Perchlorate is found in a wide variety of foods, especially products popular with babies and kids, advocacy group says.

A chemical used in rocket fuel and fireworks is also found in an array of food products, particularly those popular with babies and children, according to findings released Wednesday by Consumer Reports.

The tests by the advocacy group come decades after the chemical, called perchlorate, was first identified as a contaminant in food and water. The Environmental Working Group in 2003 found perchlorate in nearly 20% of supermarket lettuce tested.

Linked to potential brain damage in fetuses and newborns and thyroid troubles in adults, perchlorate was detected in measurable levels of 67% of 196 samples of 63 grocery and 10 fast-food products, the most recent tests by Consumer Reports found. The levels detected ranged from just over two parts per billion (ppb) to 79 ppb.

  • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
    662·
    3 months ago

    Clickbait headline. Lots of chemicals are in rocket fuel, and it doesn’t automatically make that chemical dangerous.

    The article calls the chemical perchlorate, which is actually a class of chemical, not a single compound. Potassium Perchlorate is used as a thyroid medication…

    The article also says this:

    Most drinking water contamination comes from the manufacture, disposal and research of propellants, explosives and pyrotechnics, along with accidental releases from factories and rocket launch failures, according to the National Institutes of Health’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

    Which is actually bullshit, perchlorates are not the leading cause of drinking water contamination. I suspect the person who wrote this means “most [perchlorate] contamination”, but I’m not finding any evidence that this is true either; just that pyrotechnics and rockets are responsible for releasing perchlorates into the environment, and that raises perchlorate levels in key areas like west Texas, New Mexico, and northern Chile.

  • ultramaven@sh.itjust.works
    255·
    3 months ago

    Water is dihydrogen monoxide, fucking watch out y’all

    Not that I’m being dismissive of corporate greed destroying our fucking planet and species. More like… maybe they built the headline so we’d craft these nihilistic jokes and not care as much? I really don’t care anymore, when do we get to mutilate and torture energy chiefs?

    • WarmSoda@lemmy.world
      20·
      3 months ago

      Perchlorate is used to control static electricity in food packaging. Sprayed onto containers it stops statically charged food from clinging to plastic or paper/cardboard surface. It’s also used in fertilizers.

      That’s why.

      • Chozo@fedia.io
        17·
        3 months ago

        It’s also naturally-occurring. It’s basically everywhere. They even found it on soil samples from Mars.

        • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
          71·
          3 months ago

          It’s also not a single chemical. It’s a class of chemicals. Potassium Perchlorate is used as a thyroid medication.

          • AmidFuror@fedia.io
            21·
            3 months ago

            It’s an anion. There are many different cations that could be paired with it.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 months ago

    Are they trying to link this contamination to rocket launches? Sounds like they’re just pulling stuff out of their ass and calling it gold.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com
    6·
    3 months ago

    detected in measurable levels

    That can be incredibly small qualities too. We have extremely sensitive equipment.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
    61·
    3 months ago

    Perchlorate is used in Solid rocket fuel, not liquid rocket fuel. Think Space Shuttle side boosters, not Space Shuttle main engines. So rocket companies like Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Firefly are all pure liquid rockets. Rockets that use solid rocket fuel (usually as strap on boosters) includ ULA’s Atlas V and Vulcan rocket, Northrop’s Pegasus and Minotaur, Arianespace Vega and Ariane 6, JAXA’s HII and HIII, India’s PSLV and GSLV, and China’s Long March 11.