I wasn't able to beat the bot wall, but I assume story close to [1] The thing of it is I'm aware of something very much the same - heat related kidney damage - something when I got a casual job with construction back in 2005, within the first couple of weeks I was warned rather pointedly by another worker who'd spent most of his working life around concreting and construction, of the dangers of long hours spend slouched over working on the concrete slabs. He had known many who'd got very ill despite following good hydration protocols [2], and knew working in the heat out on the slab came with this real risk. I being a new chum was dressed in heavy full length clothing, he generally wore cooler clothing - light shorts and short sleeved shirt which wasn't protocol for the job.
[2] Most labouring job sites I've been at in the 00s at least always had a very prominent chart regarding urine colour and the dangers of dehydration, and heat stroke. As such most workers at various sites I've worked at being much more aware of urine colour regarding dehydration than most of the medical staff I encountered at the hospital my Mum died in.
Edit: Forgot to mention my locale is North Queensland Australia - it gets fairly hot though summers.
I’m in Texas and am around construction. The Mexican dudes can go all day with very little water. They tease my for my hydration and I’m not working half as hard as them. Then I see the urine they leave behind (usually left in drink bottles) and it makes my kidneys hurt.
Also if I don’t hydrate enough in this heat abd am really working then my kidneys literally hurt. It’s my reminder to stop and take a drink. I’ve been working outside a lot this summer and notice it’s much easier to get to that point when it’s over 105F. This summer has been a hot one even for Texas.
Anyways, there’s a cultural machismo amongst the Hispanic laborers that hydration is for putos. They do this with gloves too. I’ll offer gloves when handling materials and they always laugh and say no. Like their calluses hands are their resume. I have soft doctor like hands with no calluses so I do nothing without gloves.
Feels like they're just trying to Any% a bad rhabdo run.
I'm reminded of something someone'd said regarding PPE:
Who cares what a bunch of other construction dudes think about your hard hat anyway? Some people are just going to be stubborn about any change, no matter what it is. Your family doesn't give a shit what you look like at work. They give a shit that you come home in one piece. Your family would rather they didn't need to change your diapers and feed you with a spoon because some of your coworkers thought the new safety gear looked weird.
Take care of yourself. Wear PPE, do your job right, work smarter, not harder. Your body will thank you in the long run. And for the love of all that is holy, invest in some thermal PPE. You will be amazed how deleterious extreme heat (104+) is to your mental acuity. This is not anecdata, it is fact. Phase Change Materials are the latest I've heard of in the field, and most operations don't seem to spring for them for employees. Do yourself the courtesy of getting some and set up your own safety program. If your boss and coworkers laugh at you, screw em'. You'll pay off in the long run by catching things everyone else is too heat drunk to have noticed.
I tend to agree. It’s a personal safety thing that each person should do what’s best for them. Most guys are functionally their own boss anyway as most are sub contractors or seasonal help.
I’ve worked closely with hundreds of these guys for a span of about 25 years now. Have made some great friends but none long term. They travel or on the move and their phone numbers usually never last more than a few months or a year. Probably many of them are not here legally. But, having observed things like this almost from an anthropological standpoint, I often wonder what their lifespans are. When you work that hard and don’t manage simple things like hydration how long do they really have? My guess is it skews much less than median life expectancy.
I guess I'm surprised that it's not treated as a site safety thing, rather than personal safety. No PPE = no access to the site.
I know America, and especially Texas, tends to take a more libertarian attitude - but is there really no form of mandatory building site inspection there?
Depends on the job, project, scale, etc. Typically just follow OSHA type rules but also a lot don’t. I frequently see roofers running around on roofs with no fall protection as an example. These jobs are usually done by the time an inspector would drop by. We barely have enough inspectors to keep up with the required trade work inspections. But If there’s something like a hard hat requirement or high visibility vest is required then it’s typically monitored closely and can cause major issues. These tend to be large civil or commercial projects. I do single family residential so it’s generally not applicable and no random safety inspections occur. The random stuff we get is usually the city code compliance. In the context of Phase Change Materials, I’m not aware of anything close to a mandatory PPE requirement on something like that. I don’t think many people in the trades are even aware this exists, or don’t wan the extra weight or most likely the cost associated. Some of these guys barely invest in decent tools for the trade they specialize in.
Until it becomes mandatory I doubt anything would change. The machismo factor is such that anyone that can’t deal with the heat isn’t fit for the job. They’d probably get kicked off the crew quickly. I don’t employ anyone just strictly subcontract so it’s not in my interest to force them to exceed whatever their normal PPE requirements are.
"The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun"
Wow, that is the absolute bare minimum and they even remove that.
The really nasty bit is that taking the time to drink some water or apply sunscreen is considered a break and not just part of the bloody job. What's next? Standing up to stretch?
Do you live in Singapore, which this set of items perfectly describes? In Singapore, the state decides what media you are allowed to receive, to preserve the continuity of the state at your expense. In Singapore, you can be jailed for displaying certain flags.
The list you gave doesn’t refute my point in any way whatsoever.
How many paved roads and public hospitals does it take to offset a government depriving you of human rights to protect the state itself?
The Netherlands. I’m alive thanks to the policies of the government. I don’t mind investing time, money and effort in a well run society. A better society starts with you.
Your tax money is actively engaged in a war, so at least one of your claims is false. Also, many countries that aren’t well-run also have roads, so there goes another one.
No country started out as an island of prosperity. They got there through hard work, sensible decision making and yes a little luck.
When in the 16th century all of Europe got involved in religious wars a Dutch leader decided that religion was a personal choice.
This was not magic everyone could have come to this conclusion. But noone did.
Well what that 16 digit code might be I am unaware. I used to be able to unpick java based stuff to bypass walls but these days I really just don't try too hard, typically a site these days isn't a single site but uses other external services - I have many such services denied for scraping PII needlessly.
