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Are you claiming that value of any home in one of these towns with PFAS in the water is now $0? This seems straightforwardly untrue, people are happily buying t

Are you claiming that value of any home in one of these towns with PFAS in the water is now $0? This seems straightforwardly untrue, people are happily buying those homes. Whatever penalty 3M should pay ought to be based on actual damages PFAS causes.

jychang 3y ago
Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth The value of those houses (as a place to live) is $0 to anyone who cares about not consuming PFAS, and thus should be $0 until the problem is fixed. I guess you can rent them out to people you don’t care about, which would make them worth >$0, but also clearly unethical. In a society that’s functioning correctly, sane people would pass a law prohibiting consumption of water with PFAS; those houses would be declared uninhabitable, the same way a fire marshal now can declare a building uninhabitable as it violates a fire code.
- taosx 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Zandikar 3y ago
    [flagged]
- prepend 3y ago
  > Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth When someone sells their house, the price is an agreed upon valuation by buyer and seller. It’s probably the closest to true value we’ll ever get. How do you propose to value better? If they are selling for more than $0, then someone values them.
  - jychang 3y ago
    … I already proposed a better system. Let the government adjust market values via passing laws as needed. Obviously humans aren’t rational actors, so assuming as much would be dumb to use as the basis of an economic system. People generally are shortsighted- they build on flood plains, for example, or use toxic building materials that cause damage long term (ex: asbestos), or whatever. Nor should humans be expected to be rational actors. (!) You shouldn’t need a PhD in biochemistry in order to evaluate water quality impact to health, in order to buy a home. If we require people like software engineers to be full blown doctors just to rationally evaluate a place to live, we have failed as a society. Allowing the government to declare homes uninhabitable is clearly better than a pure market based system.
- chrisdbanks 3y ago
  You don't have to drink the water where you live. Where I L live everyone drinks bottled water.
  - riley_dog 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    If that's a result of some organization contaminating the local water supply, then I'd call it "secondary damage" and vote billing said org for it. Otherwise, you either live in an unusual location that makes any kind of water-related infrastructure projects very expensive - like, idk., a small settlement at a summit of a mountain, or in the middle of a desert - or something is very much broken about that place.
  - eggy 3y ago
    Doesn't mean there are no PFAs in the bottled water. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bottled-water/pfas-in-bottled-water-new-study-finds-a1111233122/ https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bottled-water/pfas-in...
    - chrisdbanks 3y ago
      No, true, but that's separate to the issue of PFAS in my drinking water making my house worthless. Presumably if there are PFAS is bottled water then everyone's water is contaminated as I'm not aware of anywhere people don't drink bottled water.
  - revscat 3y ago
    > bottled water You do understand that that’s worse for you, right?
    - chrisdbanks 3y ago
      You're suggesting that bottled water is worse for me than non-drinking water from the tap? Billions of people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water. You're lucky if you do.
manmal 3y ago
We don’t know yet the actual, long term damages. Maybe this is like leaded gasoline - very bad for everyone, but it takes long term accumulation to really show the effect.
- revscat 3y ago
  My layman’s suspicion is that they are responsible for the obesity crisis.
  - manmal 3y ago
    We have a meme in Europe that a visit to the US means you will gain a few pounds of extra body fat that’s harder to lose than usual. That’s just anecdotal, of course. But as a result, my suspicion is that dietary compounds (mainly HFCS) are the culprit.
    - MrYellowP 3y ago
      Instead of the most obvious, that most US food contains far too much sugar?
      - manmal 3y ago
        HFCS is sugar, yes, an especially unhealthy form. Probably pushed for political/economical reasons in the US because it can be made domestically from corn, it’s way less prevalent in other areas. Eg in Germany, it has to be declared as glucose-fructose-syrup starting at 5% fructose, and as fructose-glucose-syrup starting at 50% fructose. The overwhelming majority of products I‘ve encountered contains just „glucose-syrup“ or plain sugar (usually from sugar beet, which is grown domestically). Fructose is ok to consume in amounts that are typical for fruit (which is less than you‘d think), but is a metabolic disruptor in higher amounts. Liver cells have to do a lot of work to metabolize fructose, compared to glucose which needs quasi no conversion. As to health effects of fructose, I‘ve found it hard to determine which studies are reliable, because there is just so much money in this industry, and high interest to influence research. But the metabolic complexity it brings is undeniable, and one could argue that fructose is kinda like a poison we have adapted to - if we lack key enzymes, we can’t metabolize it. Glucose is harder on the pancreas and chronic high insulin seems to be really bad, so I‘d avoid that too of course. But a reasonably healthy liver can quickly buffer excess glucose (hepatocytes) and rather easily convert to glycogen and store it, in big amounts.
dubcanada 3y ago
What are the actual damages of millions of gallons of water? What about in 30 years? How can you accurately estimate any of this? What they should be made to do is provide free filters to all of the governments to filter PFAS until a time when no PFAS is detected. Or if that's not possible, R&D until some form of it is possible then do that. But that would probably damage the company forever, and that's bad.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > But that would probably damage the company forever, and that's bad. If they don't wanna do it they could just spin off a 'water filter' division and then bankrupt it. Problem solved!
  - MR4D 3y ago
    The J&J case over talcum powder showed that you cannot in fact do that. But to your credit, even they thought they could until a judge said otherwise.

