As I said, the quote is my own, from another video on the subject.

As for the toxicity of ammonia, here is a link to the Health Effects portion of the CDC's Toxicological Profile for Ammonia.

Lots to read, but basically it shows that, except in huge doses of concentrated ammonia, ammonia is readily converted by the liver into urea (hence the ammonia smell of urine). Ingesting ammonia in quantities that are harmful (though still not fatal) causes burns, and ulceration of the mouth. Obviously if there was that much in the food, there would be a problem.

The report points out, "In a study of volunteers, ingestion of a single ammonium chloride tablet (approximately 15 mg NH4+/kg/day) led to a small transient increase (33% above fasting levels) in arterial blood concentrations of ammonium ion in 11 out of 20 subjects (Conn 1972); no change was noted in the remaining nine subjects in this group.[...]These data indicate that ingested ammonia is readily absorbed from the digestive tract and that the liver plays a large role in removing it from the blood (Conn 1972).



Basically, the FDA allows the use of ammonia to sterilize food products because, 1. the quantities needed to harm a human would cause said humans not to eat the products and 2. being naturally occurring, and necessary for life (for the provision of nitrogen for amino acid synthesis), the ingestion of ammonia in these quantities has no long-term health effects.

I'm not trying to argue that eating that pink goo is good for you - but the obsession with the ammonia is the wrong approach to attacking it. Phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc. are also poisonous in the right quantities, and they are also all necessary for human life.

If there is any common thread to my rants here on the sift, it's that people attacking the wrong subject, regardless of their intentions, makes them look stupid and reduces their credibility to those of us who care to know the truth. I completely agree with Maher's point that the republicans just attack anything the liberals support, but when he makes that point using misleading/wrong information, he's just as bad as them.>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Skeeve:
While I don't disagree with Maher's point, I'm getting really sick of people screaming about the ammonia used to treat the pink goo that is turned into chicken nuggets. As I said regarding another video:
"ammonia is a natural chemical that is necessary for human life. The amount of ammonia one would have to ingest to be harmful to a human is huge, and actually ingesting that much would be unthinkable because of the horrendous taste it would impart to the food."

This is like seeing someone sprinkle some sodium-free salt on their food and saying, "OMG that's potassium chloride! That's the lethal chemical in a lethal injection! That's going to kill you!!"
People just don't seem to care that a lot of chemicals that are popularly considered "toxic" are necessary for life or require unfathomably large doses to be harmful.

Where the hell is that quote from and is there any truth to it is what needs to be asked. To me that sounds like something a PR person would say, like in that video about Global Warming where they made the point that "CO2 is natural".
You've got more to answer for Skeeve and if you don't I'm bidding you a hearty GOOD DAY To You Sir!

The problem is that people do get treated unnecessarily.

The real problem, though, is that doctors do not have a reliable way to determine which of these very small cancers that are caught by a biopsy are potentially dangerous and which will never bother a man in his lifetime. (Indeed, autopsy studies show that more than half of men in their 50s and three quarters of men in their 80s in the U.S. had prostate cancer but died of something else.)[...]Such ambiguity would not be so bad if the treatments were virtually risk free.[...] Surgery (open radial prostatectomy) often results in urinary leakage [...] damage to the nearby muscle that controls urination may lead to incontinence. [...] Meanwhile, the nerves and blood vessels controlling erections may be severed during surgery, causing erectile dysfunction (impotence).[...] Radiation therapy of the prostate often ends up damaging the rectum and bladder because it is hard to avoid radiation scatter[...] Moreover, rectal bleeding and fecal soiling are frequent but commonly unreported side effects of both radiation therapy (including radioactive seed implants) and surgical approaches.



People do get treated unnecessarily. And those treatments have side effects that can be far worse than living with the cancer. Only 4 percent of prostate cancers spread to the bones or organs. Medical organizations now advise that asymptomatic men should not have routine screening unless they have a strong family history of prostate cancer.>> ^alien_concept:

@Yogi Perhaps because it's the most common form of cancer here in the UK and so many men remain undiagnosed because they're too scared to have it done and he though, fuck it. I dunno. Because it was funny and he knew it would be? I don't really understand what's dangerous about it @Skeeve? I can guarantee you that here they wouldn't treat anyone unnecessarily here on the NHS

Hank Green talked about this recently - he was particularly interested in the fact there's no edge to the universe.

http://videosift.com/video/How-Big-is-the-Universe

While I don't disagree with Maher's point, I'm getting really sick of people screaming about the ammonia used to treat the pink goo that is turned into chicken nuggets. As I said regarding another video:

"ammonia is a natural chemical that is necessary for human life. The amount of ammonia one would have to ingest to be harmful to a human is huge, and actually ingesting that much would be unthinkable because of the horrendous taste it would impart to the food."


This is like seeing someone sprinkle some sodium-free salt on their food and saying, "OMG that's potassium chloride! That's the lethal chemical in a lethal injection! That's going to kill you!!"

People just don't seem to care that a lot of chemicals that are popularly considered "toxic" are necessary for life or require unfathomably large doses to be harmful.

A great article in Scientific American makes a pretty good case that you should avoid prostate exams in almost all cases. Ricky is both mean and dangerous to be associated with.

Most of the article is about the PSA blood test, but it provides some amazing general statistics: "to save one life from prostate cancer, about 1,400 men would have to be screened, leading 48 men to undergo treatment. So 47 men would be treated unnecessarily - many of whom would suffer fairly serious side effects - so that one man's death from prostate cancer could be prevented."

One of the best scenes from a great movie.

Nice of them to make it simple for kids... but we did not evolve from Chimpanzees. We share a common ancestor to Chimpanzees. Sloppy simplification can be worse than no simplification at all - especially when the "my grandma wasn't a monkey!" people get involved.

*isdupe

I think it needs to be made clear that these electric shocks are not "electroshock therapy" aka electroconvulsive therapy.

These are painful electric shocks administered as an aversive therapy. In other words, this center uses pain to cause an aversion to misbehaving and electric shocks are one form of the pain they use.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Alive-Inside-The-effect-of-music-on-an-old-mind

*isdupe

*isdupe

Looks like this one is probably a self-link/spam. *ban

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/I-dont-sell-crack

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Primary-Elections-Explained