Deregulate!

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The decision to demonize fat for its caloric density and heart-clogging effects, a decision that drove people away from butter and cheese and towards low-fat foods that required plenty of sugar to have some flavor, wasn't just bad science, according to a report analyzing historical food industry documents published September 12 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

That national dietary shift from fat towards sugar came about at least in part because of a major 1967 review of dietary science. Those historical documents reveal that a food industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) paid three Harvard researchers $6,500 (about $50,000 today) to discount research that increasingly showed links between sugar and heart disease and to point the blame at fat instead.

The industry group selected the data the Harvard scientists used for the review and suggested the research they include. Their final paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, set the US diet on a new course.
"The documents leave little doubt that the intent of the industry-funded review was to reach a foregone conclusion," Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, wrote in a commentary published alongside the new analysis.

Should you eat a low-fat diet? - Business Insider

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Yes, deregulate all of this, see how that works out..

People buy the nicest homes they can afford. They spend years—sometimes decades—pouring money into nest-feathering by stocking up on creature comforts. It’s no wonder we spend 90 percent of our lives indoors. Like George Carlin said, it’s where all our stuff is. 

Furniture. Shower curtains. Electronics from TVs to computers to games. Carpeting, cosmetics, and even air-fresheners and soap. It’s all there to make life easier, tasteful, and more playful. And yet, many of those pleasant symbols of your hard-earned income carry a hidden price: They may be slowly killing you.

Nobody ever said plastics and industrial chemicals were good for healthy living. It turns out some are really quite hazardous, which is a shame because they’re all over the place, according to a comprehensive review in Environmental Science and Technology by seven researchers from three universities and two environmental groups. They reviewed the science and identified 45 substances—phthalates, phenols, flame retardants, fragrances, and fluorinated chemicals—that most commonly leach out of products and become a part of household air and dust. Those toxins, when floating inside your home or apartment, are linked to endocrinal, reproductive, developmental, neurological, and immunological hazards. And probably cancer.

Once in dust form, “they can enter your body,” said Ami Zota, assistant professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Heath at George Washington University and a co-author of the study. “We know these chemicals even at low levels can have negative health effects.”

"Consumers can't shop their way around chemical exposures," Stoiber warned. "There are too many chemical ingredients used in almost every consumer product."

Your Favorite Housewares Are Spewing Poison Dust Inside Your Home - Bloomberg

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And if we regulate stuff here, there's always a way out..

Swiss firms have been criticised in a report for their links to the African trade in diesel with toxin levels that are illegal in Europe. Campaign group Public Eye says retailers are exploiting weak regulatory standards. Vitol, Trafigura, Addax & Oryx and Lynx Energy have been named because they are shareholders of the fuel retailers. Trafigura and Vitol say the report is misconceived and retailers work within legal limits enforced in the countries.


The picture is changing but there are still several African countries which allow diesel to have a sulphur content of more than 2,000 parts per million (ppm), with some over 5,000ppm, whereas the European standard is less than 10ppm.


The sulphur particles emitted by a diesel engine are considered to be a major contributor to air pollution, which the World Health Organization (WHO) ranks as one of the top global health risks. It is associated with heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory problems. Image copyrightAFP The WHO says that pollution is particularly bad in low and middle income countries. Reducing the sulphur content in diesel would go some way to reducing the risk that air pollution poses.

Fuel 'too dirty' for Europe sold to Africa - BBC News

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Still better to get the filthy stuff out of the air, or better still, prevent it to get in (at least in large quantities, there should be a cost-benefit analysis attached), but this is good news:

An inhaler that protects the lungs against air pollution has been developed by scientists and could help the many millions of people affected by toxic air to avoid its worst effects.

The inhaler delivers a molecule, first found in bacteria in the Egyptian desert, which stabilises water on the surface of the lung cells to form a protective layer. It is expected to be available as an inexpensive, over-the-counter product.

Outdoor air pollution is a global health crisis that kills over 3 million people a year and it has long been linked to lung and heart disease and strokes. But research is also uncovering new impacts on health, including degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, mental illness and, this week, diabetes.

The impact of air pollution costs $5tn a year, according to a World Bank report published last week. In the UK, at least 40,000 people a year die prematurely from air pollution, with a cross-party committee of MPs calling it a “public health emergency”.

New inhaler protects lungs against effects of air pollution | Environment | The Guardian

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Yes, let's deregulate the financial system..

Corporate misconduct. Deutsche Bank via Bloomberg. "Aside from the U.S. probe into residential mortgage-backed securities, the lender also faces inquiries into matters including currency manipulation, precious metals trading and billions of dollars in transfers out of Russia." Wells Fargo creating two million phony accounts. (CNN). Exxon accounting issues. (Reuters). Bosch under investigation for possible help to VW in "Dieselgate." (Bloomberg).

Weighing The Week Ahead: Is The Long-Awaited Bond Correction At Hand? | Seeking Alpha

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Turns out that stuff hardly works, but we can just pretend it does..

