If you want more context on PFAS, I recommend this Veritasium video [0]. It expanded on my usual thought of "PFAS = bad," explaining why non-stick cookware is probably fine while other forms of PFAS are problematic. The video also covers the environmental damage caused by PFAS manufacturing.
The extremely toxic PFOA and PFOS are byproducts of manufacturing Teflon. After decades, we have managed to just barely regulate it. We don't know if these newer compounds will ultimately have similar effects. DuPont had reason to believe these original compounds were harmful, but they suppressed that fact in favor of profit. "Probably fine" is not acceptable, considering we can't meaningfully clean the stuff up.
It's not like this is going unnoticed either, though.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) now bans fluorinated wax in all their competitions, and this wax is explicitly called out alongside cookware in much of the legislation that's going around in places like CA/CO for PFAS bans.
You forgot rain. Maybe one day people will remember we're just sharing one small planet, the air, the water, the food supplies, ... all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food or water eventually
I don't think most people understand that the damage from PFAS is generational and cumulative. You can isolate zebrafish, expose the first generation, and you'll see abnormalities generations later even those those fish were never exposed. That is their legacy - it's civilization-level harm.
I've been struggling to understand why people care more about Gaza, Ukraine, BLM, or trans bathrooms than issues like PFAS proliferation and ultimately came to the conclusion that people really just don't care about hypothetical future generations as much as the present. You can point and say "look, this action doesn't affect you much and just makes a 0.01% difference, but it will effect 100,000 future generations of life on this planet and can never be reversed" and people will still say "wow that's sad, but there are people starving in Country A" and be much more concerned.
A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.
Short term changes in Gaza/Ukraine/PFAS proliferation will all have very little effect on the current daily lives of most Americans.
But those same short terms changes in all of the above will have massive changes in the future of most Americans.
E.g., if public pressure had prevented the U.S. from invading Iraq on March 20th, 2003, not much would have changed for Americans on March 21st, 2003. But by the end of the war, that would be over $1 trillion that would have been spent differently by the U.S. government. You apparently like statistical estimates-- tell me how much of that $1 trillion you estimate would have gone to research grants for PFAS proliferation risks and/or alternative technologies over a 20-year period.
And that's just the opportunity cost. With Gaza and Ukraine there is further escalation of weapons use and drone tech, damage to the Chernobyl sarcophagus, potential use of tactical nukes, endless appetite for incorporating AI into war and mass surveillance... the list goes on and on.
It just cannot be overstated how wrong it is to blithely assume that focus on current events is somehow short term thinking while armchair quarterbacking PFAS proliferation 100,000 generations into the future is somehow more consequential and erudite.
If we’re taking about hypothetical effects on hypothetical generations of life that can never be reversed, anything you can worry about probably meets that threshold and so picking any given thing is arbitrary. Gaza and the Ukraine conflicts are the results of choices made by the generation before, which are in turn the result of choices made by the generation before that, which in turn are… and so on. Consider Gaza on its own. You could probably trace a pretty clear line from this conflict back to decisions made in the earliest records we have of Judaism. How many generations and people has that impacted? How many of these chemicals you’re specifically worried about are the consequences of actions taken in this and the prior conflicts? The total global impact of the decision of one Jewish sect to crucify the leader of another sect is probably conceivably larger than anything PFAS have done or even will do for quite a long while considering we’re still dealing with the consequences of that decision even now.
People do care about climate change and lots of other long term things.
People care about things that there are campaigns about, that get media coverage. They also avoid thinking about things that they think cannot be changed. These are correlated: if there is a campaign to change something people think it cannot be changed.
Well, people do care about PFAS, global warming, environmental degradation...it's just htey've decided the solution is _depopulation_. They're fighting over the very carrying capacity of an earth that no ones going to fix.
So, like, you realy think israel, russia, america, china, india are all flirting heavily with fascism because of their religion, nationalism, isolationism? Or is it more likely they're trying to isolate themselves from humanity to reduce the overall social costs.
Biollionaires out there building their bunkers, and here we are...
It's disheartening if you do care about long-term issues, but perhaps these are all long-term issues.
In a way, I think people tend to fight for causes they are exposed to and think their voices are on the right side of History. I'm appalled that Belgians are out protesting for Gaza (which is also important) but don't care one iota for what 3M did to half the ground water of the country — and how Belgian politicians and the EPP looked the other way. We're being slowly poisoned over here, but it's the war over there, you have nothing to do with, that matters the most. Right.
