future generations to be effected, increased the risk of skin cancer and other skin problems related to UV rays, and has contributed greatly to global warming.

Finally, he contracted polio. He invented a device to help him get out of bed in the morning. In an accident he was strangled in his own device.

My thought on this is that is could not happen to a more deserving person.

Actually, that distinction (of having caused more deaths and illness than any other person) would belong to the guy (or gal) who first 'tamed' fire.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Actually, that distinction (of having caused more deaths and illness than any other person) would belong to the guy (or gal) who first 'tamed' fire.

Doubt it when you take population increase into account
 

leov

Well-Known Member

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Some of the references cited in the paper:

Arsenic and Lead Are in Your Fruit Juice: What You Need to Know

Too much cadmium and lead in kids’ food according to estimates by FDA


That is terrible news, and it indicates the possible source of problems many children have. The food supply has become more toxic due to the lead spewed all over the country and the false assurances of the oil companies which fought with fake science the truth about the effects of toxins in leaded gasoline. Now lead is over the place and in the food supply. Plus we have arsenic (from mining operations) showing up in fruit juice, and I have to wonder what is going to wind up on the dinner plate next. The paper lists other agents like glyphosate and cadmium. It reads like a horror show, and these are not agents which get rid of themselves in nature or just go away. They have to be carefully extracted, so it takes energy and work to clean them up. No one wants to pay to do that. Parents (in this paper) are being told that they actually need to avoid buying juice for kids and even that tap water is safer.
Not to worry. This can all be fixed by marketing. Since obesity is getting to be a major factor of life they could emphasize how having slow kids is a good thing. Also who needs a kid brighter than his parent? Here we go:

Are your children running you down? Are they too active? Do they ask tough questions that you can never answer? We can help. Studies show that the Vitamins L and Cd in Vole Froot Joose can help. Your children will be slower and quieter ( and sometimes deader). Buy a case today.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Not to worry. This can all be fixed by marketing. Since obesity is getting to be a major factor of life they could emphasize how having slow kids is a good thing. Also who needs a kid brighter than his parent? Here we go:

Are your children running you down? Are they too active? Do they ask tough questions that you can never answer? We can help. Studies show that the Vitamins L and Cd in Vole Froot Joose can help. Your children will be slower and quieter ( and sometimes deader). Buy a case today.
We could research how to enhance the ability to excrete heavy metals. There are some known methods, although they could be improved. Under the circumstances I'd also support genetic manipulation to improve this ability. I don't think its evil to do that. People are going to change over time, anyway. As long as we are all still species compatible I am down with a little bit of duct tape in the genes.
 

leov

Well-Known Member
We could research how to enhance the ability to excrete heavy metals. There are some known methods, although they could be improved. Under the circumstances I'd also support genetic manipulation to improve this ability. I don't think its evil to do that. People are going to change over time, anyway. As long as we are all still species compatible I am down with a little bit of duct tape in the genes.
genetic manipulations can be good or bad. it happened before: evil was chosen over good.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
genetic manipulations can be good or bad. it happened before: evil was chosen over good.
My thought is that genetic changes are Ok sometimes, but they should not create separate species of humans. You should still be able to mate, and you should still look human and seem human to other humans. Obviously there are other moral considerations such as not making people worse, stupider, meaner, crazier, etc.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
We could research how to enhance the ability to excrete heavy metals. There are some known methods, although they could be improved. Under the circumstances I'd also support genetic manipulation to improve this ability. I don't think its evil to do that. People are going to change over time, anyway. As long as we are all still species compatible I am down with a little bit of duct tape in the genes.
To be serious I am not so sure if that is the cure. It may be best to clean up our act and then wait it out. Natural processes will take care of most of this problem given time. But the first thing we need to do is to quit adding to the problem.
 

leov

Well-Known Member
My thought is that genetic changes are Ok sometimes, but they should not create separate species of humans. You should still be able to mate, and you should still look human and seem human to other humans. Obviously there are other moral considerations such as not making people worse, stupider, meaner, crazier, etc.
for example, European baby food regulations are much smarter and healthier than US ones, so, theoretically, those who can afford them may have healthier smarter kids and be different than those who can not afford good quality food... it leads eventually to Eloi and the Morlocks world.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Doubt it when you take population increase into account

Even then. We didn't stop using fire as we populated the earth, after all. We still use it.