I could try a different browser - but in the time I wait for the site to decide if I'm not a bot, if I'm that invested, I've already done a quick search of topic heading and ...
> Well what that 16 digit code might be I am unaware.
They're probably talking about buying a subscription with a credit card, but I'm less certain where it lies on the shared-joke versus snide-insult spectrum.
Hmmm well that's more subscription orientated but if so the statement needed a bit of context like a little wink afterwards.
So I tried a newer chrome variant browser and it loaded ... and then tried the old firefox browser to recall if the bot protection was related to cloudflare and ... it opened without issue.
> Researchers had found signs of CKDu outside Central America, including in Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. But it had never been documented in the United States.
I searched a bit more and found this interesting bit from an article talking about a similar epidemic in Sri Lanka.
> An analysis showed that trace metal ions such as calcium and magnesium that naturally occur in the hard water reacted with glyphosate. This meant that, instead of breaking down rapidly, glyphosate was able to persist in the environment for up to seven years in water and twenty-two years in soil.
> This meant that, instead of breaking down rapidly, glyphosate was able to persist in the environment for up to seven years in water and twenty-two years in soil.
Bulllshiiiitttt. There are no reputable studies that show anything like this.
The tl;dr - even if there were reputable studies, what do the results mean or imply exactly?
There is a study [1] which was via information from the link from the parent comment. Interpretation of results though is the issue. From their method of study, to myself it's clear that storing heavy mineralised ground water in a used Glyphosate spray tank or product drum, is a not a very good idea given the results of the study. It is though a different story for the groundwater given that degradation in soil [2] [3] is measured in half lives and depends on many factors. As for detection - there may well be some complex of Glyphosate that has resisted breaking down a couple decades later, but one would expect the amount would probably be far less that the allowable or typical amount of Glyphosate found in food from crops that have been sprayed with it prior to harvest.
The other question is what breakdown complexes are they measuring for detecting Glyphosate. For years roundup was though to be still be at higher levels of use than it should have been after it was phased out in some European countries ... based on levels detected in rivers. [4] [5] and the preprint via [6] indicate that some detergents were to blame for the higher detection level.
And to add a bit more context: there's a whole Glyphosate Griefing industry now that invents bullshit claims.
Pretty much every time you see something like "glyphosate reacts with kidneys resulting in hard water staying around for 111 years in dry soil" - you can be sure that it's this.
Half life [1] in biological systems isn't quite the same as radioactive decay. Essentially what is being relayed is that after a couple of months generally they are, by measuring the product directly or the secondary and tertiary by products, deducing a time when only half of the active product is left.
Farming systems that use herbicides, are going to cycle though every few years of using Glyphosate, so there's little point IMO of creating a special study that looks into Glyphosate residues over more than a few years where they are monitoring the degree of fractional amount that could remain - there are too many variations of soil types, rainfall and temperature to be greatly useful. Any results of how long it might persist would more likely come from real life examples - areas where its use has been phased out, but the difficulty most (if not all) would not have an accurate starting point of just how much Glyphosate was applied in total, time period and weather conditions to extrapolate carefully.
Detection is different to a noteworthy amount of product that is bound to clay or other particles which has prohibited biological degradation. Many who conduct studies in complex systems are usually focused on just a small number of instances they feel might encompass most of the issue they believe to be at heart ... to the point of dismissing local / on the ground knowledge.
Yes the study used fish which can be useful ... however they tried to simulate using the raw product. It would have been better had they had some water from a month after a paddock was sprayed and used surface or underground flow. What it actually means, for example to those like myself who use it regularly, is there is certainly evidence we have to be doubly careful to ensure no or as little as possible over spray of waterways occurs which contain aquatic life.
A better study might be what results might be when groundwater that has a noteworthy amount, is then heated with bound Glyphosate and it's by products, to simulate cooking and boiling of the water.
>"Nothing to do with soil persistance."
Do you think that if soil was measured for a study it was watered only with distilled water? The purpose of mentioning was to suggest that there's an uncertainty as to what may have been measured.
> Half life [1] in biological systems isn't quite the same as radioactive decay.
It typically is shorter, as real systems are often hyper-exponential. And if you're talking about persistance in isolated clays, then it's by definition is not a bilogical system. A sealed glass vial is technically a type of clay, and glyphosate can survive in sealed vials for decades.
There's a thing about glyphosate: it's the safest pesticide. It's non-toxic to mammals, is not carcinogenic, non persistent, and is highly useful. And this somehow triggers all the cranks because it apparently MUST be hiding something.
And glyphosate has been _extensively_ studied by legitimate scientists.
So at this point, pretty much all articles about glyphosate's harm are pseudoscience and/or transparent grifting.
Clays form a good proportion in some soil profiles in some parts of the world and very much part of the biological system even if it isn't that apparent.
Glyphosate and the by products are certainly safer than many registered herbicides currently available to much of the western world.
The wetter in the formulation of the official Roundup has certainly changed - what I used in the 1990's a few drops of the diluted ready to spray mix accidentally making skin contact would give me a bad headache even if I noticed it right away and washed it off ... when I used the official brand again (for a time, mostly 00's) they priced Roundup out of my farming budget) in the late 10's I noted that I was able to easily wash off any splash back without resulting in a bad headache.
I have been long following the twists and turns that certain big companies, one of which used to own the patent on Glyphosate until 1999 when they let it expire, with a plan to simply create a very large plant in iirc South America which would chase off the competition that have sought to produce Glyphosate for export usage. Unfortunately they put the price up (3x retail here in Australia) due to oil prices costs during the 00's and then China stepped up. I also know they have in place $$$$ BS products to suit their new patented seed which is herbicide ready which when I look over application requirements, complete 100% leaf coverage to work properly implies it is no where near as easy to use as regular roundup.
