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The EPA's Bold New Idea Has Massive Implications For Public Health (motherjones.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of radiation, carcinogens, and other toxic chemicals has been based on the cautious scientific reasoning that considers even slight exposure to toxins potentially risky to public health. From that premise, the EPA has assessed a wide range of pollution, including lung-clogging particulate matter, Superfund cleanup, water treatment, radiation exposure, and risk assessments for carcinogens like benzene.
That time-honored approach may be changing because of easy-to-overlook phrasing within a paragraph buried in the proposed "Strengthening Transparency In Regulatory Science Rule," a regulation that will bar the EPA from considering a wide range of scientific studies in its rule-making. With a few sentences buried in the seven-page Federal Register text, the EPA is opening the door to a new scientific approach that -- in a worst-case scenario -- could further relax regulations because of the assumption that a little pollution is actually beneficial.
Some scientists have considered the implications of this paragraph and described a whole array of potential problems to Mother Jones. Because the paragraph is written in incredibly vague language, most scientists were unable to explain which pollutants or regulations were the prime targets.
That time-honored approach may be changing because of easy-to-overlook phrasing within a paragraph buried in the proposed "Strengthening Transparency In Regulatory Science Rule," a regulation that will bar the EPA from considering a wide range of scientific studies in its rule-making. With a few sentences buried in the seven-page Federal Register text, the EPA is opening the door to a new scientific approach that -- in a worst-case scenario -- could further relax regulations because of the assumption that a little pollution is actually beneficial.
Some scientists have considered the implications of this paragraph and described a whole array of potential problems to Mother Jones. Because the paragraph is written in incredibly vague language, most scientists were unable to explain which pollutants or regulations were the prime targets.
No idea about the full implications, but hormesis is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
It's true or it's false. Neither option is liberal.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, I'm sure some fans of Freddy would be asking that.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
what is with the militant liberal bias on this site?
Reality only seems to have a liberal bias because of how off the rails conservatives have gotten over the past couple decades. I voted for Bush Jr. twice, but being a "conservative" in today's political climate is a sign of either severe indoctrination or a severe lack of critical reasoning skills. Or perhaps treating abortion or gun control as a voting litmus test, but I would consider those to being a single issue voter and not actually conservative (and in many cases another example of a lack of education).
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
EPA ... the assumption that a little pollution is actually beneficial.
Can't wait for the FDA to make that assumption about cancer ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
have always been at war with Eastasia.
Public health, schmublic health. There's MONEY to be made!
Who the fuck cares if we make the planet unable to support human life! I'll be dead, having made MORE MONEY!
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
" The proposed regulation provides that when EPA develops regulations, including regulations for which the public is likely to bear the cost of compliance, with regard to those scientific studies that are pivotal to the action being taken, EPA should ensure that the data underlying those are publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation. "
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09078/strengthening-transparency-in-regulatory-science
If so, what's the problem?
from the ./ summary:
"For years, the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of radiation, carcinogens, and other toxic chemicals has been based on the cautious scientific reasoning that considers even slight exposure to toxins potentially risky to public health."
That is the fundamental error underlying all environmental regulatory policy in the U.S. Every nutrient essential for human life has some dose at which it becomes toxic. Water and table salt are two common examples. Whether a substance is harmful or beneficial to life depends on both the substance and the quantity. If the EPA were serious about that policy, then it would demand that the oceans be ejected into space to clean up the environment of deadly salt and water toxins.
It says "cautious scientific reasoning." There are two problems with that description. First, it is value judgment which violates presumed editorial neutrality of straight news. Second, it is the wrong value judgment. "idiotic non-scientific assumptions" would be an accurate description.
The consequence of a completely unworkable policy is regulatory confusion and rule by bureaucratic fiat.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Hormesis -- a positive health impact from low exposures to an environmental stressor like radiation or pollution -- is a real thing. You can demonstrate that in lab animals.
The thing is, humans aren't lab animals. You can't control their total exposure to the stressor. Scientific support for radiation hormesis in humans is (for obvious reasons) anecdotal, and by definition isn't controlled. The same exposure that had a small beneficial effect in one population might not have happened had that population been living on a radon spur.
Where there is a possibility of a hormetic effect at low levels of exposure and a certainty of a negative effect at high levels of exposure, you have to limit human exposure from any single source. That doesn't take a genius to understand, but that level of reasoning appears to be light years beyond the current political discussion, in which radiation is either good or evil and must be treated accordingly.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Here's an explanation of what's going on... same method used by tobacco industry.
https://thinkprogress.org/sena...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I know it's Mother Jones, but how in the world do you twist the actual text into that kind of soundbite?
