Poison, Poison Everywhere

Posted by dividendpayee 10/26/2025

Poison, Poison Everywhere(loeber.substack.com)

326 points | 208 commentspage 2

rao-v 10/27/2025|

The reality is that poison is dose dependent, and we’ve mostly identified all the dangerous things and their doses. That lead in the bottle and the formaldehyde in your cheap clothes is bad … but not in a way that will detectably cause you harm or impair your life

Cthulhu_ 10/27/2025||

I'm pretty confident that thanks to us getting rid of a lot of stuff already (lead, etc), we're now more able to detect other stuff that is causing issues (like microplastics, although there was a lot less of that in the 70's)

LorenPechtel 10/27/2025||

The problem is the supply chain is now so compromised by many little players that pop up, sell cheap stuff, vanish.

supportengineer 10/26/2025||

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.

coppsilgold 10/27/2025||

Bloodletting is a solution. Donate blood as frequently as they allow you. Plasma donation works even better (higher frequency) if you trust the machines and the process.

Sadly, it's not a complete solution as some harmful substances bio-accumulate in other tissues. A benefit may be had regardless as some substances leach back into the blood if the concentration gradient is sufficient.

missingdays 10/27/2025||

What makes you think it's a solution?

If the logic is "get rid of your bad blood, let your body make some good blood instead", why would the body make the good blood if all we consume is full of plastic anyways?

coppsilgold 10/27/2025||

Even by that logic you should still dilute your blood, because if you don't you will accumulate plastic faster...

You will see a benefit for any and all harmful substances for which blood tests exist. Because the blood test implies blood levels being a proxy for the substance so it either accumulates there or leaches into it.

IAmBroom 10/27/2025|||

Blood is less than 10% of your weight. Donating 100% every month (!) would only reduce your exposure by the same, a trivial amount in dosage variation.

pjc50 10/27/2025|||

The solution to bioaccumulation is to give it to someone else?

kgabis 10/27/2025|||

4gotunameagain 10/27/2025||

Source?

coppsilgold 10/27/2025|||

Aside from the fact that dilution of blood is obviously dilution of any and all substances in the blood?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35394514/

M95D 10/27/2025|||

2 millennia of bloodletting medical practice. /s

torcete 10/26/2025||

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 10/26/2025||

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.

LorenPechtel 10/26/2025|||

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.

decimalenough 10/26/2025|||

They doubled down on the exposure by adding lead to wine though.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6750289/#:~:text=The%20custo...

IAmBroom 10/27/2025||

A bit of a reverse tax, that. The poor didn't drink adultered wine; they drank aqueduct water.

koliber 10/27/2025||

Less than the volcano.

IAmBroom 10/27/2025||

That's cherry picking. Most days the volcano didn't bother anyone...

IlikeKitties 10/27/2025||

> All the exhaust fumes pooled and hung in the air there. And these were the 1970s: literally all the gasoline was leaded.1 This was lead poisoning. Over the years, the children were getting brain damage.

And if you live in a city today it's only marginally better. Remember that everyone selfishly driving their car is choosing to poison you rather than dealing with public transport. They give you lung cancer from their exhaust and microplastics in the brain from their tires. And if that wasn't enough, year after year the cars get bigger and survivability for pedestrians in an accent, especially children becomes less likely the larger the car.

The inconvenient truth is that car drivers are horrible humans causing harm to their direct environment they themselves have to life in but we as a society deem that totally a-ok. And the Road accidents every year? Necessary and unavoidable of course. But then the same people argue about gun control. The double-think is astounding.

avidiax 10/27/2025|

The prisoner isn't a horrible human because he solves his dilemma by defecting.

tasuki 10/27/2025|||

Disagreed.

For me, I make a conscious attempt not to use a car unless it's actually warranted. I often go weeks without driving at all. Many people have the opposite approach: they take every possible opportunity to drive.

pjc50 10/27/2025|||

No, I'm fairly sure he is, and this is an important question for societies to inculcate in people.

ahstilde 10/27/2025||

I totally agree. I actually started Wyndly (https://www.wyndly.com/) because I realized I was poisoning myself with antihistamines every single day for my allergies. I did the research, and antihistamines are know to cause anxiety, depression, weight gain, and brain fog!

I applied for YC. We got in!

And now we're chipping away at this corner of human health: treating the root cause of allergies with protein exposure therapy (allergy immunotherapy) instead of covering up allergy symptoms with ineffective (and, it turns out, dangerous) antihistamines.

lccerina 10/27/2025||

"This will be a big business" No. It shouldn't be a "business", it should be laws that are enforced fast, education, public shaming of companies putting poison in their products. Volatile Organic compounds in paint were known to be poisonous since 17th century (see Bernardino Ramazzini's works). Just listen to the goddamn scientists for once. You can't solve a problem caused by capitalism corner cutting with more capitalism.

tasuki 10/27/2025||

Don't forget the poisons we've known for ages and yet overconsume: sugar, alcohol, ...

lou1306 10/27/2025|

Those are regulated, and sold to willing customers. On the other hand, people who buy paint do not want to get lead-poisoned, usually.

jimnotgym 10/27/2025||

And they are just waiting for the modern paint to be as good as the old lead paint was on exterior woodwork.

omgbear 10/27/2025||

I wonder how much this is causing the worldwide swing toward authoritarianism. Lead exposure can cause lower conscientiousness, lower agreeableness, and higher neuroticism.[1]

Especially considering the age of people who actually vote and who the politicians in power are (at least in the U.S.)

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8307752/

Thorrez 10/27/2025|

Is lead exposure going up or down? I assume it's going down, because lead gasoline was banned, lead paint was banned, and the lead that was in the environment due to those 2 source is slowly being cleaned up.

I at least assume lead exposure now is lower than when leaded gas was primarily used. In the US it started to be phased out in 1973 and finished in 1996.

omgbear 10/27/2025||

Down a lot now, but likely peaked in the 70s -- Kids growing up then are likely 50-60 which are the higher turnout voting brackets.

There's a lagging effect from lead exposure, so it's difficult to pinpoint when those exposed would be most impacted.

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-vote-and-ho...

Havoc 10/27/2025|

One of those things where it’s important to make a concerted effort to limit risk.

…but then also to stop worrying after reasonable steps were taken because it’s an endless rabbit hole

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