To be clear I really value Glyphosate as a herbicide as for agriculture it saves fuel, equipment wear and time when used properly. Even so since many are pointing fingers, it is important not to just gloss over any problems that using it might cause, even though I am quite sure there are worse herbicides to be had coming into use having observed this in my immediate locale.
A disease which targets latinx? seems more likely its field workers, inadequate hydration and bad fluid hygene overall.
Could be culturally diet influenced as well.
My urologist after I had my first oxalate kidney stone said "you can drink a litre of water a day, or you can pay for my yacht upgrade. It's your choice" -but the main thing was to limit oxalate rich foods or take adequate citric acid alongside/soon after. Obv there are many kinds of kidney disease aside from stones, but the commonality here about 'use it or lose it' with heat, fluids, work strikes me.
Well there's cases of diets which came to prominence and caused issues,.from the obesity epidemic of modern west to the pellagra-riddled European countries consuming maize.
It is conceivable that social/natural changes might bring to dietary changes whose damage at scale is only visible on hindsight.
Hispanic laborers aren't eating at whole foods, there are markets and foods that cater to them. I definitely hit those up back in the day when doing pipefitting work, too.
buncha glyphosate in batches of corn and masa could absolutely hit that big and mess up kidneys that much
They do, but it does not take much for economic pressure to make one seemingly small change with wide ramifications e.g. a plant or two which are not economically viable, get substituted, and turn out to be critical, then leading to chronic deficiencies (iirc the British navy got scurvy back after they switched from lemons to cheaper limes, or maybe between two kinds of limes and one had significantly lower levels of vit c).
It could also be interactions between the cultural diets and new products historically unavailable to that culture, which are either improperly processed (maize caused a lot of pellagra in europe) or has problematic interactions with components of the cultural diet (I don’t have an example for that, but grapefruit is famous for its medical interactions so nutritional interactions don’t seem impossible).
I don’t think it should be the first thread of investigation but it certainly should not be dismissed out of hand if nothing else bears fruit. That is how you get scurvy.
FTA: “Fischer and her collaborators combed through the medical records of patients who had received emergency dialysis between 2012 and 2015 at any Harris Health hospital. Out of the 346 cases of kidney failure in uninsured or undocumented patients, 17 percent had no readily identifiable cause. That percentage was staggering to the researchers. It suggested that thousands of emergency-dialysis visits in Texas annually may be attributable to CKDu“
⇒ it seems (part of) the reason we suddenly started seeing this is that we recently started looking for it.
Yes, that occurred to me after I posted. Obviously they believe strongly there's some novel causes at play. Soil borne bacteria, fungi/mould, pesticide, genetics. They wouldn't publish otherwise. And, given climatic shifts we're already seening effects like zoolnotic disease movement so it could be parasite migration too. We've had odd pockets of diseases cropping up like malaria at European airports because of surviving mozzie infestations on inbound flights, and zika happened.
Much like public debates over climate change, discussions about the role of heat stress in CKDu can be contentious. Some close observers, such as Glaser, have argued that heat alone is sufficient to cause CKDu. His stance has been bolstered by the success of interventions that encourage sugarcane cutters to rest more often in the shade and stay hydrated. Such measures have slashed rates of kidney injury among workers. Yet other experts, including Fischer, aren’t convinced.
Fischer doesn’t doubt that heat is involved, only that it’s the sole cause. She cites findings from studies that were unable to conclusively rule out pesticides, heavy metals, and other environmental conditions as factors. And some of the highest rates of CKDu in Central America are among shrimp farmers, for whom heat stress is far less of an issue than it is for sugarcane cutters. She says high temperatures and dehydration likely amplify kidney damage from other contributors. “I think the role of heat is a complicating factor. It complicates whatever the disease pathology or physiology is,” she says. “I don’t think it’s a disease initiator.”
It does. This article is about Latino workers but there are well known hotspots for CKDu in Sri Lanka and India. There’s other reports of it in the rest of Asia, Middle East, and Africa but its not as well known of an issue and under reported.
It’s in loads of things. Peanuts, spinach, beans, chocolate, avocados, corn, soy… the list is endless. If someone is really sensitive, they can have problems with high oxalate foods. Some people seem to accumulate oxalates, meaning their problems compound, where others have no problem at all. Biology is weird.
It turns out that some foods counteract the formation of kidney stones. If you drink milk when you eat oxalates, the oxalates will not fuse into stones and will be excreted normally in your urine.
Oxalates are present in tea too, though not coffee, IIRC.
Spinach is very high per serving, but all sorts of foods can have high oxalates per serving. Sweet potato, Swiss chard, almonds, beets, chocolate. You'd have to consult the content per serving for all foods you consume if you're trying to avoid them.
> Latinx does not adhere to conventional grammatical gender rules in Spanish, is difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers, and is criticized as showing disrespect towards the Spanish language as a whole.[1] In Latin America, terms such as Latine and Latin@ have been used to indicate gender-neutrality
Did these people never have a blood test/urine test prior to this? Normal Kidney disease should show up on tests long before the stage of collapsing.
I'm not a doctor, but if its sudden onset, all in a similar socio-economic-cultutal group, i would assume there was some sort of toxin they were all exposed to, perhaps at work.
I assume that they do not have regular access to medical care, especially if they are immigrant workers.
Anecdotally, I have chronic kidney disease that would not have shown up on routine bloodwork / urinalysis. Only after multiple acute episodes did I get a biopsy for a diagnosis, and even that took a year of bouncing between specialists in a big city with good healthcare.
Bold of you to think undocumented workers making subsistence wages under a brutal system have access to annual physicals, much less the sort of continuously documented medical history needed to spot and address abnormalities before they become life-threatening emergencies.