In addition, this proposed regulation is designed to increase transparency of the assumptions underlying dose response models. As a case in point, there is growing empirical evidence of non-linearity in the concentration-response function for specific pollutants and health effects. The use of default models, without consideration of alternatives or model uncertainty, can obscure the scientific justification for EPA actions. To be even more transparent about these complex relationships, EPA should give appropriate consideration to high quality studies that explore: A broad class of parametric concentration-response models with a robust set of potential confounding variables; nonparametric models that incorporate fewer assumptions; various threshold models across the exposure range; and spatial heterogeneity. EPA should also incorporate the concept of model uncertainty when needed as a default to optimize low dose risk estimation based on major competing models, including linear, threshold, and U-shaped, J-shaped, and bell-shaped models.
No wonder they didn't quote the actual language in the article.
I am generally deeply skeptical of what Trump is doing to the EPA, but I don't actually see a problem with the text - it's a good thing to investigate response models to various toxins, radiation, etc. and use the most appropriate one for determining policy. A linear model is almost certainly incorrect for most cases, and could just as easily underestimate the harm as overestimate it.
The problem comes in if this is used to implement unjustified deregulation, which is certainly a concern with this administration. It's hard to say if that's the case without more context though.
Just a reminder to you younger Slashdotters, that there was a time, before there was an EPA, where several of the Great Lakes had all their fish dying, there were rivers in Ohio that would burst into flames and several American cities where the smog was so bad that the air was a yellowish-green even on a cloudless day. And not just cities like LA and Cleveland, Pittsburgh, but also Houston, Atlanta, and Dallas and many others.
A Republican president created the EPA in 1970, and within a decade and a half, you could find Lake Trout and Salmon in the Great Lakes again, there are even fish in the Cuyahoga, and people could actually breathe in cities without coughing up brown phlegm again. Corporations adjusted to the new regulations and the '80s and '90s saw a booming US economy with widespread improvement across all economic strata.
We are being ratfucked by our own government. If your big issue is "feminists are taking my jobs!" and supporting this administration in order to "own the libs and SJWs", you are what is known as a useful idiot, and you are hurting yourself.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The faster we get rid of various versions of LNT, and actually get reasonable scientific definitions, the better. Our bodies are designed to easily handle certain amount of toxins, carcinogens, radiation, etc. It's a part of normal metabolic process.
The problem is when we receive more of a dose of aforementioned things than our natural metabolic, immune etc processes can handle. When that happens we get sick, poisoned, killed or suffer long term cell damage that leads to cancer. The worst offender by far in this category is the radiation LNT model. It's been long debunked (yes, you get a significant radiation dose by flying, no, it's not a carcinogenic factor to fly to your yearly holiday because the additional dose is much lower than surplus of your natural cell repair mechanisms held in reserve).
Same applies to toxins, poisons, carcinogens and so on. What we need to know is not just that "this material/process can be toxic/poisonous/carcinogenic" but "how much of an exposure to this needs to occur for the toxic/poisonous/carcinogenic effect to actually occur in human body".
Until you do those experiments though I think it is prudent to assume "that even one bazillionth has to be harmful".
Maybe. There's prudent and there's paranoid. If you're too prudent, everything gets gummed down in safety studies and it's impossible to release new products.
Here's a story. My daughter got a job at an oil company. She's going to be working on improving the efficiency of diesel and jet fuels. Yay for her! If you improve the efficiency of diesel, you may save the planet to reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But maybe you'll introduce some new combustion products. Do you really want to do a large scale study of the health benefits of this change before you introduce it? You never know, it might be a tiny bit more toxic than the existing exhaust.
You could spin this story about virtually any new product. At some point, you just have to take a leap of faith that something is more beneficial than harmful.
He is conservative in the sense that he does exactly what his corporate masters tell him to do, even lie if it gets him into a position where he can provide greater satisfaction to said masters
Pretty much kavanughs all the way down
With this comment:
can tell you that Fox has it's bias but it's pretty obvious to me that they are the LEAST biased of the major cable network related websites
You pretty much just pegged what is wrong, first you think fox has anything to do with actual news and not entertainment, pandering to a certain world view.
Do you still believe Sadam had something to do with 9/11 and had chemical or nuclear weapons?
You realize you are the least likely to be informed about the real world by listening to Fox News?
So much so that if you watched no news at all you would be better informed?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9288158/Fox-News-viewers-worst-informed-study-finds.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/07/21/a-rigorous-scientific-look-into-the-fox-news-effect/#251316fc12ab
You understand that it was the conservatives that held open the Supreme court for 10 months when Obama was President right? You are complaining because Democrats are finally playing dirty like Republicans have been for at least a decade. Republicans have had a win at all costs mentality going back at least 20 years.
