https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
Edit: This also helps others who are in accidents, car wrecks, have Cancer, etc. Yes, we pass on the PFAS to others, but the immediate need for blood is more urgent than the potential long term impacts of PFAS.
Apparently you'd only go to Mexico to eat brain tacos and share needles with cows. Surely there's a better way to filter out risky blood.
Now add that they've basically abolished the EPA (want to power your new data center with a phalanx of smog spewing generators running on bunker oil? Eh, go nuts!) and legalized some highly cancerous pesticides to be used on food crops.
Trump a few days ago pardoned some people who he claims were "fixing their cars": They were actually running a commercial operation removing emissions systems on diesel heavy equipment (a so-called "delete"), and the impact of "rolling coal" is overwhelming and hugely negative, making a single vehicle pollute more than hundreds. But hey, what's the harm in particulate and NOx, besides lung damage, worker health and reduced lifespans?
This vile, corrupt administration hates Americans and wants to see you all die. There is no other possible interpretation. It is simply astonishing that there is some subset of profoundly gullible and/or unintelligent clowns who still support this busted kleptocracy. What a disgrace.
Did they really think RFK Jr. was ushering in a healthier, “more natural” America?
>The agency said it plans to set less non-binding “action levels” that do not require contaminated food to be removed from shelves. “Tolerance levels”, or limits, make it illegal to sell food contaminated beyond a set threshold.
From the FDA
>Action levels and tolerances represent limits at or above which FDA will take legal action to remove products from the market.
Typical junk tier rage bait journalism you can expect from the guardian.
Your comment does not give a correct impression of FDA's position here.
Action levels are correctly described by the article and not by whatever FDA quote you provided, which seems to imply the FDA is required to take action to remove products. Surpassing action levels do not require FDA to remove products from the market.
it's going to be a health and science dark ages for US
Is there a limit in food, which is what this petition was about?
Maine listened to farmers and confronted the PFAS crisis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509448 - February 2026 (0 comments)
Maine Is a Warning for America's PFAS Future - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40007582 - April 2024 (0 comments)
Toxic Chemical Contaminant PFAS Found on Maine Farms - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20142212 - June 2019 (1 comment)
> The practice of spreading sludge as a soil amendment has been a common practice in Maine and across the nation for decades. Land application of sludge material occurred long before there was knowledge that it may contain PFAS or the health implications of PFAS.
EPA Fact Sheet: Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for PFOA and PFOS: Information for Farmers - https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-01/fact-shee... - January 2025
EPA Basic Information about Biosolids: https://19january2021snapshot.epa.gov/biosolids/basic-inform...
Because then The Uniparty would look bad.
Instead, we can prop up the illusion of democracy and point fingers at "the other side" of good cop / bad cop while elites poison everybody more. We wouldn't want people living too far beyond their working years, after all.
But no, everything is a big conspiracy.
We're witnessing the looting of America. Every level of government seems increasingly dedicated to transferring wealth from the taxpayer to the wealthy. But even that's not sufficient. Apparently the wealthy also need to poison the land and people too for an uptick in profits. Why should they care? Capital is mobile. They'll simply leave whenever society collapses.
Anal sex is inherently much more likely to transit HIV and HIV tests have a higher false negative rate for new infections.
But under normal conditions, letting only the best candidates donate is the most efficient way.
If you got blood from an addict living on the street engaging in prostitution and tested it, would you trust that blood?
I wouldn't.
https://my.blood.co.uk/eligibility/travel/article?id=47&titl...
Granted it’s shorter, but there are longer wait periods depending on the country. It’s defense in depth because false negatives happen and some viruses take time to show up on tests.
Note: for tattoos, I have no idea if the problem is also related to venereal diseases, or if there is any problem from contamination with the tattoo ink itself, and I don't care enough about this subject to look it up.
Men who have sex with men are something like 50-100x more likely than the general population to acquire HIV. HIV tests do not have a 0% false positive. They will not catch all very recent infections. The rationale for excluding them until recently is that it’s defense in depth and it doesn’t hurt the blood supply much because they only make up about 2-3% of the population.
The current rule is that MSM don’t face a blanket ban, but if you’ve had anal sex in the last 3 months you have to wait because anal sex is inherently more likely to transmit HIV and the tests may not catch a very new infection. Other diseases like Hepatitis have a similar issue.