Consider: fire allowed us to cook stuff, and actually changed things so that we COULD populate things....fire is at the base of pretty much all human civilization. There aren't two many things, technologically, that we can do WITHOUT fire...but it has certainly been misused and has been the cause, directly and indirectly, of a LOT of misery and death.

The questions are...and there are two of 'em...

Is the use of fire more helpful than it is harmful, in the long run?
Are the first users to blame for its misuse, if they didn't know at the time that it WAS going to be misused?

Just as an example; London was horribly smoggy. People died of the smoke there for centuries before the city actually burned down. That's just one city.

Now let's think about asbestos, and a couple of other things.

When inventions do what they are intended to do, and the inventor has no way of knowing what damage that invention can do, is the inventor to be blamed, really? It's not as if he were a comic book evil master-mind. I find, for instance, your glee about the way the inventor of lead additives to gas died to be a little creepy, frankly.

Lead is a problem....we now have unleaded gas.
Fluorocarbons were the problem with the ozone layer. How in the name of all that is holy could he have known THAT? So we no longer use them, and the hole in the ozone layer is closing.

He obtained over a hundred patents, and without him, we wouldn't know as much about the properties of rubber...and its synthetic replacements, which are used by everybody. He died in 1944, a LONG time before the problems of his leaded gasoline and Freon were known, or could be known. He died a particularly nasty death, because of polio.

Tell me. Have you ever had, or known anybody who had, polio? I do. My family was pretty hard hit by it and it was only because the Salk vaccine became available when I was five or six that I didn't get it. My cousin did.

So I find that statements like...what did you say...that [the manner of his death] could not have happened to a more deserving person" to be...considerably more judgemental that I would expect from you. I was rather surprised.

Remember this: Midgely was only 55 when he died because of an invention that was supposed to help him deal with his illness. In 1944. Given how hard he worked to TRY to make leaded gasoline safe to produce and use, and given that we had absolutely NO idea that Freon could do damage to the ozone layer for another three decades or more, it's POSSIBLE that had he continued working, we might have known about the dangers sooner and done something earlier. He was active in researching that stuff until the day he died.

In other words, it's not like he knew the dangers and didn't CARE.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Even then. We didn't stop using fire as we populated the earth, after all. We still use it.

Consider: fire allowed us to cook stuff, and actually changed things so that we COULD populate things....fire is at the base of pretty much all human civilization. There aren't two many things, technologically, that we can do WITHOUT fire...but it has certainly been misused and has been the cause, directly and indirectly, of a LOT of misery and death.

The questions are...and there are two of 'em...

Is the use of fire more helpful than it is harmful, in the long run?
Are the first users to blame for its misuse, if they didn't know at the time that it WAS going to be misused?

Just as an example; London was horribly smoggy. People died of the smoke there for centuries before the city actually burned down. That's just one city.

Now let's think about asbestos, and a couple of other things.

When inventions do what they are intended to do, and the inventor has no way of knowing what damage that invention can do, is the inventor to be blamed, really? It's not as if he were a comic book evil master-mind. I find, for instance, your glee about the way the inventor of lead additives to gas died to be a little creepy, frankly.

Lead is a problem....we now have unleaded gas.
Fluorocarbons were the problem with the ozone layer. How in the name of all that is holy could he have known THAT? So we no longer use them, and the hole in the ozone layer is closing.

He obtained over a hundred patents, and without him, we wouldn't know as much about the properties of rubber...and its synthetic replacements, which are used by everybody. He died in 1944, a LONG time before the problems of his leaded gasoline and Freon were known, or could be known. He died a particularly nasty death, because of polio.