jychang 3y ago

Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth The value of those houses (as a place to live) is $0 to anyone who cares about not consuming PFAS, and thus should be $0 until the problem is fixed. I guess you can rent them out to people you don’t care about, which would make them worth >$0, but also clearly unethical. In a society that’s functioning correctly, sane people would pass a law prohibiting consumption of water with PFAS; those houses would be declared uninhabitable, the same way a fire marshal now can declare a building uninhabitable as it violates a fire code.

taosx 3y ago
[flagged]
- Zandikar 3y ago
  [flagged]
prepend 3y ago
> Market value != worth, unless you believe that market capitalism is the only way to determine worth When someone sells their house, the price is an agreed upon valuation by buyer and seller. It’s probably the closest to true value we’ll ever get. How do you propose to value better? If they are selling for more than $0, then someone values them.
- jychang 3y ago
  … I already proposed a better system. Let the government adjust market values via passing laws as needed. Obviously humans aren’t rational actors, so assuming as much would be dumb to use as the basis of an economic system. People generally are shortsighted- they build on flood plains, for example, or use toxic building materials that cause damage long term (ex: asbestos), or whatever. Nor should humans be expected to be rational actors. (!) You shouldn’t need a PhD in biochemistry in order to evaluate water quality impact to health, in order to buy a home. If we require people like software engineers to be full blown doctors just to rationally evaluate a place to live, we have failed as a society. Allowing the government to declare homes uninhabitable is clearly better than a pure market based system.
chrisdbanks 3y ago
You don't have to drink the water where you live. Where I L live everyone drinks bottled water.
- riley_dog 3y ago
  [flagged]
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  If that's a result of some organization contaminating the local water supply, then I'd call it "secondary damage" and vote billing said org for it. Otherwise, you either live in an unusual location that makes any kind of water-related infrastructure projects very expensive - like, idk., a small settlement at a summit of a mountain, or in the middle of a desert - or something is very much broken about that place.
- eggy 3y ago
  Doesn't mean there are no PFAs in the bottled water. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bottled-water/pfas-in-bottled-water-new-study-finds-a1111233122/ https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bottled-water/pfas-in...
  - chrisdbanks 3y ago
    No, true, but that's separate to the issue of PFAS in my drinking water making my house worthless. Presumably if there are PFAS is bottled water then everyone's water is contaminated as I'm not aware of anywhere people don't drink bottled water.
- revscat 3y ago
  > bottled water You do understand that that’s worse for you, right?
  - chrisdbanks 3y ago
    You're suggesting that bottled water is worse for me than non-drinking water from the tap? Billions of people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water. You're lucky if you do.

manmal 3y ago

We don’t know yet the actual, long term damages. Maybe this is like leaded gasoline - very bad for everyone, but it takes long term accumulation to really show the effect.

revscat 3y ago
My layman’s suspicion is that they are responsible for the obesity crisis.
- manmal 3y ago
  We have a meme in Europe that a visit to the US means you will gain a few pounds of extra body fat that’s harder to lose than usual. That’s just anecdotal, of course. But as a result, my suspicion is that dietary compounds (mainly HFCS) are the culprit.
  - MrYellowP 3y ago
    Instead of the most obvious, that most US food contains far too much sugar?
    - manmal 3y ago
      HFCS is sugar, yes, an especially unhealthy form. Probably pushed for political/economical reasons in the US because it can be made domestically from corn, it’s way less prevalent in other areas. Eg in Germany, it has to be declared as glucose-fructose-syrup starting at 5% fructose, and as fructose-glucose-syrup starting at 50% fructose. The overwhelming majority of products I‘ve encountered contains just „glucose-syrup“ or plain sugar (usually from sugar beet, which is grown domestically). Fructose is ok to consume in amounts that are typical for fruit (which is less than you‘d think), but is a metabolic disruptor in higher amounts. Liver cells have to do a lot of work to metabolize fructose, compared to glucose which needs quasi no conversion. As to health effects of fructose, I‘ve found it hard to determine which studies are reliable, because there is just so much money in this industry, and high interest to influence research. But the metabolic complexity it brings is undeniable, and one could argue that fructose is kinda like a poison we have adapted to - if we lack key enzymes, we can’t metabolize it. Glucose is harder on the pancreas and chronic high insulin seems to be really bad, so I‘d avoid that too of course. But a reasonably healthy liver can quickly buffer excess glucose (hepatocytes) and rather easily convert to glycogen and store it, in big amounts.

dubcanada 3y ago

What are the actual damages of millions of gallons of water? What about in 30 years? How can you accurately estimate any of this? What they should be made to do is provide free filters to all of the governments to filter PFAS until a time when no PFAS is detected. Or if that's not possible, R&D until some form of it is possible then do that. But that would probably damage the company forever, and that's bad.

Eisenstein 3y ago
> But that would probably damage the company forever, and that's bad. If they don't wanna do it they could just spin off a 'water filter' division and then bankrupt it. Problem solved!
- MR4D 3y ago
  The J&J case over talcum powder showed that you cannot in fact do that. But to your credit, even they thought they could until a judge said otherwise.