PFAS - Do you care?

[AGeese]

There are tons of microplastics in my yard and in farms here in Texas. I've seen it with my owe eyes.

That would be macro plastic

Of course. It has even less expensive than the standard options.

My waterer and feed bowls are stainless steel that were designed for other purposes bought at resale stores.

My chicken supplies are mixed - some plastic or plastic components and some nonplastic. I've been replacing things as I find good alternatives.

I haven't found a good solution for feed bags. Yet.

My land, thankfully, has only a little of endless procession of plastic in various stages of brittleness and shattering that I've been cleaning off my parent's farm for many years now. Its a sad, frustrating process. This is what started me on the anti-plastic bandwagon far more than any health concerns.

Later, my mother's health problems resulted in extensive searching for products that didn't have formaldehyde, parabans, bronopol, quinoline, Cl+Me, or black tar. Over a year of constant, very intense itching and endless dr visits with a fragile woman in her 80's in year 2020 before we discovered she was allergic to all of these plus a few other things. Why a dermatologist didn't do allergy testing mystifies me. Then months of trying to decrease exposure to these destroyed my faith in (or blindness toward) the effects of "safe" chemicals and products.

And for what? Usually for poorer results that cost more in every way except, sometimes, the initial purchase price.

Just speaking of my own experience. The healthcare industry isn't big on correlating allergies with symptoms/conditions, let alone testing. I had to drive my specialists in that direction who were simply content with what they didn't know.

Good luck to anyone wanting allergy testing. It's not like we have a system that has little bit of everything just waiting for you to show up and be tested.

No, it was that we were supposed to freeze to death with global cooling or the population bomb. Then they changed it to global warming where we all died in the late nineties. Then the current climate change. LOL

In the 70s/early 80s it was global cooling billed as "we're heading towards another ice age", later as I was coming of age in the 80s/early 90's "The Green House Effect" that was killing the Ozone layer was all over network news at 5 pm, and PBS specials.

The Ice Age made a brief resurgence that didn't last in the 90s. I think with Time magazine or something, people were like meh. Then we got global warming, now climate change. Either way the earth isn't static.

Back then we were limited to what network chose to expose what market to what shows and information unlike the free for all that is today. So could have been different in Tulsa than Des Moines. We were lucky to be included in Chicago programing.

Average life expectancy for most of history seems to have been high 20s, low 30s. Did individuals live longer? Absolutely, that's the definitionally true of averages. Choosing to ignore infant deaths to some number of months or years will change that figure somewhat (several EU countries dfo this in their own reporting), but it only moves expectancy a couple of years.

By the 1950s, that life expectancy had risen to around 50. By the 2000s, low 70s.

Objectively, life *IS* better. Most of our population isn't living at the edge of starvation day to day. We don't, in the main, suffer widespread diseases or syndromes as result of nutritional deficiency like North Korea, parts of Africa, etc.

Are plastics responsible for that? In the main, no. But neither did they prevent it.

Have we, as a population, discovered new ways to be unhjealthy with our new found abundance? Absolutely.

There are trade offs with everything. Hopefully, our growing awareness of the problems with the so called "forever chemicals" will lead us to finding a superior solution - but returning to lead lined cans, glass bottles, or pre modern storage solutions ain't it. Aluminum has its own issues. As does paper + whatever its saturated with to keep moisture rich foods in and potential pathogens out (wax, silicone, etc).

In the grand scheme of things, the likehood of my suffering an adverse health event due to PFAs in my enveronment is less than the likelihood that I will suffer carpal tunnel as result of my BYC posts. I choose not to actively seek out PFAs. I make use of reusable storage where I can - we cook primarily with glass, earthenware, stainless, and cast iron. But I also like my smoker (which is measurably dangerous to long term health), and I do seal leftovers in tupperware (or equivalent). Avoiding waste has greater value to me than avoiding PFAs. [my risk assessment might change if I were 40 years younger and living in a densely urban environment "eating out" most meals].

Others will make different choices for themselves. and that's OK.

I pretty much agree, but beyond infant mortality and childhood deaths, we should consider there's billions more people alive today, and if we keep it to the states the average is far more priveldged than ever before simply because they have access to health care and social services that didn't exist in my great grandparents day.

Life isn't quite as Spartan as it used to be so more people staying alive simply because they have it easier should be part of the data.

 

[AGeese]

I just realized there were more posts after I replied

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I pretty much agree, but beyond infant mortality and childhood deaths, we should consider there's billions more people alive today, and if we keep it to the states the average is far more priveldged than ever before simply because they have access to health care and social services that didn't exist in my great grandparents day.

Life isn't quite as Spartan as it used to be so more people staying alive simply because they have it easier should be part of the data.

EU numbers are similar.

Obviously, Eastern Europe doesn't fare quite as well as Western Europe - but that's exactly backwards their relative PFA usage. NOT to suggest PFAs make us healthier - offered simply to advance the position that PFA usage is not of substantial significance in affecting average lifespan - many, many other factors have greater influence.

 

[AGeese]

Just speaking as the OP, I'm not too picky about where the topic leads and side tangents. I think everything is relative here

 

[saysfaa]

Just speaking as the OP, I'm not too picky about where the topic leads and side tangents. I think everything is relative here

Thanks for the direction