Who's afraid of bromine?
bbc.com
bbc.com
This highlights an unavoidable problem for the chemicals industry - much of
what they do is still a learning process, and it often takes many years for
the long-term risks inherent in a particular product to emerge. Yet it is
also important to get these risks in perspective. So far, there are no known
cases of brominated fire retardants actually causing anyone major health
problems - they are being banned because of the potential hazard they pose.
First, you claim that the use of bominated fire retardants is "unnecessary" because we can build flame-retardant materials without them, but the problem they are solving is not "building flame retardant materials" but "building flame retardant materials under some very specific constraints of cost, longevity, storage, transport, manufacturability of the product they are used in, etc". People who have never actually manufactured anything are often given to under-estimating the number of constraints on the process and airly wave away the issues faced by the people tasked with doing so (a common name for such people is "senior managers").
How good are the alternative flame retardants? Do they cost more, increasing price pressure and causing people to not replace their old electronics with new for a longer period of time, therefore actually increasing overall population risk? How do you calculate all that?
Second, "the risks outweigh the benefits" leaves unanswered the question "to whom"? The distribution of risks and benefits is not uniform. Replacing one product with another may well shift the risks and benefits, but can you tell me that we won't be having this conversation again a few decades from now, as the unexpected consequences of what you currently believe to be safer (not "safe" but "safer") alternatives become clear?
What is obvious to you is clearly not obvious to others (many of whom also have interests in the matter that might cloud their judgement, although of course the same is true of NGOs, which are in general even less science-based than industry risk-analysts.) This is why in any regulatory question of this kind treating the decision as a no-brainer and your opponents as the root of all evil is likely to be counter-productive. A better approach is to acknowledge a) the legitimacy of their concerns, including their concern about making a profit and b) bring up concrete, specific and detailed ways that the industrial processes in question could be improved. It's easy to think of abstract improvements that won't work.
The debate regarding ozone processing in the pulp and paper industry is a good example of how abstract claims that ozone was a perfect substitute for chlorine if only those evil capitalist industry dunderheads would come to Jesus turned out to be less than entirely true: ozone does have potential and is being used, but in practice turns out so far to be a less-than-complete replacement for chlorine bleaching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleaching_of_wood_pulp#Ozone
Even with the brominated organic chemicals, each one can behave differently. Very subtle differences in organic molecules can lead to drastically different behaviour. Lumping all those compounds together doesn't make much sense, they have to be evaluated individually (or in closely-related groups).
Kinda OT but this sentence finally cleared up for me how burning works.
The laws are also outdated and not very practical- in California, which has some of the most rigorous regulations on environmental health, the test for a flame retardant cushion is to hold a candle to a piece of foam for 12 seconds.
The Chicago Tribune did a series on the tobacco industry's role in getting brominated flame retardants into furniture, which I recommend reading for some context on the current US regulations: http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/flames/index.html
Edited to add links to some studies: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866688/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3569691/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3349420/
The very concept of "chemicals in products" that are made out of chemicals and nothing but chemicals makes no sense. Food is either safe, or it is not. Insisting we test "chemicals" rather than "foods" is like insisting we test "cows" rather than "beef".
That is: beef as it is delivered to you in the store contains both industrially manufactured, extremely complex, highly artificial, poorly quality-controlled cows, and a few simple, refined, relatively pure substances. Calling out the latter as "poisonous" (which everything is in some dose under some circumstances) while ignoring that cows, world-wide, kill hundreds of people every year makes no sense.
Or rather: it makes no sense to be concerned that a steak will be deadly because it contains a constituent (cow) that is deadly.
I'm not against testing of foods as they come out of the factory--and I agree that people in industry, like people in government and people in labour unions and people pretty much everywhere are not above lying to make something that is unacceptably dangerous to most people appear acceptably safe--but I am against this kind of focus on constituents that are completely unrelated to the form they are found in foods, be they a pure chemical like bromine or an animal species like cows.
It makes no more sense to be concerned about bromine in foods than it does to be concerned about cows in food. It does make sense to be concerned about food safety, but looking at the components of the constituents tells us nothing about food safety, so as soon as you seen someone wringing their hands about "bromine" rather than the specific bromine compound in the specific quantities used in a specific food product, you know they don't care about food safety.
