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TradIsGood
Half fast climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Oct 10, 2007 - 07:57pm PT
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phile,
Probably you don't understand me, and you ramble.
But, I have a camelback in a neoprene container that clips to harness. And I carry Nalgenes in pack for refilling. In the summer I fill them 3/4 full night before with Gatorade and freeze. In the morning, I fill any remaining space with water from the tap. I make Gatorade with water from the tap and dry mix. And my bra size has not changed.
giardia - There is some real marketing hype - but that thread has been done. Giardia is caught in nursery schools and public pools, not in the back country. It is killed by exposure to UV.
Just think - If you couldn't safely drink water out of a typical mountain stream, man would be extinct.
You exhibit exactly what I mentioned. Just enough knowledge to be "marketed to"! :-)
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phile
Trad climber
SF, CA
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Oct 10, 2007 - 08:00pm PT
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we agree that i don't understand you and that i ramble. ah, common ground.
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paganmonkeyboy
Trad climber
the blighted lands of hatu
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Oct 10, 2007 - 08:06pm PT
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"Somewhere LEB said that man boobs came from excessive ingestion of alcohol. :-)"
then i'm covered - I've had 3.5 PBRs total and that's it since coming back from the facelift a week ago monday...
and cybele - i recall that study showed that you were 4 times more likely to get tumors on the side of your head where you hold the phone, but not statistically any more likely to get a tumor - this seemed like a big wtf to me, and I've been using a ear piece ever since...anyone else read that one too ?
i think the modern world is just a little too toxic for our own good these days, imho...
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Nefarius
Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
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Oct 10, 2007 - 08:28pm PT
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hahaha. Maybe he'll deliver if you make it to JTree for Turkey Day, Jeff...?
Here's a story about drinking containers posing a *real* risk.
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cybele
Ice climber
finally, west of the Mississippi
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Oct 11, 2007 - 12:52pm PT
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Nefarious quote
"So, what you're saying then is that doctors and pharm companies aren't part of this machine? "
Huh? How did I imply the parm companies aren't amonst the corporations? They are culprits in many instances... funding studies that seem too often to produce findings contrary to the "liberal" or even neutral party studies. I can't quantify this, granted, but have seen examples galore.
"They're only corporations too, all in it to make money."
Right. Like the plastics guys. (Hey, anyone else read Emporor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer? Wow. A must-read. Or other stuff that talks about the rise of the petrochemical industries?)
"Fear is their biggest marketing tool, just like the government you speak of. We keep finding all of these horrible things in everything we touch, eat, breathe, etc., yet people live longer and are, in general, healthier than they were 50 years ago."
I don't think the fear stuff that I am thinking of comes FROM pharm companies (except maybe some AIDS stuff, and ok, I can think of other examples now), but from the wholistic community or whatever could be called call the "green-leaning" or "status-quo questioning" side of things. It's not "fear" anyway that we addressed in this thread, but more like caution.
Are people healthier? We have greatly reduced death and misery from bacteriological causes -- infections used to kill lots of people. And many other diseases and traumatic injuries we now can treat. But the rates of other things like cancer meanwhile may have gone up. Can someone who actually knows some statistics help out here? Like, the largest killers now being cancer (colon, breast, prostate, lung. etc.) just behind heart disease. So saying we live longer overlooks the point here. I think we have traded infectious killers for toxic killers.
Ok I found some data. From the national center for health statistics, summarized in a blog,
"In 1950 we find the top 10 causes of death were, in order, heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents, infant death, influenza/pneumonia, tuberculosis, arteriosclerosis, kidney disease, and diabetes. Skipping farther back to 1920 the leading causes are influenza/pneumonia, heart disease, tuberculosis, stroke, kidney disease, cancer, accidents, diarrhea/enteritis, premature birth, and childbirth related conditions.
The earliest data, that from 1900, give influenza/pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhea/enteritis, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, accidents, cancer, senility, and diphtheria as the leading causes of death." (http://nchspressroom.wordpress.com/2007/07/06/historical-leading-causes-of-death/);
The question remains, do more people die from cancer today than they did then? Cancer seems friking eveywhere now. And we know absolutely that certain substances mitigate cancer outcomes in lab studies (ie, "cause").
But the point really still is, duh that we live amidst many, many toxic chemicals some of which have been of terrible impact to environments and animals (including human animals), and many of which are just sheer "extra." They exist due to our lifestyle and the structures of our heirarchical civilization... We really are living outside the natural balance.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 11, 2007 - 01:31pm PT
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"We really are living outside the natural balance."
Unfortunately modern so called civilization has no real answers.