We are facing the dismantling of social protections, climate change, corrupt governments, and so on, perhaps people pick the one issue that feels remote enough yet meaningful to fight for.
But someone has to care about Gaza as well, I suppose. It would be far more useful to their lives if people fought for local causes.
I would encourage every single person reading this to have your water tested for PFAs.
Several years ago now an executive friend at WLGore, yes the very place that created it, gave me some information in passing. It was the kind of information in hearing from one someone you know that makes one pause for a moment in hearing it but then when one considers time against the statement it became less alarming in that moment. Now years of time have passed since that conversation occurred and the statements have manifested into reality.
I live literally down stream from WLGore and they have been dumping the toxins in the waterway for decades. Our local jurisdictions have been talking on PFAs for a few years now and in January of this year my time was up on my friends statement made years prior. I spent months doing research and in April I had our water tested. The EPA recommends 4 part per trillion is "safe" but in reality my conversation with medical professionals state NO amount of consumption is safe. My water test came back at 70 parts per trillion and I immediately purchased the special filtering needed to remove PFAs and installed it on our existing water filtering within days. I have also bought a whole house PFA filter that I intend to install in the coming weeks yet our water we drink, cook, and make ice with has been clean for months now as the post drinking system PFA filter test reflected <1 part per trillion.
No matter your wealth no one can purchase time, the only way to obtain more time is with your health.
Test your water because what you cannot see matters most!
The only way to escape PFAS is to go to a different planet. 3M and Dow have poisoned the entire world. It's shocking how much effort and money I have had to invest to try to mitigate this problem as much as possible in my own home, not because the alternatives are expensive, but because of how pervasive PFAS use is and how it contaminates everything. Every single decision-maker involved should have been jailed.
There's the PFAS blood cleaning startup but is unvalidated and also we'll all just get more replacement exposure from routine activities of living soooo imo almost feels futile regardless: https://www.wired.com/story/this-startup-promises-to-clean-y...
> What have you done in your own home? I’d be curious to know.
I've gotten rid of anything in my kitchen that I can that contains PFAS or is produced with PFAS or PFOAs. I use cast iron or stainless steel cookware, glass and silicone only for things that cannot be made of stainless steel. I've more or less eliminated plastics as much as possible from the kitchen. Unfortunately, I can't necessarily do that with food packaging, but even there when I have an option I will change brands or stores to buy things without plastic packaging, or paper packaging coated in PFAS/Teflon. Similarly to avoid PFAS and other chemicals in the production of plastics, as well as microplastics, I almost exclusively buy clothing made entirely from natural fibers.
Beyond that, I have a whole home water filtration system, and after that whole home filtration system I additionally run an undersink 5-stage RO system, both of which are NSF/ANSI certified (53 for the filter system and 58 for the RO system) to remove PFAS and PFOAs. I also go out of my way to find and buy products that don't contain added PFAS, because unfortunately PFAS are in many basic everyday household products like dishwasher detergent, rinse aid, laundry detergent, fabric softener,
and the like. If you dig into this you will be disturbed at how many things have PFAS intentionally added to them, and then you will be even more disturbed to find out how many things contain PFAS incidentally, mostly due to contaminated water supplies.
Even with all of this effort, and more I'm not detailing in this comment, I am exposed to PFAS in the food supply and water supply daily, and in a myriad of other ways. It's impossible to avoid, even with a major budget and being extremely conscious of this issue. There is no way to get away from it. The entire world is contaminated. I don't even know how much my mitigations have any helpful effect towards my health, because it's so difficult to mitigate.
Readit News
[0]: https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_related_to_...
it's in the snow, ground, and water-supply
forever
The International Ski Federation (FIS) now bans fluorinated wax in all their competitions, and this wax is explicitly called out alongside cookware in much of the legislation that's going around in places like CA/CO for PFAS bans.
Dead Comment
I guess it's us that are the weird ones.
- Dale Carnegie
Short term changes in Gaza/Ukraine/PFAS proliferation will all have very little effect on the current daily lives of most Americans.
But those same short terms changes in all of the above will have massive changes in the future of most Americans.
E.g., if public pressure had prevented the U.S. from invading Iraq on March 20th, 2003, not much would have changed for Americans on March 21st, 2003. But by the end of the war, that would be over $1 trillion that would have been spent differently by the U.S. government. You apparently like statistical estimates-- tell me how much of that $1 trillion you estimate would have gone to research grants for PFAS proliferation risks and/or alternative technologies over a 20-year period.
