• acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      if they were that bad we’d know by now.

      edit: if you are downvoting you either don’t know or have forgotten how obviously bad leaded gasoline was, even with 50 year old science.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity

      The hazards of TEL content are heightened due to the compound’s volatility and high lipophilicity, enabling it to easily cross the blood–brain barrier.

      Chronic exposure to TEL can cause long-term negative effects such as memory loss, delayed reflexes, neurological problems, insomnia, tremors, psychosis, loss of attention, and an overall decrease in IQ and cognitive function.[101]

      Concerns over the toxicity of lead[103] eventually led to the ban on TEL in automobile gasoline in many countries. Some neurologists have speculated that the lead phaseout may have caused average IQ levels to rise by several points in the US (by reducing cumulative brain damage throughout the population, especially in the young). For the entire US population, during and after the TEL phaseout, the mean blood lead level dropped from 16 μg/dL in 1976 to only 3 μg/dL in 1991.[104] The U.S. Centers of Disease control previously labelled children with 10 μg/dL or more as having a “blood lead level of concern”. In 2021, the level was lowered in accordance with the average lead level in the U.S. decreasing to 3.5 μg/dL or more as having a “blood lead level of concern”.[105][106]

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Agreed. This is hardly a new problem.

        Plastics cause much harm to our ecosystems but I’m not sure microplastics are so bad. Plastic is a really broad term, makes it hard to talk about and I’m ignorant on much of the subject. But I understand that most microplastics are biologically inert?

        Seems like everyone on lemmy jumps to the conclusion that microplastics are or will have drastic health effects. No, they’re not comparable to lead or asbestos, or, as you said, we’d know, would already have a mountain of evidence.

      • Tehdastehdas@piefed.social
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        22 days ago

        we’d know by now

        Not necessarily. When intake rate finally exceeds human ability to remove plastic dust from the body, the accumulation begins.

    • Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      Possibly worse, we got rid of lead gasoline, there’s no getting rid of plastics

      I’m sure the rich will have a treatment for it before too long and the rest of us will just suck it up

      Fun fact: it’s not the plastics itself thats usually the problem, but rather the solvents and conditioning agents used to characterize the plastic during manufacture

      • Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works
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        23 days ago

        I know what you were getting at, but just pointing out lead gasoline still exists today, primarily in small aircraft.

        • Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          You know. I’ve fucking had it with this lemmy pedantry.

          I have been ‘Buuut AckTChsuallly’'d in nearly every post I’ve made in the last three weeks and I’m fucking done. Between that and the mod harassment, the fascist bots, lincucks, tankies, proud non-Harris-voters and unasked-for hardcore bestiality I’ve fucking had enough of this rapidly igniting toxic waste dump of a reddit clone

          You are ALL horrible, twisted, ignorant people with entirely too much arrogance for your mediocre engagement levels.

          Every fucking community that shows up on my feed but /autism and the one I mod is getting blocked BECAUSE I WILL NOT HAVE YOU ASSHOLES CHASE ME FROM MY LAST PLACE

          Eat every form of shit and let it make you a better person by absorption.