It’s mentioned in the article it’s been documented in Central America for more than ten years in manual laborers but with few clues - possibly genetic predisposition combined with heat and physical exertion. It’s different types of manual labor so toxin exposure seems unlikely unless it turns out all of them got poisoned doing the same type of manual labor at one point and I would speculate they would have figured it out by now in Central America if it was toxin exposure.
Most of the roofers today in Texas are pretty damn young (16 - 30 tops). You don't really make it past that age because you're already worn out.
The crew (10 guys) that showed up to roof my house went through at least 5 cases of Gatorade, I have a fridge in the garage that I filled with drinks. I told them to help themselves after seeing them pull a hot bottle of water from one of the trucks. These guys didn't even have a cooler with cold water.
I suppose at some point water/hydration isn't good enough, they need salt and electrolytes to balance things out. They think wearing long pants and shirts acts as an insulator from the heat but in my opinion it's nuts, they need to cover up but, in the lightest possible clothing they can wear that breaths. The same goes for the landscapers who work outside all day.
It wouldn't surprise me if they are dying from the heat, it is merciless here in the summer. Even the birds fly away....
OSHA has a proposed heat injury prevention rule that would make 80F (heat index) and 90F (optionally 95F, heat index) as initial and high heat trigger temperatures.
With the initial heat temperature, workers would need to be provided water and a break area that's shaded or air conditioned (it can also have a fan but employers must evaluate that the fan is used at the appropriate temperature and humidity and not cooking or dehydrating people). Interestingly the CDC warns not to use fans above 90F, which is much lower than the ~102F limit OSHA suggests. [1][2][3]
With high heat temperature, 15 minute breaks in the cooling area are required every 2 hours along with some buddy system/monitoring requirements. [4]
The notice of proposed rulemaking has a wealth of interesting study citations for risks (including kidney health issues) and risk reduction but it's a lot to even skim through.
I think a systematic review they cited suggested "hats; loose fitting, light/brightly colored/reflective, breathable, clothing; ventilation patches in PPE" for optimal clothing. But I do wonder if optimal clothing might vary based on temperature and humidity.
As a Louisianian, I don't know how the roofers do it. Sometimes it's so hot and humid it's rough to breathe outside just standing doing nothing.
The best guesses are both chronic rather than single acute injuries. High heat, dehydration, hard work, exposure to nitrites and who knows what else.
It’s mysterious because the specific etiology is unclear and therefore hard to prevent, since telling field workers not to work in the heat will be ignored by all involved.
Interestingly drinking more water was associated with worse outcomes. I would hesitate to point to dehydration without evidence, as a harmful remedy is worse than doing nothing.
Moonshine consumption could probably be investigated further as it carries explanatory power.
I worked on a small organic farm and I can attest that glyphosate was sprayed irregardless of season, because technically an adjacent unused field isn't the same field being harvested. However I can also attest to strong winds that easily carry nebulized particles across fields. I also fondly remember being provided no PPE and breathing in clouds of that shit and getting it all over my skin frequently.
I wasn't able to beat the bot wall, but I assume story close to [1] The thing of it is I'm aware of something very much the same - heat related kidney damage - something when I got a casual job with construction back in 2005, within the first couple of weeks I was warned rather pointedly by another worker who'd spent most of his working life around concreting and construction, of the dangers of long hours spend slouched over working on the concrete slabs. He had known many who'd got very ill despite following good hydration protocols [2], and knew working in the heat out on the slab came with this real risk. I being a new chum was dressed in heavy full length clothing, he generally wore cooler clothing - light shorts and short sleeved shirt which wasn't protocol for the job.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davereddick_mysterious-kidney...
[2] Most labouring job sites I've been at in the 00s at least always had a very prominent chart regarding urine colour and the dangers of dehydration, and heat stroke. As such most workers at various sites I've worked at being much more aware of urine colour regarding dehydration than most of the medical staff I encountered at the hospital my Mum died in.
Edit: Forgot to mention my locale is North Queensland Australia - it gets fairly hot though summers.
I’m in Texas and am around construction. The Mexican dudes can go all day with very little water. They tease my for my hydration and I’m not working half as hard as them. Then I see the urine they leave behind (usually left in drink bottles) and it makes my kidneys hurt.
Also if I don’t hydrate enough in this heat abd am really working then my kidneys literally hurt. It’s my reminder to stop and take a drink. I’ve been working outside a lot this summer and notice it’s much easier to get to that point when it’s over 105F. This summer has been a hot one even for Texas.
Anyways, there’s a cultural machismo amongst the Hispanic laborers that hydration is for putos. They do this with gloves too. I’ll offer gloves when handling materials and they always laugh and say no. Like their calluses hands are their resume. I have soft doctor like hands with no calluses so I do nothing without gloves.
Feels like they're just trying to Any% a bad rhabdo run.
I'm reminded of something someone'd said regarding PPE:
Who cares what a bunch of other construction dudes think about your hard hat anyway? Some people are just going to be stubborn about any change, no matter what it is. Your family doesn't give a shit what you look like at work. They give a shit that you come home in one piece. Your family would rather they didn't need to change your diapers and feed you with a spoon because some of your coworkers thought the new safety gear looked weird.
Take care of yourself. Wear PPE, do your job right, work smarter, not harder. Your body will thank you in the long run. And for the love of all that is holy, invest in some thermal PPE. You will be amazed how deleterious extreme heat (104+) is to your mental acuity. This is not anecdata, it is fact. Phase Change Materials are the latest I've heard of in the field, and most operations don't seem to spring for them for employees. Do yourself the courtesy of getting some and set up your own safety program. If your boss and coworkers laugh at you, screw em'. You'll pay off in the long run by catching things everyone else is too heat drunk to have noticed.
https://www.mscdirect.com/knowledge-center/articles/cooling-...
