3 ms·

I'm always surprised by this when it's "50 years ago". Certainly the scientists and analysts at 3M who collected and analyzed the data would have thereafter kn

I'm always surprised by this when it's "50 years ago". Certainly the scientists and analysts at 3M who collected and analyzed the data would have thereafter known of it's extremely harmful effects. And I don't mean to open this up to "heh yea well they made bank!" I don't think they did relatively speaking. My main question, is that certainly those scientists would have been advising their friends and families to stay away from X, Y, and Z products because they contain PFAS?

ethanbond 3y ago
It's pretty easy to accidentally convince yourself of things when you get a big payday by doing so. This is why analyzing clinical trial data is so obscenely hard. There are bad actors, there are liars, and there are scientists who are really, really hoping to achieve a breakthrough. All of them are liable to end up putting forth bad information.
- justinator 3y ago
  > It's pretty easy to accidentally convince yourself of things when you get a big payday by doing so. Is it easy to turn a blind eye, when factory workers in your own company were dying, or is what we're describing called at best criminal, and at worst psychotic? They were literally just dumping these chemicals down the river. They were fined a small fraction of their profits (of billions) and told pretty please to not do it again. This is obvious corruption on so many levels.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    This happened at 3M? What are you referring to?
  - cmdli 3y ago
    According to Wikipedia at least (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_sub...), it looks like 3M had a $10b settlement around PFASs, which seems like a pretty big chunk of their $50b company, given how many different products they have. Do you have a source for how much they made off of just PFASs?

3 ms·

I'm always surprised by this when it's "50 years ago". Certainly the scientists and analysts at 3M who collected and analyzed the data would have thereafter kn

by no_butterscotch 3y ago

ethanbond 3y ago
It's pretty easy to accidentally convince yourself of things when you get a big payday by doing so. This is why analyzing clinical trial data is so obscenely hard. There are bad actors, there are liars, and there are scientists who are really, really hoping to achieve a breakthrough. All of them are liable to end up putting forth bad information.
- justinator 3y ago
  > It's pretty easy to accidentally convince yourself of things when you get a big payday by doing so. Is it easy to turn a blind eye, when factory workers in your own company were dying, or is what we're describing called at best criminal, and at worst psychotic? They were literally just dumping these chemicals down the river. They were fined a small fraction of their profits (of billions) and told pretty please to not do it again. This is obvious corruption on so many levels.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    This happened at 3M? What are you referring to?
  - cmdli 3y ago
    According to Wikipedia at least (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_sub...), it looks like 3M had a $10b settlement around PFASs, which seems like a pretty big chunk of their $50b company, given how many different products they have. Do you have a source for how much they made off of just PFASs?