Blind leading the blind towards the abysses of ignorance.
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Omot
Trad climber
The here and now
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Oct 11, 2007 - 01:44pm PT
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OK, back to quantitative analysis (I'm a scientist after all)...I still don't have time to do it right, but let's make some assumptions and get on with it:
1. Assume Japanese study referenced in the first post uses ppb as mass/mass ratio
2. 1 L water is 1 kg (close enough)
So 3.5-28 ppb is approx 0.003-0.03 mg. For a light person at 50 kg, their TDI is 0.5 mg/day using the more restrictive EU limit. Drinking 2 L per day from a BPA plastic water bottle is then about 1 to 10% of the TDI.
Whether this comforts you or alarms you depends on how much you really trust the TDI limits. Someday, systems biology will have mapped out every biochemical pathway in the body, so the effect of the ingestion of any chemical could in theory be figured out. Theory or not, the experiment continues, and we're all part of it.
Tomo
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L
climber
A chartreuse glider in an azure blue sky...
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Oct 11, 2007 - 02:12pm PT
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L,
"Seems breast cancer rates have dropped dramatically since 1990!"
--TIG The Great
TIG The Great,
Thank you for willfully misrepresenting what I wrote, your inaccurate use of statistics, and for beautifully demonstrating that yes, a little bit of knowledge in the wrong hands is a very dangerous thing.
Please, please, please avoid reading and replying to my posts in the future. I've experienced firsthand and have seen enough of your attacks on others now to understand why there's a lovely corner of the Forum dedicated to projectile vomiting for those of us who have come into too close a contact with your contemptuous condescension.
Thank you very much.
Now excuse me while I go hurl...
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paganmonkeyboy
Trad climber
the blighted lands of hatu
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Oct 11, 2007 - 02:58pm PT
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nice, L ;-)
now if only we had water bottles that leached something good...make them out of hemp plastic...
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TradIsGood
Half fast climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:30pm PT
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cybele, possibly we are simply living long enough for cancers to occur? I make that comment even though you offer no particular evidence that any particular cancer is in fact more common now than before.
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cybele
Ice climber
finally, west of the Mississippi
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Oct 11, 2007 - 06:45pm PT
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ok i am looking at data and it really depends on type and age. Death from lung cancer has gone up in all ages over 200% in 55 years, much more increase for older folks, whereas death from all types of cancer combined for all ages goes slighty down, because some types (ie, mouth and stomach) have gone down and rates in youth for some types have gone down. Older folks often it has gone up still. Of course skin cancer way higher. I have not found stats over time for breast, colon, & prostrate. give me a minute. sources are SEER, CDC
So, data only really good since 1970's. Compiled since 50's but not so good. Before that only can gather from death certificates.
Yes, this is complex question because even if cancer deaths double per 100,000 and infection deaths halve, we also need to consider life expectancy and rates broken down by age, race, sex, etc., to make hard conclusions. I have never studied this in a scholarly way -- not my field.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 11, 2007 - 07:07pm PT
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"The question remains, do more people die from cancer today than they did then?"
That's very hard to answer - lies, damned lies, and statistics.
But there's no doubt that humans in developed countries live significantly longer than their ancestors a century ago. Most of that increase results from clean water, sewage and garbage disposal, good nutrition, vaccinations, maternal and early childhood health care, and general basic medical and dental care and public health. Modern intense medical care accounts for relatively little in life expectancy increase.
Whether there's an increase in the proportion of cancer deaths simply because people live longer is hard to ferret out. That is, are there environmental or other factors causing an increase in the probability of getting cancer, and if so what are they?
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cybele
Ice climber
finally, west of the Mississippi
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Oct 11, 2007 - 07:11pm PT
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Nefarious quote
"So, what you're saying then is that doctors and pharm companies aren't part of this machine? "
Huh? How did I imply the parm companies aren't amonst the corporations? They are culprits in many instances... funding studies that seem too often to produce findings contrary to the "health food" "liberal" or even neutral party studies. I can't quantify this, granted, but have seen examples galore.
"They're only corporations too, all in it to make money."
Right. Like the petrochemical guys. Anyone read Emporer Wears no Clothes by Jack Herer? Wow. A must-read. Or anything else about the rise of the petrochemical industry.
Of course it is good to always question everything one reads and hears... from any source.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 11, 2007 - 07:29pm PT
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Contrary to popular thought life expectancy has declined.
Number one reason.
Abortion.
You'll never believe me anyways so don't bother ......