Your bosses will never have as much of a stake in you as you do. Be your own advocate.
I tend to agree. It’s a personal safety thing that each person should do what’s best for them. Most guys are functionally their own boss anyway as most are sub contractors or seasonal help.
I’ve worked closely with hundreds of these guys for a span of about 25 years now. Have made some great friends but none long term. They travel or on the move and their phone numbers usually never last more than a few months or a year. Probably many of them are not here legally. But, having observed things like this almost from an anthropological standpoint, I often wonder what their lifespans are. When you work that hard and don’t manage simple things like hydration how long do they really have? My guess is it skews much less than median life expectancy.
I guess I'm surprised that it's not treated as a site safety thing, rather than personal safety. No PPE = no access to the site.
I know America, and especially Texas, tends to take a more libertarian attitude - but is there really no form of mandatory building site inspection there?
Depends on the job, project, scale, etc. Typically just follow OSHA type rules but also a lot don’t. I frequently see roofers running around on roofs with no fall protection as an example. These jobs are usually done by the time an inspector would drop by. We barely have enough inspectors to keep up with the required trade work inspections. But If there’s something like a hard hat requirement or high visibility vest is required then it’s typically monitored closely and can cause major issues. These tend to be large civil or commercial projects. I do single family residential so it’s generally not applicable and no random safety inspections occur. The random stuff we get is usually the city code compliance. In the context of Phase Change Materials, I’m not aware of anything close to a mandatory PPE requirement on something like that. I don’t think many people in the trades are even aware this exists, or don’t wan the extra weight or most likely the cost associated. Some of these guys barely invest in decent tools for the trade they specialize in.
Until it becomes mandatory I doubt anything would change. The machismo factor is such that anyone that can’t deal with the heat isn’t fit for the job. They’d probably get kicked off the crew quickly. I don’t employ anyone just strictly subcontract so it’s not in my interest to force them to exceed whatever their normal PPE requirements are.
[dead]
Can’t help that the state government is actively undermining local protections for workers dealing with heat dangers
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/texas-heat-wave-wate...
"The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun"
Wow, that is the absolute bare minimum and they even remove that.
The really nasty bit is that taking the time to drink some water or apply sunscreen is considered a break and not just part of the bloody job. What's next? Standing up to stretch?
The government in the US isn’t for the people.
The government in the US is for people (corporations).
> The government in the US isn’t for the people.
Sure it is, but only the really rich people...
No government in any place is for the people that aren’t the people that comprise the government.
They will, of course, all tell you otherwise.
I drove over a perfectly paved road today.
My wife went to a hospital that was run perfectly. No charge.
The food I ate today was safe.
There's almost no criminal activity here.
We do not have any active wars.
No criminal activity ?
Yeah, I have wandered mistakenly into the backstreets of Amsterdam and been approached by drug dealers.
And your experience in a back ally of a tourist place is representative for all people who pay taxes in The Netherlands because.....?
Do you live in Singapore, which this set of items perfectly describes? In Singapore, the state decides what media you are allowed to receive, to preserve the continuity of the state at your expense. In Singapore, you can be jailed for displaying certain flags.
The list you gave doesn’t refute my point in any way whatsoever.
How many paved roads and public hospitals does it take to offset a government depriving you of human rights to protect the state itself?
The Netherlands. I’m alive thanks to the policies of the government. I don’t mind investing time, money and effort in a well run society. A better society starts with you.
Your tax money is actively engaged in a war, so at least one of your claims is false. Also, many countries that aren’t well-run also have roads, so there goes another one.
https://www.government.nl/themes/international-cooperation/r...
It’s somewhat of a stretch to claim that the Dutch society is “well run”, but you know that already.
Travel more.
Switzerland? Singapore? Japan? Bhutan?
Islands of prosperity in general.
No country started out as an island of prosperity. They got there through hard work, sensible decision making and yes a little luck.
When in the 16th century all of Europe got involved in religious wars a Dutch leader decided that religion was a personal choice. This was not magic everyone could have come to this conclusion. But noone did.
except maybe Japan?
https://archive.ph/h66Jg
p_wall byp_ss link: https://archive.ph/h66Jg
I am not sure whether any recent restrictions against this site here.
[flagged]
> I wasn't able to beat the bot wall
Most people have access to at least one 16-digit code that will do the trick.
Well what that 16 digit code might be I am unaware. I used to be able to unpick java based stuff to bypass walls but these days I really just don't try too hard, typically a site these days isn't a single site but uses other external services - I have many such services denied for scraping PII needlessly.
I could try a different browser - but in the time I wait for the site to decide if I'm not a bot, if I'm that invested, I've already done a quick search of topic heading and ...
> Well what that 16 digit code might be I am unaware.
They're probably talking about buying a subscription with a credit card, but I'm less certain where it lies on the shared-joke versus snide-insult spectrum.
That said, not all are 16 digits. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Issuer_ide...
Hmmm well that's more subscription orientated but if so the statement needed a bit of context like a little wink afterwards.
So I tried a newer chrome variant browser and it loaded ... and then tried the old firefox browser to recall if the bot protection was related to cloudflare and ... it opened without issue.
I don’t have access to a 16-digit code, can you share?
> Researchers had found signs of CKDu outside Central America, including in Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. But it had never been documented in the United States.
I searched a bit more and found this interesting bit from an article talking about a similar epidemic in Sri Lanka.
> An analysis showed that trace metal ions such as calcium and magnesium that naturally occur in the hard water reacted with glyphosate. This meant that, instead of breaking down rapidly, glyphosate was able to persist in the environment for up to seven years in water and twenty-two years in soil.
https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/mysterious-kidney-...
We should be seeing it all over America in that case.
> This meant that, instead of breaking down rapidly, glyphosate was able to persist in the environment for up to seven years in water and twenty-two years in soil.
