The testers aren’t wrong. There is no safe level of artificial lead exposure, scientifically speaking. Even small amounts over time (re: decades) will have adverse effects. Science is pretty clear on this
The whole idea we allow “safe levels” of anything toxic is a concession to industry at the expense of the environment and consumers
> The whole idea we allow “safe levels” of anything toxic is a concession to industry at the expense of the environment and consumers
No, it would be totally unworkable to do anything else. Plenty of normal from the ground food stuffs have low but safe levels of toxic substances in them. You wouldn't be able to preserve meat or smoke cheese. The list would go on forever.
Plenty of meat preservation techniques have a bunch of rather concerning data pointing towards possible long term health impacts.
It might turn out it's better to simply kill the animal minutes before consumption, as is done in some cultures for fish, rather than killing it weeks in advance and preserving it through refrigeration/drying/salting/canning/etc.
You're quoting half of my statement and taking it out of context.
I specified artificial for a reason. I'm talking about unnaturally altered environments and manufacturing (and for the most part, its the latter but some activities, e.g. mining or poor agriculture practices, have knock off effects that poison environments).
I'm not talking about naturally occurring lead. I realize trace amounts can be found in things like vegetables and meats even when care is taken to use clean soil (e.g. the soil doesn't have any lead contamination, which unfortunately this is not regulated very well in the US) and clean processing methods.
However, these 'safe amounts' are void of any real effort to understand them in combination. For example, lets say product A is deemed to allow a 'safe amount' of 10000 ppb, product B 8000 ppb, product C 12500 ppb and so on. These ppb amounts are determined without thought to other forms of lead exposure from other products. If you look at how much lead and other toxins you're exposed to through a variety of sources it will add up over time.
Simply because it doesn't add up to the thresholds for lead poisoning doesn't mean it lacks any negative consequences
No I got the context. As you said, there are trace amounts of lead and even arsenic in agricultural products for all kinds of reasons, some plants LOVE to fix heavy metals.
> If you look at how much lead and other toxins you're exposed to through a variety of sources it will add up over time
There's simply no evidence to support the broad claim that different toxic substances below their safe thresholds cumulatively are unsafe.
> Simply because it doesn't add up to the thresholds for lead poisoning doesn't mean it lacks any negative consequences
Sure, but you can't in practice prevent ever conceivable negative outcome. You have to think about tradeoffs.
The science is clear. There is no safe level of lead exposure. It is perfectly reasonable to measure the amount of lead in childrens’ toothpaste and seek to identify the source and further seek to minimize it. If it’s coming from one particular ingredient perhaps an alternative can be found.
Lead is well known to cause developmental and particularly mental development problems in children. Is it economically feasible? I don’t know. What would you pay for an extra 10 IQ points for your child? Better emotional regulation, fewer violent outbursts? These are all things lead is known to affect.
I’d sure pay extra for lead free. I’m sure you could convince a few million hippy parents to go for it too.
As for preserved meat and smoked cheese… if it can’t be done safely I’m not sure I want it. Haven’t preserved meats been linked to pancreatic cancer? Once we discover that we give people the chance to make other choices.
Consider this: there is no safe level of UV exposure from sunlight, it may cause various skin cancers. Does this mean you would never let your children outside to play? What I am trying to say, there is usually risk vs benefit tradeoff, and an absolutist take of "no safe level of exposure" is just not useful.
> The whole idea we allow “safe levels” of anything toxic is a concession to industry at the expense of the environment and consumers
You are conflating hazard and risk. A thing can be hazardous without being a risk. If you eliminated everything hazardous, regardless of its level of risk, we would not have cars or airplanes or electronics or plastics or most food products. That is an extreme position to take. The correct thing to do is decide on an acceptable level of risk, and enforce that (either personally, or through the gov't; there are pros & cons to each).
I'm not, I think folks are generally passing over the term artificial here. I am aware there is some sources of toxins that occur naturally and really aren't avoidable in any reasonable manner.
However, there is a ton of exposure that constitutes inappropriate risk because it can be mitigated reasonably. There's no reason you have to have lead in toothpaste, for example. We know it can be manufactured lead free and work just as well.
We do this through out the food chain and with manufactured goods and even when science changes and clearly suggests that we need to lower exposure levels of a previously allowable amount of a toxin industry fights tooth and nail. It becomes political rather than a strictly health and scientific assessment.
Yeah, you're on the right track now. What you need to do next is provide evidence for your arguments:
> there is a ton of exposure that constitutes inappropriate risk
Like what? What are the harms that are caused by the too high level of risk?
> it can be mitigated reasonably
Can they? What would the cost to introduce the mitigations be? Are the harms solved worth the increased costs?
These are interesting questions and I 100% believe that there are good changes to be made here. But, a study showing that current products are already below a set risk threshold is not evidence that the risk threshold is too high. That requires a different kind of study & evidence.
> Even small amounts over time (re: decades) will have adverse effects.
If the adverse effects happen decades after you'll statistically be deceased I'm not sure it's fair to say there's no safe level of exposure.
It's not at the expense of consumers and the environment. It could make much of what consumers buy prohibitively expensive, for potentially no benefit.
The correct approach is to calculate the harm from one microgram of lead in food (ie. how many IQ points lost, how much lifetime income lost, how much life expectancy reduced, how much healthcare costs go up).
Then multiply that by 100 to give a likely upper bound of something very hard to measure.
Then make companies pay that as a "harm fee" for each product they sell, as a tax to the government.
Do the same for everything toxic.
Before long, companies will be trying very hard to keep toxic products out of the food chain simply to help their profits.
The whole idea we allow “safe levels” of anything toxic is a concession to industry at the expense of the environment and consumers