Tell me. Have you ever had, or known anybody who had, polio? I do. My family was pretty hard hit by it and it was only because the Salk vaccine became available when I was five or six that I didn't get it. My cousin did.

So I find that statements like...what did you say...that [the manner of his death] could not have happened to a more deserving person" to be...considerably more judgemental that I would expect from you. I was rather surprised.

Remember this: Midgely was only 55 when he died because of an invention that was supposed to help him deal with his illness. In 1944. Given how hard he worked to TRY to make leaded gasoline safe to produce and use, and given that we had absolutely NO idea that Freon could do damage to the ozone layer for another three decades or more, it's POSSIBLE that had he continued working, we might have known about the dangers sooner and done something earlier. He was active in researching that stuff until the day he died.

In other words, it's not like he knew the dangers and didn't CARE.

As someone close to your heart recently said on another thread "Wow. that was a lot of words to say basically... nothing "

It is estimated that there have been around 100 to 110 billion humans have ever lived on this earth. 10 to 12% of that number have lived in the last 100 years. Every single one of them has been adversely effected by Midgely's work. What percentage of the human population has been adversely effected by fire?

Ignorance is no excuse. You would want to prosecute or at least hand responsibility to a mass murderer even if that mass murder was accidental would you not? Midgley was responsible for millions of deaths and tens of perhaps billions suffering ill health and his score keeps on rising.

So why do you see a need to absolve him of his responsibility?
 
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dianaiad

Well-Known Member
As someone close to your heart recently said on another thread "Wow. that was a lot of words to say basically... nothing "

Let me be briefer.

What I SAID was that deciding that he deserved to die the death he did was judgmental, creepy, and coming from you, surprising.

It is estimated that there have been around 100 to 110 billion humans have ever lived on this earth. 10 to 12% of that number have lived in the last 100 years. Every single one of them has been adversely effected by Midgely's work. What percentage of the human population has been adversely effected by fire?
Every single one of 'em. the question is, are the benefits greater than the danger? (let me think...) yep. Think about it. EVERY technological advance humans have made have fire in there somewhere....and yet if we didn't have fire, it can be safely stated that humans wouldn't have any affect on the environment. There certainly wouldn't BE as many humans as there are. No smog, no pollution, we'd probably still have mastodons and passenger pidgeons, ....

Ignorance is no excuse. You would want to prosecute or at least hand responsibility to a mass murderer even if that mass murder was accidental would you not?

No. Ignorance is EVERY excuse, when it comes to assigning evil motives or even when considering punishment. If you think that US Law prosecutes someone for a crime when s/he is utterly ignorant, you need to do more research. Ignorance when one SHOULD know...like driving, breaking a law one doesn't know about and killing someone as a result, is one thing: if one is driving, one SHOULD be aware of the laws. In that case, ignorance is no excuse. However, if there was no way that the 'perpetrator' COULD have known, then there is no blame attached, no matter how bad the consequences are.

I mean, really, Christine. Would you prosecute all the parents who live in the path of Mt Vesuvius for the deaths of their children when it erupts? How about the parents of the children who were working in the middle of a bean field when a heretofore utterly unknown volcano erupts underneath their feet? Should THOSE parents have thought 'well, if a volcano erupts under my kid's feet, it's my fault because 'ignorance is no excuse?"

Er....did you use baby powder on your kids when they were babies?

Did your parents allow you to sit in the back seat without seatbelts or child protection when you were little? How about the front seat?

Wait. Did the car you traveled around in when you were ten have AIR BAGS?

Are you going to decide that your parents deserve to be strangled by a health aid because, well, 'ignorance is no excuse?"
Midgley was responsible for millions of deaths and tens of perhaps billions suffering ill health and his score keeps on rising.

So why do you see a need to absolve him of his responsibility?

His research and discoveries may have caused this (though frankly your numbers are, er, a bit inflated) but RESPONSIBLE? As in 'culpable?""

I think that a little forgiveness would be a good thing.

Or are you going to decide that Marie Curie deserved to die of aplastic anemia because of what she discovered?
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Let me be briefer.