Bulllshiiiitttt. There are no reputable studies that show anything like this.
The tl;dr - even if there were reputable studies, what do the results mean or imply exactly?
There is a study [1] which was via information from the link from the parent comment. Interpretation of results though is the issue. From their method of study, to myself it's clear that storing heavy mineralised ground water in a used Glyphosate spray tank or product drum, is a not a very good idea given the results of the study. It is though a different story for the groundwater given that degradation in soil [2] [3] is measured in half lives and depends on many factors. As for detection - there may well be some complex of Glyphosate that has resisted breaking down a couple decades later, but one would expect the amount would probably be far less that the allowable or typical amount of Glyphosate found in food from crops that have been sprayed with it prior to harvest.
The other question is what breakdown complexes are they measuring for detecting Glyphosate. For years roundup was though to be still be at higher levels of use than it should have been after it was phased out in some European countries ... based on levels detected in rivers. [4] [5] and the preprint via [6] indicate that some detergents were to blame for the higher detection level.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41580968/
[2] https://pdf.benchchem.com/1263/Glyphosate_s_Fate_An_In_depth... [pdf]
[3] https://greenfieldesg.com/how-long-does-roundup-last-in-the-...
[4] https://phys.org/news/2024-07-glyphosate-european-rivers-far...
[5]https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/university/news-and-publications...
[6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378883530_Glyphosat... -> [Preprint] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3917957/v1
And to add a bit more context: there's a whole Glyphosate Griefing industry now that invents bullshit claims.
Pretty much every time you see something like "glyphosate reacts with kidneys resulting in hard water staying around for 111 years in dry soil" - you can be sure that it's this.
> The tl;dr - even if there were reputable studies, what do the results mean or imply exactly?
That it's bullshit. There are no reputable studies showing extended half-life of years.
> [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41580968/
In Zebrafish. Not even mice.
> [2] https://pdf.benchchem.com/1263/Glyphosate_s_Fate_An_In_depth... [pdf]
Half-life of weeks.
> [6] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378883530_Glyphosat... -> [Preprint] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-3917957/v1
Nothing to do with soil persistance.
Half life [1] in biological systems isn't quite the same as radioactive decay. Essentially what is being relayed is that after a couple of months generally they are, by measuring the product directly or the secondary and tertiary by products, deducing a time when only half of the active product is left.
Farming systems that use herbicides, are going to cycle though every few years of using Glyphosate, so there's little point IMO of creating a special study that looks into Glyphosate residues over more than a few years where they are monitoring the degree of fractional amount that could remain - there are too many variations of soil types, rainfall and temperature to be greatly useful. Any results of how long it might persist would more likely come from real life examples - areas where its use has been phased out, but the difficulty most (if not all) would not have an accurate starting point of just how much Glyphosate was applied in total, time period and weather conditions to extrapolate carefully.
Detection is different to a noteworthy amount of product that is bound to clay or other particles which has prohibited biological degradation. Many who conduct studies in complex systems are usually focused on just a small number of instances they feel might encompass most of the issue they believe to be at heart ... to the point of dismissing local / on the ground knowledge.
Yes the study used fish which can be useful ... however they tried to simulate using the raw product. It would have been better had they had some water from a month after a paddock was sprayed and used surface or underground flow. What it actually means, for example to those like myself who use it regularly, is there is certainly evidence we have to be doubly careful to ensure no or as little as possible over spray of waterways occurs which contain aquatic life.
A better study might be what results might be when groundwater that has a noteworthy amount, is then heated with bound Glyphosate and it's by products, to simulate cooking and boiling of the water.
>"Nothing to do with soil persistance."
Do you think that if soil was measured for a study it was watered only with distilled water? The purpose of mentioning was to suggest that there's an uncertainty as to what may have been measured.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life
Edit: as not was
> Half life [1] in biological systems isn't quite the same as radioactive decay.
It typically is shorter, as real systems are often hyper-exponential. And if you're talking about persistance in isolated clays, then it's by definition is not a bilogical system. A sealed glass vial is technically a type of clay, and glyphosate can survive in sealed vials for decades.
There's a thing about glyphosate: it's the safest pesticide. It's non-toxic to mammals, is not carcinogenic, non persistent, and is highly useful. And this somehow triggers all the cranks because it apparently MUST be hiding something.
And glyphosate has been _extensively_ studied by legitimate scientists.
So at this point, pretty much all articles about glyphosate's harm are pseudoscience and/or transparent grifting.
Clays form a good proportion in some soil profiles in some parts of the world and very much part of the biological system even if it isn't that apparent.
Glyphosate and the by products are certainly safer than many registered herbicides currently available to much of the western world.
The wetter in the formulation of the official Roundup has certainly changed - what I used in the 1990's a few drops of the diluted ready to spray mix accidentally making skin contact would give me a bad headache even if I noticed it right away and washed it off ... when I used the official brand again (for a time, mostly 00's) they priced Roundup out of my farming budget) in the late 10's I noted that I was able to easily wash off any splash back without resulting in a bad headache.
I have been long following the twists and turns that certain big companies, one of which used to own the patent on Glyphosate until 1999 when they let it expire, with a plan to simply create a very large plant in iirc South America which would chase off the competition that have sought to produce Glyphosate for export usage. Unfortunately they put the price up (3x retail here in Australia) due to oil prices costs during the 00's and then China stepped up. I also know they have in place $$$$ BS products to suit their new patented seed which is herbicide ready which when I look over application requirements, complete 100% leaf coverage to work properly implies it is no where near as easy to use as regular roundup.
To be clear I really value Glyphosate as a herbicide as for agriculture it saves fuel, equipment wear and time when used properly. Even so since many are pointing fingers, it is important not to just gloss over any problems that using it might cause, even though I am quite sure there are worse herbicides to be had coming into use having observed this in my immediate locale.
