[JohnMakin]

You have to scroll an absurdly long time to find it but this is the key sentence:

> Current chlormequat concentrations in urine from this study and others suggest that individual sample donors were exposed to chlormequat at levels several orders of magnitude below the reference dose (RfD) published by the U.S. EPA (0.05 mg/kg bw/day) and the acceptable daily intake (ADI) value published by the European Food Safety Authority (0.04 mg/kg bw/day).

The levels reported in this study are so negligible but it gets a lot more clicks on your study if you present this data as "chlormequat was detectable in X% of samples." Statistically significant but they don't mention the concentration at all in the abstract, which is just as an important finding.

[Mistletoe]

>Toxicological studies suggest that exposure to chlormequat can reduce fertility and harm the developing fetus at doses lower than those used by regulatory agencies to set allowable daily intake levels.

I think they are worried about this. Perhaps the levels are set too high?

[Qem]

Also there's hundreds of similarly synthetic substances, each not individually going over set limits, but perhaps the resulting cocktail causes "death by a thousand cuts".

[ericmcer]

It is scary. Our best recourse is just to "trust the science", but there are a ton of parties invested in keeping the status quo.

[tgv]

"Trust the science" doesn't mean much. In the 70s, studies showed that jeans caused cancer. And yogurt. Other, real carcinogenic compounds were not studied. It takes ages for the dust to settle down and have a decent consensus. In the mean time, it's best to be cautionary.

[causi]

Why would they say that without mentioning what levels those studies suggest are dangerous?