> Or rather: it makes no sense to be concerned that a steak will be deadly because it contains a constituent (cow) that is deadly.
It makes a lot of sense. If a cow has been fed with food that was contaminated with a carcinogenic substance, the resulting beef will be unsafe.
Your comment focuses on food safety, but my main point was to stress that food safety is already regulated thoroughly, while the use of chemicals such as discussed in the article is not regulated at all.
The lab assistants and instructors were also not very friendly or happy people. Says to ask for help but doesn't like to answer questions or help. We would start our lab sessions after lunch and come out when it was dark, rainy and foggy (typical Vancouver weather) out on to a campus that prided in brutalist architecture straight out of concentration camps.
I still shudder at those years of trying to be a molecular biochemist. Clearly, I was not fit for it in the labs or the lectures.
Then I switched to Economics and couldn't believe how easier school got. So infinitely easier...
I feel bad for the BBC because this article is a big pile of PR with jewels like:
"The chemistry blogger Derek Lowe points out that the few people known to have suffered health problems (none of which were quite like those listed by Buzzfeed) were drinking a vast amount of BVO-containing drinks - in the order of two to four litres per day."
So the culprit is in the person for drinking TOO MUCH!! 2 litters per day is a bast amount while also the recommended amount for a person to drink on a day. If you play sports like tennis or soccer or American football you are going to drink two or three times more than this.
Never mind that athletes are the intended segment of drinks like gatorate.
I am watching TV and it starts burning? This is the reason I use Apple aluminum displays, I don't want brominated sh*t near me. Unfortunately this lobby forced mattresses and quilts to use it and now you could detect those traces in the air of any normal bedroom. There are appearing lots of neurological disorders that are strongly linked to those products getting in contact with our body, as they are easily absorbed by our skin as well as our lungs.
The problem with those lobbies is that they don't let us decide. I don't care if my TV weights more or cost more(injection molded plastic is way cheaper), I want a metal frame. Nobody in my family smokes so let me choose foams and feather products that are brome free.
The excuse they use in order to force everybody to use those products is that most people have smokers in their house and they go to bed with the cigarette, so they are asleep while the house burns so they need to protect you.
Turns out that protecting us against ourselves is a great business. It is a pity that a theoretically independent medium like BBC takes part on it:
Who recommends drinking 2 liters of soft drinks per day?
Anyone drinking 2 or more litres of soft drink per day is going to need a lot of dentistry, for starters.
Personally the biggest issue I've noticed with these "bad ingredient" trends is that,
1.) Most issues seem to come from overuse (e.g. drinking too much soda), and
2.) They're easy scapegoats for many issues which have arose in the last ~20 or so years.
There's certainly an argument to be made for the recent occurrence of some of these issues being due to increased scrutiny or increased intake of said product.
Anecdotally, I know my father is allergic to wheat and corn. My younger brother is (potentially -- last I heard he's testing it) allergic as well.
I've had no negative side effects, but I do eat much less processed food and grains than they both do/did. But, again, that's very anecdotal and in no way is it a representation of a larger population.
I know how to cook from scratch and cannot understand why there is so much garbage in prepared foods. Simple foods like potato salad and bread in a typical grocery store have ridiculous ingredients.
Fact: Bromine is an essential element in mammalian biology. We need to consume it.
Fact: Bromine does not preferentially crowd out iodine. It does tend to concentrate in the same tissues as iodine for the obvious chemistry reason but it does not materially impede iodine absorption. Which has actually been measured in mammals in biomedical studies.
Fact: Some populations, like the Japanese, consume relatively huge quantities of bromine from natural dietary sources while still having (modestly) lower levels of thyroid disease than cultures that consume much less. This is an expected demographic result given the aforementioned biomedical research that would predict this, given that bromine does not crowd out iodine.
If we biologically require both iodine and bromine, which we do, it is pretty reasonable to assume that evolution makes sure the ions get to where they need to go. Human biology is full of superficially conflicting ion requirements: iodine and bromine, sodium and potassium, calcium and magnesium, etc.