And that's just the opportunity cost. With Gaza and Ukraine there is further escalation of weapons use and drone tech, damage to the Chernobyl sarcophagus, potential use of tactical nukes, endless appetite for incorporating AI into war and mass surveillance... the list goes on and on.
It just cannot be overstated how wrong it is to blithely assume that focus on current events is somehow short term thinking while armchair quarterbacking PFAS proliferation 100,000 generations into the future is somehow more consequential and erudite.
Edit: change "stated" to "overstated" (hehe)
People care about things that there are campaigns about, that get media coverage. They also avoid thinking about things that they think cannot be changed. These are correlated: if there is a campaign to change something people think it cannot be changed.
So, like, you realy think israel, russia, america, china, india are all flirting heavily with fascism because of their religion, nationalism, isolationism? Or is it more likely they're trying to isolate themselves from humanity to reduce the overall social costs.
Biollionaires out there building their bunkers, and here we are...
In a way, I think people tend to fight for causes they are exposed to and think their voices are on the right side of History. I'm appalled that Belgians are out protesting for Gaza (which is also important) but don't care one iota for what 3M did to half the ground water of the country — and how Belgian politicians and the EPP looked the other way. We're being slowly poisoned over here, but it's the war over there, you have nothing to do with, that matters the most. Right.
We are facing the dismantling of social protections, climate change, corrupt governments, and so on, perhaps people pick the one issue that feels remote enough yet meaningful to fight for.
But someone has to care about Gaza as well, I suppose. It would be far more useful to their lives if people fought for local causes.
Several years ago now an executive friend at WLGore, yes the very place that created it, gave me some information in passing. It was the kind of information in hearing from one someone you know that makes one pause for a moment in hearing it but then when one considers time against the statement it became less alarming in that moment. Now years of time have passed since that conversation occurred and the statements have manifested into reality.
I live literally down stream from WLGore and they have been dumping the toxins in the waterway for decades. Our local jurisdictions have been talking on PFAs for a few years now and in January of this year my time was up on my friends statement made years prior. I spent months doing research and in April I had our water tested. The EPA recommends 4 part per trillion is "safe" but in reality my conversation with medical professionals state NO amount of consumption is safe. My water test came back at 70 parts per trillion and I immediately purchased the special filtering needed to remove PFAs and installed it on our existing water filtering within days. I have also bought a whole house PFA filter that I intend to install in the coming weeks yet our water we drink, cook, and make ice with has been clean for months now as the post drinking system PFA filter test reflected <1 part per trillion.
No matter your wealth no one can purchase time, the only way to obtain more time is with your health.
Test your water because what you cannot see matters most!
I've gotten rid of anything in my kitchen that I can that contains PFAS or is produced with PFAS or PFOAs. I use cast iron or stainless steel cookware, glass and silicone only for things that cannot be made of stainless steel. I've more or less eliminated plastics as much as possible from the kitchen. Unfortunately, I can't necessarily do that with food packaging, but even there when I have an option I will change brands or stores to buy things without plastic packaging, or paper packaging coated in PFAS/Teflon. Similarly to avoid PFAS and other chemicals in the production of plastics, as well as microplastics, I almost exclusively buy clothing made entirely from natural fibers.
Beyond that, I have a whole home water filtration system, and after that whole home filtration system I additionally run an undersink 5-stage RO system, both of which are NSF/ANSI certified (53 for the filter system and 58 for the RO system) to remove PFAS and PFOAs. I also go out of my way to find and buy products that don't contain added PFAS, because unfortunately PFAS are in many basic everyday household products like dishwasher detergent, rinse aid, laundry detergent, fabric softener, and the like. If you dig into this you will be disturbed at how many things have PFAS intentionally added to them, and then you will be even more disturbed to find out how many things contain PFAS incidentally, mostly due to contaminated water supplies.
Even with all of this effort, and more I'm not detailing in this comment, I am exposed to PFAS in the food supply and water supply daily, and in a myriad of other ways. It's impossible to avoid, even with a major budget and being extremely conscious of this issue. There is no way to get away from it. The entire world is contaminated. I don't even know how much my mitigations have any helpful effect towards my health, because it's so difficult to mitigate.
We've had plastics for, essentially, 100 years. PFAs for a bit less than that. We still don't understand their full impact on the body/life.