The team fears that the ubiquity of plastic products means avoiding BPA is a near-impossible task.

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    There has to be a way to target the plastics to flush them out of our systems. Not enough money in the research?

    • MidnightOPM
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      2 months ago

      That’s not typically possible. The study shows how BPA acts like human hormones. It might be impossible to target it without also effecting the normal hormones or receptors.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        I’m going to prove I’m not a scientist in the following question, lol. The reason I was thinking of targeting was because they’re curing some cancers and our covid vaccine targets the virus, it seems like they’re figuring out how to keep the good and go after the bad? It might be a system that we can’t fuck with, Idk. I know they have a bacteria that eats the plastic, which will help. I just wonder if they’ve started down any of these paths or have already given up? https://www.livescience.com/plastic-eating-bacteria

        • Themadbeagle@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          I’ve been trying to answer you question for like an hour using my limited understanding of cancer, viruses, and long term, low dose, chemical exposure. Honestly I’m not a biologist or anything so I really don’t have an answer either the most I can say on the matter is that these problems are really not compatible. The way you “target” a cancer cell, or “target” a virus, or target chemicals are whole different and don’t really share anything in common. I can also say that BPA is more a problem of long term, low dose exposure that we don’t really expect to see a realistic end to anytime soon. You can target it in the body, but we are going to keep being exposed to it for years to come, even if there is a ban on it. The oceans are full of it, the waterways are full of it. Much of the world is already contaminated with it.

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            I appreciate you trying to answer, that’s exactly why I’m asking these questions. We can’t give up and just say it’s no use. I know someone in healthcare and they said 20 year olds are coming in with unbelievable pain in huge numbers and not getting any help. We need to ask these huge questions, knowing that we don’t have the answer right now. Then we can go in like you did and say, well we can do it with cancer and viruses, but the mechanisms aren’t the same. How could we approach it with plastic? We have these bacteria that are working within the environment, how can we do the same thing safely with everyone’s bodies? Also, we have to get the chemical companies to stop poisoning us so more isn’t added in at every minute. We have to start somewhere.

  • Lime Buzz@beehaw.org
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    2 months ago

    sighs

    No.

    Just no.

    Stop trying to find a ‘cure’ for us.

    We aren’t going away.

    • MidnightOPM
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      2 months ago

      I don’t think this is about making autistic people go away or find a “cure”. Even if we eliminated all BPA magically, people are still going to be born with autism.

      As the study explains, its probably only one element of how autism develops, but understanding how environmental toxins effect human development is important.

      • sleepybisexual@beehaw.org
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        2 months ago

        Autism is not a disease, illness or anything like that. Even if it is not your intention you are framing it that way

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      2 months ago

      I don’t think there would be a way to cure it regardless based on this finding. This is about exposure in utero. Eliminating BPAs would be a good thing regardless, along with a bunch of other chemicals that have bad health effects.

      We’ve known that BPAs were bad for a while anyway, which is why you’ll see that children’s bottles and food containers are labelled as BPA free.