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Honest question, people keep hyping about these "forever chemicals" but the hype seems to be around the fact that they're "forever" rather than what the effects

Honest question, people keep hyping about these "forever chemicals" but the hype seems to be around the fact that they're "forever" rather than what the effects actually are. I hear tons of people talking about them, but never any discussion of anyone actually harmed. It kind of reminds me of the conspiracy around Glyphosate and the efforts to demonize Monsanto, eventually resulting in the company being sold to non-US company Bayer, even though no human damage was ever proven. This seems to be a repeated pattern in recent years toward old and storied US companies. They just seem to really heavily play into people's luddite-based fears and lack of understanding.

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lelandfe 2y ago
Oh man, it would be great if the research 3M was trying to squash for decades just showed that these chemicals that build up in our bodies and get passed to our newborns were good for us. It would be even more great if the EPA was wrong about PFOS and PFOA being “likely to cause cancer.” We'll have answers eventually, but some clues are out there.[0] I don't think the smart money is on this being a panic raised by luddites, though. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3855514/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3855514/
- mlindner 2y ago
  The study you linked was about exposure from the environment where the chemicals were basically flushed into local drinking water systems and relatively high levels in people's blood streams. What everyone is freaking out about is them somehow getting something from the end product plastics. These are two different things.
  - lelandfe 2y ago
    > the chemicals were basically flushed into local drinking water systems and relatively high levels in people's blood streams. What everyone is freaking out about is them somehow getting something from the end product plastics. These are two different things TFA itself talks about such dumping events at length ("at least 45% of U.S. tap water is estimated to contain one or more forever chemicals"), Dark Waters is about such events, the EPA's standards were brought about as a result of such events...?
dogman144 2y ago
Honest answer - read the reporting the DuPont lawsuit is based on. Factory workers who poured out PFAS sludge bled to death in factory floors, 9 of 10 women (or some similarly awful stat) who worked on the factory area gave birth to deformed babies. awful stuff.
- seec 2y ago
  Do you have a link and more precise details. I want to believe you but to me it sounds like a lot of fear mongering…

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lelandfe 2y ago

Oh man, it would be great if the research 3M was trying to squash for decades just showed that these chemicals that build up in our bodies and get passed to our newborns were good for us. It would be even more great if the EPA was wrong about PFOS and PFOA being “likely to cause cancer.” We'll have answers eventually, but some clues are out there.[0] I don't think the smart money is on this being a panic raised by luddites, though. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3855514/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3855514/

mlindner 2y ago
The study you linked was about exposure from the environment where the chemicals were basically flushed into local drinking water systems and relatively high levels in people's blood streams. What everyone is freaking out about is them somehow getting something from the end product plastics. These are two different things.
- lelandfe 2y ago
  > the chemicals were basically flushed into local drinking water systems and relatively high levels in people's blood streams. What everyone is freaking out about is them somehow getting something from the end product plastics. These are two different things TFA itself talks about such dumping events at length ("at least 45% of U.S. tap water is estimated to contain one or more forever chemicals"), Dark Waters is about such events, the EPA's standards were brought about as a result of such events...?

dogman144 2y ago

Honest answer - read the reporting the DuPont lawsuit is based on. Factory workers who poured out PFAS sludge bled to death in factory floors, 9 of 10 women (or some similarly awful stat) who worked on the factory area gave birth to deformed babies. awful stuff.

seec 2y ago
Do you have a link and more precise details. I want to believe you but to me it sounds like a lot of fear mongering…