You know what happens when a Democrat is accused of sexual misconduct? They quit because the party pressures them into it. Al Franken was accused of much less as well. Roy Moore was poised to win but residents came to their senses to vote a Democrat instead of a pedophile. Kavanaugh has enough black marks against him that any other President in history would have withdrawn the appointment and found someone less controversial.
How are women being granted special treatment? What proposal are you referring to? My guess is that there is none and you're just repeating the same BS the Fox or Alex Jones spew all the time.
It is quite rich that you say liberals are declaring "that the rule of law does not apply to men when accused by women. " Mostly what they do is shout derogatory remarks at the women until the accusers shut up. Deny deny deny, that is Trump's single strategy when it comes to controversy.
Good luck finding liberals that thing the white male has no place in society, again, you're just repeating the same Alex Jones BS.
I'll give you a little test. Who are the most well known "liberals?" Here's a hint, Bill Maher is a white dude, hint, Bernie Sanders is an old white dude, John Oliver, Steven Colbert, John Stewart, the list goes on. You're way off base and I welcome you to come back to planet Earth because you clearly are living someplace else.
Now let's attack your most basic principle. I know of no one and you know of no one that is completely conservative or completely liberal. There are things I think should be changed and things you think should be changed. (Those are liberal ideas.) There are things I think are going well and thing you think are going well. (Those are conservative ideas. )
Dumping social security in favor of 401ks or other private investment options is not a conservative idea. It is a stupid idea but that is a different discussion. You might want abortion to be banned and return us to the time where women were doing to the tune of 100,000 a year. That is more conservative because you're returning to how it was before Roe V Wade.
It scares me the lack of history perspective from the Republicans right. Most things are the way they are today for a reason. If you're going to tear it apart you better be prepared to deal with the shitstorm that it was holding back. The EPA needed teeth to actually stop our lakes and rivers from burning. Now we're defanging them and hoping what? That a Democrat will come into power so you can blame them for the problem and then watch as they start cleaning it back up.
People like to laugh a Democrats screaming tax and spend. Republicans just spend. The more they can borrow the better. Remember when there was a conservative principle that said not to carry debt? Now we have a President who calls himself the King of Debt. Democrats at least try to balance the budget. It only happened when Clinton was in office because Republicans wouldn't let him spend any money on anything. Guess who got the blame for all the base closures though? Many Vets today hate Clinton for what happened to the military even though it was Republicans that forced the budget issues leading to their problems.
Define "minute" proceeded by the words irrelevant without defining the amount or quantity. Benzene is a known carcinogen. As far as humans go there is no safe level to consume especially over the long term. My family has personal experience with benzene as it was leaked through a known leaking Colonial Petroleum pipeline that transports petroleum products from Texas to Maine. The leak occurred over years and contaminated my cousins drinking water which they consumed. His wife got gravely ill. Not until a county worker located the leak did Colonial do anything about it even though it was a know source leak going into not only their well but a primary water source for people living downstream. The well water was tests as well as ground water and found to have benzene contamination. The result was a multi-million dollar settlement by Colonial which included Colonial buying the entire farm from my cousins and a gag order which resulted in the public and the rest of family no knowing exactly how bad the leak was and who was at risk. The EPA was not involved in this leak.
“There is no safe level of exposure to benzene. We have not found a level at which there is no effect. That is why it is such a concern,” said Amy D. Kyle, an air toxics researcher.
Well technically, the comment is delivered in sarcastic terms but is entirely factual and accurate in content. They are applying any corrupt rule they can, with the reasoning that it will increase profits whilst the rule is in place and as long as they can corruptly keep it in place and fuck everyone and everything. They know it will eventually be struck down because it is entirely deceitful in intent and is meant to obfuscate the legal process making any civil suit for polluting and killing other people extremely difficult to pursue. Americans, you have the government you deserve and you will end up paying an enormous price for it, it's called karma. Your lack of interest in political activism, has led to this and it will get worse, so whilst you indifference caused the rest of the world to suffer, as empire comes to an end, it is you who will suffer the most and for far longer, at the hands of your own corrupt government and corporations, good luck, you will need it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Obama's nominee was put forth OVER HALF A YEAR BEFORE THE DAMN ELECTION. There was no 'lame duck' about it. It was the same old 'no we're assshats only out for ourselves, fuck everyone else we won't even attempt to compromise' from the extreme right wing fucktards (i.e. 'Republicans').