As an added bonus, ions like bromine (and iodine) tend to be promptly excreted if you consume more than your body actually requires, so they don't stay in your system long in any case if they are not serving a purpose. There is nothing intrinsically dangerous about bromine.
... other than coming into contact with pure Bromine... :P
http://www.bodybio.com/content.aspx?page=bromine-bullies-iod...
Although exactly where modern diet/exposure lies on the necessary/harm spectrum is substantially different question.
Certain individuals may be more sensitive to glutamates than the majority but there's no evidence to show that they are harmful in the amounts that are regularly consumed - and those in Asia average a far higher daily intake of it than in the West, yet no specific health issues have ever been identified due to this.
(Personally, I find it has a pleasant stimulating effect, like caffeine but milder.)
Is it any wonder that average lifespan of doctors is significantly shorter than the general population?
(1) Metcalfe, D. “Food Allergy.” Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice25.4 (1998): 819-29. Print.
(2) Simon, R. A. “Additive-induced Urticaria: Experience with Monosodium Glutamate (MSG).” Journal of Nutrition 130.4S Supplemental (2000): 1063S-066S. Print.
(3) Yang, W. H., M. A. Drouin, M. Herbert, Y. Mao, and J. Karsh. “The Monosodium Glutamate Symptom Complex: Assessment in a Double-blind, Placebo-controlled, Randomized Study.” The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Part 1 99.6 (1997): 757-62. Print.
(4) Blaylock, Russell L. Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. Santa Fe, NM: Health, 1998. Print.
(5) Lorden, J. F., and A. Claude. “Behavioral and Endocrinological Effects of Single Injections of Monosodium Glutamate in the Mouse.” Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology 8.5 (1986): 509-19. Print.
(6) Blaylock, Russell. “Food Additives: What You Eat Can Kill You.” The Blaylock Wellness Report 4 (Oct. 2007): 3-4. Print.
(7) Blaylock, Russell L. Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. Santa Fe, NM: Health, 1998. Print.
(8) Blaylock, Russell. “Food Additives: What You Eat Can Kill You.” The Blaylock Wellness Report 4 (Oct. 2007): 3-4. Print.
(9) Ohguro, H., Katsushima, H., Maruyama, I., Maeda, T., Yanagihashi, S., Metoki, T., Nakazawa, M. “A high dietary intake of sodium glutamate as flavoring (ajinomoto) causes gross changes in retinal morphology and function.” Experimental Eye Research 75.3 (2002).: 307-15. Print.
Ok - Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice - not exactly a research journal, but it appears to be peer reviewed, at least. The abstract for the article says,
The term “food allergy” is synonomous with food hypersensitivity. “Food intolerance” is a term applied to any abnormal response to an ingested food. Food allergy encompasses several clinicopathologic entities. These include classic, immediate reactions to foods that are IgE mediated and involve basophils, mast cells, and delayed reactions that involve a number of immunologic effector systems .
There are limited data available relative to the prevalence of food allergies in the general population. The prevalence of cow's milk allergy was found to be 2.2% in a study of Danish infants. One Dutch study based on questionnaires, clinical follow-up, and double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenge estimated the prevalence of food allergy and intolerance in adults together to be 2.4%. Reactions to additives have been estimated at 0.01% to 0.23%, as assessed by questionnaire and compared with the number that could be confirmed by means of double-blind challenge.
Without jogging over to the library, I wouldn't think that this had anything to do with MSG.
(2) Simon, R. A. “Additive-induced Urticaria: Experience with Monosodium Glutamate (MSG).” Journal of Nutrition 130.4S Supplemental (2000): 1063S-066S. Print.
Do you have Urticaria? What are the results of the study?
Two subjects had positive single-blind, placebo-controlled challenges, but neither had a positive double-blind, placebo-controlled challenge. We conclude, with 95% confidence, that MSG is an unusual (<3% at most) exacerbant of chronic idiopathic urticaria.
So they went looking for a reaction with subjects whom they thought might have some kind of reaction, and essentially couldn't find it. Does that appease your tin-foil hat?