What I SAID was that deciding that he deserved to die the death he did was judgmental, creepy, and coming from you, surprising.

I do not give mass murderers a free ride.

I am surprised that you do
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I do not give mass murderers a free ride.

I am surprised that you do

If he had intended to be a 'mass murderer,' and invented those things with the purpose of killing people, I'd agree with you. Oh, not with the manner of his death, but punishment? Certainly.

However, he did not INTEND harm. He intended good...and frankly, those inventions of his were good. He had no way of knowing that two of his 100 inventions would end up banned.

Oh, and Freon didn't kill people, It put a hole in the ozone layer, which is healing, and nobody has been able to show that 'mass murder' happened as a result.

Putting lead in gas? Bad idea, as it turns out, but it certainly wasn't the only thing that contributed to smog, etc.

Consider that the most lethally smoggy city in the world...the one in which smog killed more people than in any other city...was London before the Great Fire. And plain old fireplaces were the culprit there. Fire. Not lead in gas; no gasoline, no cars.

However, you are right; mass murderers should be stopped, and held accountable.

but "murder' has a very specific meaning. In order to be a murderer, one has to intend to murder, know that one IS killing and not care, or not care whether what one is doing could be lethal. those are the three levels...and only one of 'em carries the death penalty in this country.

BTW, I'm very much against the death penalty. This man was not a mass murderer. He made mistakes because neither he nor anybody else knew the dangers; remember, we didn't know about Freon and the ozone layer for nearly thirty years AFTER HE DIED. How is that HIS fault?

This is, to be honest, weird. I really thought you would take the side I'm taking in this.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
If he had intended to be a 'mass murderer,' and invented those things with the purpose of killing people, I'd agree with you. Oh, not with the manner of his death, but punishment? Certainly.

However, he did not INTEND harm. He intended good...and frankly, those inventions of his were good. He had no way of knowing that two of his 100 inventions would end up banned.

Oh, and Freon didn't kill people, It put a hole in the ozone layer, which is healing, and nobody has been able to show that 'mass murder' happened as a result.

Putting lead in gas? Bad idea, as it turns out, but it certainly wasn't the only thing that contributed to smog, etc.

Consider that the most lethally smoggy city in the world...the one in which smog killed more people than in any other city...was London before the Great Fire. And plain old fireplaces were the culprit there. Fire. Not lead in gas; no gasoline, no cars.

However, you are right; mass murderers should be stopped, and held accountable.

but "murder' has a very specific meaning. In order to be a murderer, one has to intend to murder, know that one IS killing and not care, or not care whether what one is doing could be lethal. those are the three levels...and only one of 'em carries the death penalty in this country.

BTW, I'm very much against the death penalty. This man was not a mass murderer. He made mistakes because neither he nor anybody else knew the dangers; remember, we didn't know about Freon and the ozone layer for nearly thirty years AFTER HE DIED. How is that HIS fault?

This is, to be honest, weird. I really thought you would take the side I'm taking in this.

Right tell they who have died of painful and debilitating disease caused by lead poisoning

Why should i take your side in support of mass murderer
Right, tell that to those who have died of skin cancer because of ozone layer depletion
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Right tell they who have died of painful and debilitating disease caused by lead poisoning

Why should i take your side in support of mass murderer
Right, tell that to those who have died of skin cancer because of ozone layer depletion

I have come to the conclusion that you don't think I'm wrong because I take incorrect positions. You think the positions are wrong because I'm the one taking them.

I think you don't REALLY believe that Midgely deserved the death he suffered. You just said something outre'....and even though you know it was over the top and you regret it, you can't dial it back because *I'm* the one who called you on it.

Do you really believe in the death penalty?
Do you really believe that Midgely absolutely deserved the rather horrific death he suffered?
Do you really believe that every person who ever invented something that was later found to be dangerous should be killed in interestingly macabre ways?

Do you think that Marie Curie deserved to die of aplastic anemia?
....because her research has been responsible for more deaths than Midgely has.
I find your position on this to be troubling....and very unlike the person I have assumed that you were.
 
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