The fact that there needs to be a bill to stop companies from poisoning babies is just fucking depressing.
this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
200 points (99.0% liked)
News
22890 readers
3777 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Ah, but they didn't even say stop, they said limit...
🤦♂️
I think 'limit' is fine as long as that limit is under levels safe for infant consumption. It's probably not possible to make baby food entirely free of heavy metals because they're basically everywhere. But it is possible to make them with heavy metals under a specific safety threshold.
Getting to 100% in anything is really fucking hard - some shits occasionally going to go wrong and that's unavoidable.
Fun fact there is no safe limit of lead to eat. It's a forever metal so once it is in you it never leaves and will only continue to hurt you.
It’s a forever metal so once it is in you it never leaves and will only continue to hurt you.
Citation desired. All references I'm seeing explicitly state that lead is eventually excreted in urine and feces.
In bones, lead can take 25-30 years to leave the body. Actually, this is true of many types of heavy metal poisoning (and radiation, eg radium), and bone loss as we get older tends to release these compounds. This is part of why they believe there's a delay with ALS and Alzheimers between when you ingest heavy metal and when you actually develop symptoms.
In older adults, the primary source of lead exposure can be endogenous. Excretion of lead is relatively slow, and accumulation is common [31]. During early and middle life, lead is sequestered in the bones, where it replaces calcium in the hydroxyapatite structure [32]. The skeleton contains 70–95% of the body burden of lead where lead can remain for decades [32], which can be exploited for exposure assessment research. Adults experiencing loss of bone mass via osteoporosis release lead into the bloodstream. In older adults, 40–70% of blood lead can be attributed to previous body stores [32]. Lead that entered the body during previous periods of high exposure can become biologically active decades later.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7454042/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161813X20301352
Well then it's too bad we can't possibly entirely remove lead from the food chain.
If we limited use of fossil fuel vehicles on farmland, that would help a lot. The exhaust from tractors along with the bits of tires left in fields etc all put heavy metals in our food supply. As it is, almost all farmland in the US needs bioremediation to reduce heavy metals in their soils.
What’s more depressing is that there have been 2,291 bills and amendments addressing ingredients in baby food since 1951. They range from limits on toxins to excessive additives and sugars. Most fail at introduction thanks to the lobbying power of Nestlé, who owns Gerber.
Business ethics require legislation in the US.
Hey, if baby consumers didn't want heavy metals in their food they'd chose a competitor - the market has signaled that its in favor of poison. /s
Well tbf have the babies submitted a compelling case through the proper channels? Maybe they can peacefully assemble to make a difference.. that's how christians have won their battles
Nobody expects the Spanish ~~Inquisition~~ peaceful Christian demonstration!
The free market should be free to choose how much heavy metals are in it.
Baby Formula! Now with 12% less Lead than the leading brand!
What about that one with 50% more lead, but you don't mind trading a couple of your baby's IQ points for those sweet savings?
Hmm that's a tough trade-off. More developmental disabilities, but is the Value™ really there to justify the decreased cost?
If children wanted higher quality food they would go out and make their own money.
Mine are broke so they'll eat what I feed them.
Tbh kids these days need to learn a thing or two about heavy metal
limit
Thanks so much.
This is ridiculous! Now how are babies supposed to get their recommended daily value of lead and cadmium?
I don't know, but if you take them to Russia and teach them to say "fuck Putin," they'll get their recommended daily dose of polonium.
I will not let them take my babies daily intake of arsenic and mercury away!
Without led in their system, how are we going to develop the next generation of psychopaths and right wing voters?
TIL in the US they need an extra law to limit harmful substances in (baby) food. Normal people would call this "common sense", but it seems to be rather uncommon in the US.
The FDA was supposed to just be regulating this as their job already. I'm not sure why they need a specific law, but I'm just going to assume the answer is Reagan.
If the FDA, FTC, USDA, EPA, Depts of Transportation, and CDC wanted to guarantee and check their work, we’d have universal healthcare. And in fact I think that’s exactly the legal argument for why the government should be FORCED to provide us healthcare - how else would we be able to catch (and class action sue for) large community-wide health hazards such as:
-asbestos in baby powder
-lead and heavy metals in vitamins and supplements
-consistency of dosing in medications
-Deaths from auto accidents when we should be having trains
-Deaths from contaminated eggs, meat, milk from bird flu or other pathogens
-Products that are blatant lies/false
-Companies leaking chemicals into water supplies
-Lead in water supply
-Heavy metals in water supply& in crops, from exhaust from cars and bits of tires
-imminent looming climate change
Gee, I wonder why corporations are scared of us getting healthcare?
When CEOs of these companies go to prison it will stop.
Prison doesn't stop them. They'll just sacrifice a scape goat and apply a new guy.
Have we tried sending them to prison though?
I am genuinely surprised that this isn't already in place for all foods. We've known about the harm they cause for a very long time.
Well, there is a simple reason for that
It's called money
Was it introduced by Biden? If so, it's dead on arrival as conservatives will do anything to prevent him from getting a win.
Klobuchar, Krishnamoorthi, Duckworth, and Cárdenas. All Democratic senators.
It was originally put forth by Krishnamoorthi late last year.
Limit implies they will still have some allowable amount which is insane!
Nestle:
I feed our baby junks of lead to go straight to the source. It’s working well.
opens jar of Gerber
Led Zeppelin starts playing from the jar
Great. What are we going to do with them now?