In 2002, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, maker of the testosterone supplement AndroGel, launched a global marketing campaign to pathologize male aging. The gradual and natural decrease in testosterone that all men face was no longer inevitable. Instead, it was a treatable condition called "Low T". The "Testosterone Crisis" was born, and sales skyrocketed.

But while branding can conceal the truth; it cannot change it. The companies behind testosterone supplements like AndroGel, Axiron, and Testim hint that their products can improve mood, boost cognitive function, treat erectile dysfunction, and alleviate depression. The weight of scientific evidence says otherwise.

A new systematic review primarily carried out by researchers at Georgetown University neatly summarizes the available data. "The prescription of testosterone supplementation for low-T for cardiovascular health, sexual function, physical function, mood, or cognitive function is without support from randomized clinical trials," the reviewers reported in the journal PLoS ONE.

The authors evaluated 156 randomized controlled trials in which testosterone was compared to placebo to treat a variety of conditions. Testosterone did not consistently prevent or treat cardiovascular disease, nor did it consistently improve sexual function or satisfaction, with half of the studies showing positive effects and the other half not showing any effects. It was altogether ineffective at treating erectile dysfunction. The majority of studies showed no effects on psychological well-being or cognitive function.

Got Low T? Testosterone Drugs Probably Won't Help | RealClearScience

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There is all kind of stuff floating around in your living room which isn't exactly healthy. Instead of waiting for regulation, there are things one can do..

The easiest things to do are the simplest. A 2014 journal study found that the crud left on hand-wipes after use carried levels of flame-retardant that matched dust levels in each household. In other words, kids, wash your hands. And preferably do it with non-antibiotic soap devoid of fragrance, which may contain chemicals that are part of the problem. The new study1 also recommends keeping dust at bay with damp cloths or mops, and out of the air with HEPA filters. The Silent Spring Institute, which participated in the research, offers a free app to help people detox their homes. Research released in March showed that reading ingredient labels on cosmetics can lead to smarter purchasing and reduced exposure.

Your Favorite Housewares Are Spewing Poison Dust Inside Your Home - Bloomberg

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You've seen this movie before..

Nearly 25 years ago, a legal clerk named Erin Brockovich discovered a carcinogen called chromium-6 contaminating the water of her town of Hinkley, California—leading to a yearslong environmental crusade, documented in the eponymous 2000 movie. This week, a report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that about two thirds of the American population—218 million people—are drinking water contaminated with potentially unsafe levels of the chemical.

Chromium-6, rare in nature, is a heavy metal used in a variety of industrial processes, from steel-making to energy generation. The contaminant is fueling an ongoing controversy in North Carolina, where residents are accusing Duke Energy of polluting the local drinking water supply. The Environmental Protection Agency classifies chromium-6 as an "emerging contaminant," meaning that utilities test for it but aren't held to a legal limit.

Of 81 emerging contaminants monitored in the past 20 years, only perchlorate, a rocket fuel ingredient, has been recommended for regulation. Meanwhile, evidence of chromium-6's toxicity has been mounting. A two-year study by the National Toxicology Program released in 2008 found that the compounds cause cancer in mice and rats. The program's 2014 report on carcinogens says they are "known to be human carcinogens." The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which oversees toxicity of Superfund sites, has found chromium-6 to be "associated with respiratory and gastrointestinal system cancers."

Remember that "Erin Brockovich" Chemical? There's a Good Chance It's in Your Water | Mother Jones

But of course, it can always be said that it's not proven that the Chromium-6 comes from industry, or that there is no consensus about its toxicity, etc.

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Clearing forests is also something that should clearly be left to the free market, down with all these business unfriendly regulations..

Toxic haze that spread across Southeast Asia from Indonesian forest fires last year caused the deaths of about 100,000 people across the region, according to the first academic study of the health impact of the smog. The death toll was concentrated in Indonesia, which had about 92,000 excess deaths from persistent haze that choked the region between July and October, according to researchers at Harvard and Columbia. The study published on Monday in Environmental Research Letters, a leading academic journal, linked haze from the fires to about 6,500 deaths in Malaysia and 2200 in Singapore.

Toxic haze from Indonesian forest fires killed 100,000 in Southeast Asia, study says

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Just imagine what the result would be if there were no inspections, safety regulations..

One in 13 restaurants and one in seven takeaways in the UK have failed food hygiene inspections because they are dirty or have poor procedures, Guardian analysis shows.

Examination of the food hygiene reports for more than 460,000 businesses found that almost 30,000, or 6.4%, had failed their inspections, including more than 7,000 takeaways and 8,000 restaurants.

The Food Standards Agency data also reveals huge food safety problems in some areas of the country, with some local authorities failing more than 20% of food establishments and about 50% of takeaways and sandwich shops.

Revealed: one in seven UK takeaways have failed food hygiene tests | World news | The Guardian