And yes, you can be very careful and get a disease. But they are playing statistics here: over 60% of injected drug users have Hep-C, that means a lot of prostitutes. They won't and shouldn't trust anyone who say "hey, I had unsafe sex against all advice, but was very careful with the tattoo in a dark cellar and the heroin party, pinky promise".
What's wrong with that? Animal brains are a common dish in many countries, including France, Asia, and parts of the United States
For starters, you're not supposed to donate blood when you're sick.
The other being the quantity. A donation is 1-2 pints. Wikipedia lists bloodletting as easily 3 pints [1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting#Use_in_the_1600s_...
Is there no way to filter them out of withdrawn blood?
It is an interesting question. Are there companies that draw and discard?
A substantially increased risk of disease.
>What's wrong with [...] beef tallow?
A substantially increased risk of heart disease.
I'm not usually classified as "incredibly stupid" so your comment is off tone and not aligned with HN's standards of conversation.
Maine farmers impacted by PFAS pivot to harvesting solar power - https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/tech/science/environ... - August 22nd, 2024
> Maine farmland made worthless by PFAS chemicals could be put back into production again through harvesting the power of the sun.
> Last month, regulators approved new rules following 2023 state legislation that calls for renewable energy generated on contaminated land, clearing the way for the development of thousands of megawatts of new clean power.
(brownfields are a great place to cite solar generation)
EPA Brownfields Renewable Energy Siting - https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-08/brownfiel...
NREL Solar Development on Contaminated and Disturbed Lands - https://web.archive.org/web/20250218192949/https://www.nrel....
Plant-based material can remediate PFAS, new research suggests - https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/factor/2022/9/science-highlig...
From Biosolids: mix human waste with toxic chemicals, then spread on crops - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/05/biosolid... - October 5th, 2019
> Meanwhile, sewage sludge is behind a widening PFAS crisis that has contaminated farms in Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama and Florida. PFAS, or “forever chemicals”, are linked to a range of serious health problems like cancer, thyroid disorders, immune disorders and low birth weight. The chemicals are a product used to make non-stick or water-resistant products, and are found in everything from raincoats to dental floss to food packaging.
> Maine’s testing of 44 fields sprayed with biosolids earlier this year consistently found alarming PFAS levels in the ground, cows and farmers’ blood, which forced one dairy farm to shut down.
> “They’re finding kilograms of PFAS in sewage sludge when nanograms are harmful to humans, so you can’t regulate it as a fertilizer,” said Laura Orlando, a civil engineer who tracks problems with biosolids.
> A University of North Carolina study found 75% of people living near farms that spread biosolids experienced health issues like burning eyes, nausea, vomiting, boils and rashes, while others have contracted MRSA, a penicillin-resistant “superbug”.
> In South Carolina, sludge containing high levels of carcinogenic PCBs was spread on cropland, and in Georgia sludge killed cows. Biosolids are also thought to be partly responsible for toxic algae blooms in the Great Lakes and Florida, and biosolid treatment centers regularly pollute the air around them.
So if every single farm has PFAS you're only ever gonna hear about it on the ones where the regulators are jerks and they need to be a brownfield to get favorable enough regulatory treatment to make the project actually happen.
They're not lying. They're selectively mentioning it. Plenty of these farms did and probably could continue to perhaps go on to produce plenty of perfectly fine crops despite current or past contamination.
Also it doesn't take a genius to figure out that spewing laundered shit onto fields is probably bad or at least risky for the same reasons you shouldn't eat a ton of tuna that was fished out of SF bay.
We learned this with BSE (why you don't feed cows to cows, prion contamination), we learned this with PFAS, we learn this a lot (ag supply chain weaknesses due to prioritizing cost over safety). We just don't seem to care enough to change the system. Caveat emptor.
InEnTec says its plasma technology effectively destroys PFAS - https://www.wastetodaymagazine.com/news/inentec-says-its-pla... - August 23rd, 2024
Biosolids: mix human waste with toxic chemicals, then spread on crops - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/05/biosolid... - October 5th, 2019
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...
No conspiracy required. It's just corporations acting like one would expect. In fact, it'd be very strange if they didn't.
It's fundamentally a design problem (or for elites, a solution).
As for a better reception, the assumption was RFK Jr. would take it more seriously.
BLKNSLVR•1h ago
> They have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they can persist for thousands of years in the environment, and are designed to be indestructible.
But _not_ autism! Autism is the great evil we have chosen as our individual health enemy. I don't see autism listed, you may pass.
logancbrown•1h ago