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bobbylarrybobbylast Monday at 10:22 PM2 repliesview on HN

Shouldn't most chemicals be assumed unsafe until proven otherwise? How many chemicals have we produced in a lab that have no harmful effects? Even medicine is bad for you, it's just better than the disease it's meant to treat. I don't know why we'd treat something designed to kill animals as safe for humans without studies showing that it's not harmful. (Well I do know why, but I don't know why voters go along with it.)


Replies

horsawlarwaylast Monday at 10:45 PM

Literally everything is "chemicals".

And when we're talking about things in this realm, the general saying is "The dose makes the poison"... Water will kill you if you drink enough of it.

And we do have all sorts of studies showing that harm from these substances isn't immediately apparent (they all have safety sheets, and maximum safe exposure levels) . What we're missing, mainly because it's just incredibly hard to ethically source, is long term studies.

So the question you're really asking is "what's your tolerance to risk?". I think it's fine to have different governing bodies take different stances on that scale. What's less fine is failure to act on information because of profit motives.

Long story short - this isn't so simple. You bathe in chemicals all day every day.

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1over137yesterday at 3:27 AM

>Shouldn't most chemicals be assumed unsafe until proven otherwise?

Of course not, that would be bad for capitalists. /s