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Oct 11, 2007 - 07:41pm PT
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Thanks, Werner - a useful perspective. It all depends on whether one considers a fetus that miscarries, whether from natural or human causes, to be a human life. That's NOT a discussion we need to start, IMHO.
Perhaps someone with medical knowledge can chime in, but I believe that more miscarriages occur due to natural causes than human causes, even in the U.S. Particularly in the first trimester, often due to an unviable fetus, but for many other causes that aren't well understood. Likewise, many human-induced miscarriages are of fetuses that are unviable, would not long survive birth, jeopardize the mother's life, or would have severe physical or mental problems. Factoring all this into a discussion of life expectancy and causes of mortality may be impossible.
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Keeper of Australia Mt
Trad climber
Whitehorse, Yukon , Canada
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 11, 2007 - 07:45pm PT
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No real agenda with me other than living to a ripe old climbing age and seeing my offspring on track for same. But I lost a brother to testicular cancer (age 37) - out of the blue and no previous family history of same - and had son going into a death spiral at 18 months until we determined it was an e.coli infection. The issue is a no brainer though - we can produce non-toxic water containers - the fact that there is any basis for a discussion on this topic at all - illustrates that something is really problematic. We should not accept toxic materials when clearly there are good alternatives. But corporate profit lines drive a lot of things. Toxicity in the containers is one issue the other is the situation with the #1 bottles - "Last year Americans (and a lot of other places such as Canada) spent nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallions of bottled water, and then tossed over 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash. In bottle production along, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day int he U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year."
Check out this article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070406.wbisphenolA0407/BNStory/Front/home/?pageRequested=all .
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Oct 11, 2007 - 11:28pm PT
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Having more information so we can make up our own minds as to what is acceptable to each of us makes sense. I don't think we can count on the corporations to supply us that information.
How dangerous is long-term exposure to parts per billion of Bisphenol A? We know there is some risk, but we don't yet know the extent of that risk for sure, but some toxins like dioxin are well known to be dangerous at parts per trillion levels.
If you are willing to accept some risk from being out in the sun climbing all day while drinking too much and breathing the radon gas that El Cap exudes that is your choice. If the convenience and aesthetics of pretty colored hard plastics bottles isn't worth the possibile risk of hormonal or epigenetic abnormalities so you purchase other types of bottles that is your choice too. What's the problem?
Do a little research on epigenetics. Multi-generational effects of exposure to chemicals; scary sh#t.
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Keeper of Australia Mt
Trad climber
Whitehorse, Yukon , Canada
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 12, 2007 - 02:04am PT
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"At the heart of the intense debate over bisphenol A is that it challenges the main tenet of modern toxicology, the idea the dose makes the poison, a principle credited to the 15th Swiss alchemist Theophrastus Parcelsus.
Under this principle, a two-pack-a-day smoker is more at risk of cancer than a one-pack-a-day user, and the belief that rising doses make a substance more dangerous is the basis of all government regulations that seek to set safe exposures for harmful chemicals.
It seems obvious that a high dose of a poison would be more dangerous than a lower one, bus bisphenol A is creating a stir because it doesn't follow this seemingly common-sense rule. Researchers say this oddity results f rom the fact that bisphenol A isn't a conventional harmful agent, such as cigarette smoke, but behaves in the uncoventional way typical of hormones, where even vanishly small exposures can be harmful.
This is why some environmentalists and scientists contend that bisphenol A, which leaches in trace amounts from food and beveraging packaging, is among the scariest substances in use, an eerie modern version of the vaunted lead water pipes by which ancient Romans were unknowingly poisoned.
Extrapolating from the results of animals experiments, they suspect bisphenol A has its fingerprints all over the unexplained human health trends emerging in recent decades hinting at something going haywire with sex hormones, including the early onset of puberty, declining sperm counts, and the huge increase in breast and prostate cancer, amont other ailments."
"Although it has been known, since a search for estrogenic drugs in the l930s, to act like a sex hormone, bisphenol A has recently emerged as one extremely odd compound, perhaps the most unusual in widespread use. Research has found that it seems to turn modern toxicology on its head by being more dangerous at very low exposures than at high ones, a finding that is focusing attention on the possible health repercussions of the relatively small amoounts leaching from consumer products."
Environment Canada and Health Canada has begun a new assessment of the substance based on an initial assessment that bisphenol A is" inherently toxic". Companies producing it will be challenged by the government to prove that continued use is safe.
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Jay Wood
Trad climber
Fairfax, CA
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Oct 12, 2007 - 02:47pm PT
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TIG-
Your table shows that breast cancer DEATHS have declined since 1990.
You're bottle's leakin' dude.
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