Poison, Poison Everywhere
13 comments
·October 26, 2025lr4444lr
modeless
I also recently subscribed to ConsumerLab, and I'm glad I did. I wish they could test products more frequently as things are bound to change from batch to batch, but it's a whole lot better than nothing.
I don't take a lot of supplements, but I won't buy even one without some form of third party testing.
klevertree1
I'm tackling part of the issue of food toxin remediation with my new venture, NeutraOat (neutraoat.com). It's a modified oat fiber supplement that selectively traps BPA, PFAS, and plasticizers in the gut and reduces levels in the blood serum.
The funding for this is tough, though. Everyone loves the idea, but it's difficult to find people to fund R&D to make sure the product actually works over brand building and marketing. I've had to be very scrappy. Hopefully this will change in the future as we build momentum and awareness, but for right now it's tooth and nail.
teddyh
Empowering individuals to solve collective problems rarely work.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31178680>
The appropriate solution is legislation.
andy99
This reminds me a bit of a private group that did a big study (I thought in SFBA) looking at the amount of microplastics in different stuff, for example delivered food. Just thinking about it because of the startup he mentioned and I was wondering if it was them, but can’t find the article now. I know it was discussed at length here.
foofoo12
> This was lead poisoning. ... Nobody knew.
Good article. But just to note, lead was already a known poison at the time when it was added to gasoline. Significant concerns were raised. Production was even halted for a while in the US due to health incidents.
supportengineer
The trend of making these medical tests cheaper and easier to obtain is going to result in a lot of positive change. Certainly for individuals and hopefully the anonymized data helps get the spotlight on larger trends.
torcete
If you have ever visited the ruins of Pompeii, you might have seen all the lead pipes that provided water to the city. I wonder how that affected the health of the citizens back then.
arthurbrown
My understanding is that the high calcium content in their water supply formed a lining on the inside of the pipes which largely prevented any exposure.
decimalenough
They doubled down on the exposure by adding lead to wine though.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6750289/#:~:text=The%20custo...
LorenPechtel
Yeah, the water problems in Flint weren't the pipes directly, but that the water had changed so the lead was no longer protected from getting in the water.
SuperNinKenDo
When I was a baby we lived virtually directly under the Sydney Harvour Bridge, I got lead poisoning as a result of runoff from the bridge. The combination of leaded petrol and leaded paint runoff poisoned the soil in playgrounds and the area more generally.
My case and probably those of others lead to a huge cleanup of the bridge.
My life has been absolutetly plagued with chronic health and "developmental" problems. Neurodivergence and other conditions litter my family tree, but they seem to effect me much more severely than they do most of my relatives.
I often find myself wondering these days if my life would have featured significantly less hardship were it not for the lead poisoning.
jonstewart
“Blood and Soil”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_soil
This article’s just trying to hype a stealth startup, but beware of those selling you the Herrenvolk. I’m all about mitigating negative pollution but there are plenty of things in nature that are bad for you, too.
This is precisely why I happily pay for an annual subscription to ConsumerLab[0]. It's largely just for supplements and a few functional foods, but with a tiny staff they are doing more work to help the public on the unregulated medicine market than the entire FDA, IMHO.
[0]https://www.consumerlab.com/