3M has long known it was contaminating the US food supply:
https://qz.com/1643554/3m-knew-pfas-was-contaminating-us-food-supply/?utm_source=YPL&yptr=yahoo
Such a depressing story about how corporations think.
And Dupont took production of the chemicals in China, even as production was phased out in US in 2015:
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/15/the-teflon-toxin-goes-to-china/
Is it news that corporations can’t and don’t police themselves? Or that they outsource to countries with less strict environmental regulations so they can continue with processes that pollute with less oversight and lower costs because they aren’t held to strict cleanup standards? I don’t think either of these is even a little surprising after 30 years of working for various large corporations and paying attention to the news. ?
Infuriating but not surprising:(
I highly encourage posters to watch the documentary The Devil We Know. It’s available on Netflix and is around 88 minutes long. Well crafted and eyeopening. It’s something everybody should watch. PFAS are horrible. Plenty of production still going on in the US as well.
At least 96% of humans on this planet have PFAS in their bodies. Babies are being born with PFAS contamination.
@doschicos , I got through about 15 minutes of the documentary, and had to stop watching. So sad… and infuriating. But something that has happened countless times in some form or fashion.
Hard to form a response without violating ToS for political discussion.
And what about our water supply? Apparently contamination from these chemicals is high near Air Force bases because they are in flame retardants. Are we poisoning our military members and families? The Pentagon was supposed to issue a report on the water findings but they suppressed it.
I read this a few years ago - this lawyer had a family connection to a certain part of West Virginia and so he took on a case pro bono, and his big corporate firm didn’t try to stop him, and it was quite revealing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html
I grew up near 3M and suspect they may be the source of my 2 cancers. Both of my sisters have also had cancer. I had genetic testing and they don’t see any links there. From Minnesota Public Radio:
I wouldn’t be able to watch. It would distress me so.
I have a kid who works on The Hill & she will never be the same after sitting in on a series of hearings about environmental contaminants.
“@doschicos , I got through about 15 minutes of the documentary, and had to stop watching. So sad… and infuriating.”
“I wouldn’t be able to watch. It would distress me so.”
But you should watch, all of it. It’s depressing, anger inducing but informative, eyeopening. People need to really understand what is happening here - to all of us not just people in certain communities. An informed populace is needed.
Yes, it is in our water - and our soil, the air we breathe, and, hence, our bodies. It has no half life and referred to as “forever chemicals”.
Don’t assume moving teflon to China protects us. They’ve replaced it here in the USA with similar chemicals that are being produced in American communities.
Plastic particles are everywhere. Even in the air at the top of the Alps.
PFAS are in many, many brands of dental floss and tons of products Americans use.
@greenwitch three of the four military bases we have lived on so far have had contaminated water. I was told by a doctor that the water on one base was likely the reason for some of D20s health issues. Of course we found out six years later when they released reports. The base where we currently live has water that is over the legal limit of a number of contaminants but they send the reports out with a note to keep on drinking it anyway, that it will be fine. We no longer listen to them, but I’m sure there will be mea culpas in the future.
All of these stories are horrible, yet all too familiar.
We live in such a sea of chemical toxins that corporations hide behind the uncertainty that their toxin is the one that produces harm. Chemicals aren’t like asbestos, which can be found stuck in lung tissue.
Third world countries don’t have many of the diseases that we do, so the answer is right before our eyes. But few people are willing to vote for the gumption to tackle these issues.
“But few people are willing to vote for the gumption to tackle these issues.”
Most Americans are truly unaware of the risks and have their heads in the sand. Each one of us should talk to our friends and families, educate them, have them watch that documentary.
People think this happens to other people when it is happening to them and they don’t realize it, or realize the severity of it. People are also told that it is just water to worry about but it’s not.
In my state, their are communities that have it in their well water, in their municipal water. Companies producing this stuff fight it in court while continuing to pump pollutants out of their stacks. It’s cheaper to through lawyers at it while they continue to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.
What we surely don’t need is less regulation and more power in the hands of corporations.
They don’t?
"The agency explained that these chemicals that have been widely used in nonstick cookware, contact paper, food packaging, cleaning products, and other industrial products have leached into our food and water supply, as well as contaminated our livestock and the sewage sludge used for fertilization. This is a serious problem as these “forever chemicals” are linked to liver damage, certain types of cancers, thyroid disease, infertility, high cholesterol, obesity and several other health conditions.
The FDA found extremely high levels of these toxic chemicals in various meats, seafoods and chocolate cake from grocery stores across the country. PFAS were also found in lesser amounts in several types of produce at farmers’ markets—including leafy greens, sweet potatoes and pineapples. "
https://www.realsimple.com/syndication/fda-non-stick-pans-toxic-contamination
According to one of the links:
@scholarmin , this is particularly true for autoimmune disease, which is increasing tremendously here, but almost non-existent in developing countries.
“migration studies have shown that offspring of immigrants coming from a country with a low incidence acquire the same incidence as the host country”
Still plenty of PFAS production going on here in the USA.