4 ms·

Can someone explain where the (suspiciously) scary nomenclature of "forever chemicals" comes from? Google neutered their normal search engine, so in order to s

Can someone explain where the (suspiciously) scary nomenclature of "forever chemicals" comes from? Google neutered their normal search engine, so in order to search by date I went to Google Scholar and I have found no use of such term well into the 2000s. It looks like a journalistic invention, does anyone have am origin story pointing to a scholarly source?

Etheryte 3y ago
You'll easily find the answer if you search for forever chemicals wikipedia, what's the source of the confusion?
- ravenstine 3y ago
  No it isn't. There's no "forever chemical" page on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure where you're getting this idea from. Disregarding any nomenclature, in just focusing on the terminology in isolation, water could be considered a forever chemical. This is an example of why use of the term "forever chemical" comes off as a scare tactic or disingenuous. Of course, for dying media institutions, PFAS can't just be a pollutant. It has to be literally forever! EDIT: Way to go missing the entire point, all of you.
  - Etheryte 3y ago
    You're fighting strawmen, I didn't say "search for forever chemicals on wikipedia", I said "search for forever chemicals wikipedia". The first result on Google is the article about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which includes the source of the term.
  - esafak 3y ago
    WP's autocomplete returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst...
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
    Water occurs in nature without human intervention. I don't think the same can be said for PFAS. For a big chunk of the industrial age we've operated on the assumption that the global environment is big enough and capable enough to just eat or neutralize just about anything we dump into it. I think there is utility in defining a category of human-produced things that we have been able to determine the global environment can't eat or neutralize, and also that cause harm when people are exposed to them. You could give this category a lot of potential names, but "forever chemicals" conveys the idea pretty effectively IMO.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    Typing "forever chemical wikipedia" into DDG gets you this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant into google, gets you this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst... "forever chemical" in either Google or DDG gives a lot of good links explaining what they are.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  Hey! He's "just asking questions."
sibane 3y ago
I found a couple of news articles crediting the word to this opinion piece (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemicals-are-everywhere-and-they-wont-ever-go-away/2018/01/02/82e7e48a-e4ee-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemical...) in the Washington Post by Joseph G. Allen, an assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of Harvard's Healthy Buildings Program.
- Knee_Pain 3y ago
  I wonder if they were pressured by the journalist to come up with the buzz word or it was something they used colloquially between peers
  - sibane 3y ago
    Well, we can only speculate. But I would suggest that since the writer themselves is choosing to write an op-ed on the subject, perhaps they themselves have ample motivation to come up with a persuasive word to argue their case? Their goal is to educate normal people on these chemicals and in the piece they explain that the terminology commonly used is so scientific as to be meaningless to the general public. Hence the need for a more direct "forever chemicals" instead of PFAS/per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFOA/Perfluorooctanoic acid or C8/8 carbon chain structure.

Etheryte 3y ago

You'll easily find the answer if you search for forever chemicals wikipedia, what's the source of the confusion?

ravenstine 3y ago
No it isn't. There's no "forever chemical" page on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure where you're getting this idea from. Disregarding any nomenclature, in just focusing on the terminology in isolation, water could be considered a forever chemical. This is an example of why use of the term "forever chemical" comes off as a scare tactic or disingenuous. Of course, for dying media institutions, PFAS can't just be a pollutant. It has to be literally forever! EDIT: Way to go missing the entire point, all of you.
- Etheryte 3y ago
  You're fighting strawmen, I didn't say "search for forever chemicals on wikipedia", I said "search for forever chemicals wikipedia". The first result on Google is the article about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which includes the source of the term.
- esafak 3y ago
  WP's autocomplete returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst...
- sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
  Water occurs in nature without human intervention. I don't think the same can be said for PFAS. For a big chunk of the industrial age we've operated on the assumption that the global environment is big enough and capable enough to just eat or neutralize just about anything we dump into it. I think there is utility in defining a category of human-produced things that we have been able to determine the global environment can't eat or neutralize, and also that cause harm when people are exposed to them. You could give this category a lot of potential names, but "forever chemicals" conveys the idea pretty effectively IMO.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  Typing "forever chemical wikipedia" into DDG gets you this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant into google, gets you this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst... "forever chemical" in either Google or DDG gives a lot of good links explaining what they are.
Zigurd 3y ago
Hey! He's "just asking questions."

sibane 3y ago

I found a couple of news articles crediting the word to this opinion piece (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemicals-are-everywhere-and-they-wont-ever-go-away/2018/01/02/82e7e48a-e4ee-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemical...) in the Washington Post by Joseph G. Allen, an assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of Harvard's Healthy Buildings Program.

Knee_Pain 3y ago
I wonder if they were pressured by the journalist to come up with the buzz word or it was something they used colloquially between peers
- sibane 3y ago
  Well, we can only speculate. But I would suggest that since the writer themselves is choosing to write an op-ed on the subject, perhaps they themselves have ample motivation to come up with a persuasive word to argue their case? Their goal is to educate normal people on these chemicals and in the piece they explain that the terminology commonly used is so scientific as to be meaningless to the general public. Hence the need for a more direct "forever chemicals" instead of PFAS/per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFOA/Perfluorooctanoic acid or C8/8 carbon chain structure.