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>>geox+(OP)
We really need to change the regulations around the introduction of new chemical compounds to our environment on a mass scale.

We keep encountering situations like this where a new chemical compound was introduced, becomes ubiquitous in our diets or environments and only later do we find out "Oops, it has serious health or environmental consequences."

It is worth the cost of slower introduction of new materials to take the time to ensure that those materials are safe. We're still paying the cost of introducing lead into our environment in a myriad of subtle ways. We still don't fully understand what the cost of the introduction of microplastics or PFAS is going to be. And regardless of the whether this particular study holds up under replication it is looking increasingly likely that aspartame is not something we should be consuming.

And what's most frustrating is that the people who profited most from these compounds never pay for the damage they cause to generations.

>>dbingh+55
Lead was introduced into the environment at least as early as the Roman Empire. It’s why we call plumbers plumbers.

How much slower would we have reasonably gone to avoid lead?

>>sokolo+fa
Excuse the nitpick, but the lead Romans used for plumbing was acquired from the environment. The Romans didn't introduce it to the environment, they just moved it from one part of the environment to another. This is different from chemicals which are created for the first time ever by the chemical industry.

Incidentally, the lead wasn't really being mined to make lead pipes. They mined galena for the tiny amount of silver it has and got tons of lead from that.

>>mcpack+Kd
That's a distinction without a difference. A chemical process is required to extract the pb from galena to make it usable for plumbing.