(3) Yang, W. H., M. A. Drouin, M. Herbert, Y. Mao, and J. Karsh. “The Monosodium Glutamate Symptom Complex: Assessment in a Double-blind, Placebo-controlled, Randomized Study.” The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Part 1 99.6 (1997): 757-62. Print.
Here's the conclusion:
Rechallenge revealed an apparent threshold dose for reactivity of 2.5 gm MSG. Headache (p<0.023), muscle tightness (p<0.004), numbness/tingling (p<0.007), general weakness (p<0.040), and flushing (p<0.016) occurred more frequently after MSG than placebo ingestion.
Well, the results are interesting. 1998. Hmm - why don't we look at a similar follow-up study conducted a bit more recently?
Raif S. Geha, MDa, Alexa Beiser, PhDb, Clement Ren, MDa, Roy Patterson, MDc, Paul A. Greenberger, MDc, Leslie C. Grammer, MDc, Anne M. Ditto, MDc, Kathleen E. Harris, BSc, Martha A. Shaughnessy, BSc, Paul R. Yarnold, PhDc, Jonathan Corren, MDd, Andrew Saxon, MDd. "Multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple-challenge evaluation of reported reactions to monosodium glutamate." Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Volume 106, Issue 5, November 2000, Pages 973–980
Here's the conclusion:
Conclusion: The results suggest that large doses of MSG given without food may elicit more symptoms than a placebo in individuals who believe that they react adversely to MSG. However, neither persistent nor serious effects from MSG ingestion are observed, and the responses were not consistent on retesting
In non-scientific terms, "they're a bunch of hypochondriacs and it's all in their heads."
(4) Blaylock, Russell L. Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. Santa Fe, NM: Health, 1998. Print. (6) Blaylock, Russell. “Food Additives: What You Eat Can Kill You.” The Blaylock Wellness Report 4 (Oct. 2007): 3-4. Print. (7) Blaylock, Russell L. Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. Santa Fe, NM: Health, 1998. Print. (8) Blaylock, Russell. “Food Additives: What You Eat Can Kill You.” The Blaylock Wellness Report 4 (Oct. 2007): 3-4. Print.
Have a look at the references in Blaylock's articles. He starts off with a really sketchy study done in 1957 force-feeding monkeys outrageous doses of MSG.
Still, he's a doctor - a neurosurgeon no less, right? What does the Skeptic's Dictionary say about him?
Blaylock has retired from neurosurgery and has taken up a career opposing science-based medicine and promoting pseudoscience-based medicine and supplements that he sells under the label Brain Repair Formula. He suggests that his supplements can treat and prevent such diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. He asserts that his formula "will maximize your brain’s ability to heal and reduce inflammation." The rest of the scientific community seems oblivious to these claims, which are not based on large-scale clinical trials. Blaylock also sells hope to cancer patients by encouraging them to believe he has found the secret to prevention and cure.
Well that's not good. Continuing,
He [Blaylock] opines that the social drug problem in the United States was created by the nefarious former Soviet Union "to weaken the resistance of Western society to Soviet invasion, undermine religion and make the youth unable to resist collectivism." And, oh yes, the Soviets were also responsible for an epidemic of hepatitis, AIDS, venereal diseases and highly resistant tuberculosis.
I think I'm going to ignore all of the Blaylock references on your list.
(5) Lorden, J. F., and A. Claude. “Behavioral and Endocrinological Effects of Single Injections of Monosodium Glutamate in the Mouse.” Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology 8.5 (1986): 509-19. Print.
Seriously?
(9) Ohguro, H., Katsushima, H., Maruyama, I., Maeda, T., Yanagihashi, S., Metoki, T., Nakazawa, M. “A high dietary intake of sodium glutamate as flavoring (ajinomoto) causes gross changes in retinal morphology and function.” Experimental Eye Research 75.3 (2002).: 307-15. Print.
Another mouse study. This one they directly injected crazy amounts of MSG into mice eyes and then tested their vision (seriously - how did they get the idea for this study)? Hardly the most conclusive study.
Sorry - you're still a crackpot.
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