I know a little bit about the subject. (I worked at NU's environmental clinic when they were looking at SDWA violations, though I didn't work on that project.) Although tons of municipalities are out of compliance with regulations, the regulations are very conservative and the water can be out of spec without being something you need to "fear."
You edited your comment and removed the part about third world countries, which was probably smart, but your original point seemed to be that it's fine that millions of Americans are exposed to potentially harmful chemicals/compounds/substances because it's not as bad as third world countries. I don't know about you, but I don't want to drink water that doesn't meet regulatory standards but is maybe technically "safe". If that's the case, why even have standards/regulations at all? Just because you won't immediately die of dysentery doesn't mean there won't be long term negative effects.
I'd say the opposite, but maybe not so much on the fear front. Superfund sites are everywhere, p2.5 is generated by every diesel on the road. A level of human generated poison/contamination is everywhere. Low levels of pesticides, herbicides and microplastics are part of our lives. They have a cost and in many cases the cost is unknown, and maybe unquantifiable without tremendous cost. These are just facts, not things to be feared so much as motivation to answer in the affirmative when there is a policy choice re: "hey should we study why there is a worldwide loss of flying insects, bee colony collapse?, should we incentivize less polluting tech?" etc.
So is your position that the chemical mentioned in this article is harmless and the concerns groundless? The article said it's now widely found in Americans' blood and that 110 million americans are exposed to levels considered unsafe.
Not being snarky. If there's another position consistent with the article I'm interested to hear it.
I'm from Bangladesh. I think arsenic in water is something to fear. If this stuff was harmful like arsenic, we would know by now. If it turns a 0.1% chance of cancer into a 0.12% chance of cancer, I think it's a waste of time to worry about it.
No argument that this chemical is surely much less harmful than arsenic and that america is less polluted than Bangladesh.
And in practice it probably doesn't make sense for the individual in america to worry too much. There aren't really any places on earth you wouldn't have an effect from less dangerous/harder to diagnose chemicals.
But as a society we should still investigate it. A lot of small things summed together can add to something large.
For instance, why has fertility dropped so much? No one knows. Why are lab animals getting fatter? We don't know that either.
Slow burns are harder to sort out, but they can certainly exist.
If it were just one chemical we should be concerned about your argument would be valid. However, we're in contact with thousands of compounds every day that never had long term safety testing done. Not to mention potential effects caused by the interactions of the different chemicals.
To put this number into perspective, there are roughly ~30k automobile related fatalities in the US each year.
HN tends to glorify self-driving vehicles because they might put a dent into that statistic. I wonder why that concern doesn't apply to drinking water.
Sure, but the OP was talking about personal “fear” not public policy. I absolutely agree these should be investigated for public policy purposes because of tve potential aggregate effect. But don’t worry about it.