A disease which targets latinx? seems more likely its field workers, inadequate hydration and bad fluid hygene overall.
Could be culturally diet influenced as well.
My urologist after I had my first oxalate kidney stone said "you can drink a litre of water a day, or you can pay for my yacht upgrade. It's your choice" -but the main thing was to limit oxalate rich foods or take adequate citric acid alongside/soon after. Obv there are many kinds of kidney disease aside from stones, but the commonality here about 'use it or lose it' with heat, fluids, work strikes me.
I appreciate the attempt to be gender neutral, but it turns out that Latinos themselves generally do not prefer the term Latinx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx
I think you’re being generous because I find this behavior quite disrespectful. Presumably they did so to signal and then talk about themselves.
Hard to imagine a diet of cultural significance that would put people into lifelong dialysis, at an epidemic scale.
Well there's cases of diets which came to prominence and caused issues,.from the obesity epidemic of modern west to the pellagra-riddled European countries consuming maize.
It is conceivable that social/natural changes might bring to dietary changes whose damage at scale is only visible on hindsight.
Hispanic laborers aren't eating at whole foods, there are markets and foods that cater to them. I definitely hit those up back in the day when doing pipefitting work, too.
buncha glyphosate in batches of corn and masa could absolutely hit that big and mess up kidneys that much
A diet that makes a particular infection easier to take root is very imaginable.
sure, but not if we are just suddenly seeing it now. Most cultural based diets have a long history.
They do, but it does not take much for economic pressure to make one seemingly small change with wide ramifications e.g. a plant or two which are not economically viable, get substituted, and turn out to be critical, then leading to chronic deficiencies (iirc the British navy got scurvy back after they switched from lemons to cheaper limes, or maybe between two kinds of limes and one had significantly lower levels of vit c).
It could also be interactions between the cultural diets and new products historically unavailable to that culture, which are either improperly processed (maize caused a lot of pellagra in europe) or has problematic interactions with components of the cultural diet (I don’t have an example for that, but grapefruit is famous for its medical interactions so nutritional interactions don’t seem impossible).
I don’t think it should be the first thread of investigation but it certainly should not be dismissed out of hand if nothing else bears fruit. That is how you get scurvy.
> but not if we are just suddenly seeing it now
FTA: “Fischer and her collaborators combed through the medical records of patients who had received emergency dialysis between 2012 and 2015 at any Harris Health hospital. Out of the 346 cases of kidney failure in uninsured or undocumented patients, 17 percent had no readily identifiable cause. That percentage was staggering to the researchers. It suggested that thousands of emergency-dialysis visits in Texas annually may be attributable to CKDu“
⇒ it seems (part of) the reason we suddenly started seeing this is that we recently started looking for it.
I feel like this is the medical equivalent of saying "I can't believe these guys didn't try turning it off and on again".
Like, "maybe the people whose job is to consider the cause and spread of disease never considered diet and hydration!"
Yes, that occurred to me after I posted. Obviously they believe strongly there's some novel causes at play. Soil borne bacteria, fungi/mould, pesticide, genetics. They wouldn't publish otherwise. And, given climatic shifts we're already seening effects like zoolnotic disease movement so it could be parasite migration too. We've had odd pockets of diseases cropping up like malaria at European airports because of surviving mozzie infestations on inbound flights, and zika happened.
In my defence this from TFA:
Much like public debates over climate change, discussions about the role of heat stress in CKDu can be contentious. Some close observers, such as Glaser, have argued that heat alone is sufficient to cause CKDu. His stance has been bolstered by the success of interventions that encourage sugarcane cutters to rest more often in the shade and stay hydrated. Such measures have slashed rates of kidney injury among workers. Yet other experts, including Fischer, aren’t convinced.
Fischer doesn’t doubt that heat is involved, only that it’s the sole cause. She cites findings from studies that were unable to conclusively rule out pesticides, heavy metals, and other environmental conditions as factors. And some of the highest rates of CKDu in Central America are among shrimp farmers, for whom heat stress is far less of an issue than it is for sugarcane cutters. She says high temperatures and dehydration likely amplify kidney damage from other contributors. “I think the role of heat is a complicating factor. It complicates whatever the disease pathology or physiology is,” she says. “I don’t think it’s a disease initiator.”
For your explanation to be correct, you'd have to explain why this doesn't affect field workers of other genetic background all around the world.
It does. This article is about Latino workers but there are well known hotspots for CKDu in Sri Lanka and India. There’s other reports of it in the rest of Asia, Middle East, and Africa but its not as well known of an issue and under reported.
What's the popular food that contains lots of oxalates? I don't see anyone binging on sorrel or star fruit or parsley.
It’s in loads of things. Peanuts, spinach, beans, chocolate, avocados, corn, soy… the list is endless. If someone is really sensitive, they can have problems with high oxalate foods. Some people seem to accumulate oxalates, meaning their problems compound, where others have no problem at all. Biology is weird.
It turns out that some foods counteract the formation of kidney stones. If you drink milk when you eat oxalates, the oxalates will not fuse into stones and will be excreted normally in your urine.
Oxalates are present in tea too, though not coffee, IIRC.
Spinach. Many nuts, e.g. almonds. Many beans (including cocoa but excluding coffee). Well, potatoes!
Spinach. Maybe other leafy vegetables.
Spinach is very high per serving, but all sorts of foods can have high oxalates per serving. Sweet potato, Swiss chard, almonds, beets, chocolate. You'd have to consult the content per serving for all foods you consume if you're trying to avoid them.
Spinach and almonds.
I'm frequenting clinics
'Cos I eats my spinach,
I've kidney the failure, man
Please do not refer to us as "latinx". That's disgusting.
>latinx
Is the LatinX the new release after the Latin8?
It's white people virtue signaling and forcing ungendered words into a gendered language, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx
> Latinx does not adhere to conventional grammatical gender rules in Spanish, is difficult to pronounce for Spanish speakers, and is criticized as showing disrespect towards the Spanish language as a whole.[1] In Latin America, terms such as Latine and Latin@ have been used to indicate gender-neutrality
> A disease which targets latinx? seems more likely its field workers, inadequate hydration and bad fluid hygene overall.
"has arrived"
Did working condition worsen over time? if yes, then maybe
If not, then COVID proved that we are past the idea of a theoretical biowar, it is already happening
> Did working condition worsen over time? if yes, then maybe
I've read in this thread that Texas removed provisions for a mandatory hydration/sunscreen break after 4 hours of work.
"His bosses severely limited water breaks, even on the hottest days. He didn’t complain. He simply lived with constant fatigue."
How stupid can you be, forcing your employees to work while tired? Give them a break to drink water, they'll have more energy and get more stuff done.
Maybe someone needs to buy these businesses and run them in a more efficient and humane way.
Did these people never have a blood test/urine test prior to this? Normal Kidney disease should show up on tests long before the stage of collapsing.
I'm not a doctor, but if its sudden onset, all in a similar socio-economic-cultutal group, i would assume there was some sort of toxin they were all exposed to, perhaps at work.
I assume that they do not have regular access to medical care, especially if they are immigrant workers.
Anecdotally, I have chronic kidney disease that would not have shown up on routine bloodwork / urinalysis. Only after multiple acute episodes did I get a biopsy for a diagnosis, and even that took a year of bouncing between specialists in a big city with good healthcare.
I get doing a blood panel once a year or so if you are not scraping by but never heard of doing a urine test without indication.
A routine urinalysis has always been part of my normal annual physicals.
Bold of you to think undocumented workers making subsistence wages under a brutal system have access to annual physicals, much less the sort of continuously documented medical history needed to spot and address abnormalities before they become life-threatening emergencies.
It’s mentioned in the article it’s been documented in Central America for more than ten years in manual laborers but with few clues - possibly genetic predisposition combined with heat and physical exertion. It’s different types of manual labor so toxin exposure seems unlikely unless it turns out all of them got poisoned doing the same type of manual labor at one point and I would speculate they would have figured it out by now in Central America if it was toxin exposure.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/26/7538343...
Most of the roofers today in Texas are pretty damn young (16 - 30 tops). You don't really make it past that age because you're already worn out.
The crew (10 guys) that showed up to roof my house went through at least 5 cases of Gatorade, I have a fridge in the garage that I filled with drinks. I told them to help themselves after seeing them pull a hot bottle of water from one of the trucks. These guys didn't even have a cooler with cold water.
I suppose at some point water/hydration isn't good enough, they need salt and electrolytes to balance things out. They think wearing long pants and shirts acts as an insulator from the heat but in my opinion it's nuts, they need to cover up but, in the lightest possible clothing they can wear that breaths. The same goes for the landscapers who work outside all day. It wouldn't surprise me if they are dying from the heat, it is merciless here in the summer. Even the birds fly away....
OSHA has a proposed heat injury prevention rule that would make 80F (heat index) and 90F (optionally 95F, heat index) as initial and high heat trigger temperatures.
With the initial heat temperature, workers would need to be provided water and a break area that's shaded or air conditioned (it can also have a fan but employers must evaluate that the fan is used at the appropriate temperature and humidity and not cooking or dehydrating people). Interestingly the CDC warns not to use fans above 90F, which is much lower than the ~102F limit OSHA suggests. [1][2][3]
With high heat temperature, 15 minute breaks in the cooling area are required every 2 hours along with some buddy system/monitoring requirements. [4]
The notice of proposed rulemaking has a wealth of interesting study citations for risks (including kidney health issues) and risk reduction but it's a lot to even skim through.
I think a systematic review they cited suggested "hats; loose fitting, light/brightly colored/reflective, breathable, clothing; ventilation patches in PPE" for optimal clothing. But I do wonder if optimal clothing might vary based on temperature and humidity.
As a Louisianian, I don't know how the roofers do it. Sometimes it's so hot and humid it's rough to breathe outside just standing doing nothing.
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-14824/p-2907
[2] https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-14824/p-596
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/heat-health/about/index.html
[4] https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-14824/p-2932
[dead]
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11093537/
The best guesses are both chronic rather than single acute injuries. High heat, dehydration, hard work, exposure to nitrites and who knows what else.
It’s mysterious because the specific etiology is unclear and therefore hard to prevent, since telling field workers not to work in the heat will be ignored by all involved.
Check the references. They’re weak, almost ouroboric.
I found this: (2010) Positive association of renal insufficiency with agriculture employment and unregulated alcohol consumption in Nicaragua
https://doi.org/10.3109/0886022X.2010.494333
Essentially moonshine consumption.
Interestingly drinking more water was associated with worse outcomes. I would hesitate to point to dehydration without evidence, as a harmful remedy is worse than doing nothing.
Moonshine consumption could probably be investigated further as it carries explanatory power.
are these the same workers who pluck vegetables while they're being sprayed with pesticides and herbicides?
I hope not, as every pesticide spray I know cannot be used near harvest time.
I worked on a small organic farm and I can attest that glyphosate was sprayed irregardless of season, because technically an adjacent unused field isn't the same field being harvested. However I can also attest to strong winds that easily carry nebulized particles across fields. I also fondly remember being provided no PPE and breathing in clouds of that shit and getting it all over my skin frequently.
That seems... unpleasant, and a good poit to make.
I wonder if this is what regulations were for?
Don’t worry, raw milk will save the day
*they said crying
What are you even talking about?
Just the lack of regulation becoming an issue