Response to NYT article: How Widespread Are These Chemicals? They are Everywhere.
The data presented in The New York Times article, cited above, isn’t new information, but it is wonderful to see it so accessible outside of peer-reviewed technical journals. There is a link in the article so you, too, can check out the load of PFAS chemicals in your favorite critters or in your favorite geography. Keep in mind that "no data" doesn’t mean no PFAS, it just means no studies have been conducted in that location in the last few years.
What does it mean to have an industrial chemical present in every person and every critter on the planet? Honestly, it will take decades to fully catalog these effect because our world doesn't exist in a laboratory where life can be controlled to a single, well characterized stressor. Even when we do understand how each PFAS interacts within humans, there are many more complex associations to figure out. How does PFAS combine with the other stressors of modern life to compromise our health? PFAS + urban air pollution? PFAS + smoking? PFAS + chemotherapy? PFAS + childhood development? PFAS + a high fat (read: American) diet? One PFAS alone versus one PFAS amongst dozens? These are relevant questions for chemicals that will be part of our environment and our bodies for a very long time.
Neither industry nor EPA even attempts to answer these questions before adding new chemicals into our environment. Keep in mind that 3M stopped making PFOS in 2002, over 20 years ago and only recently was PFOS classified as a likely carcinogen. There’s no rewind button; no quick oops-lets-just-clean-it-up process. As a global community, we are *forever* burdened with industry’s haste and the inadequacies of EPA’s TSCA process. Industry argues that the toxicity of each of the thousands of PFAS compounds should be evaluated individually before a decision is made about whether they should be controlled or regulated. Will we relegate that critical work up to the same grant-funded, over-burdened academics who characterized the problems caused by industry’s money makers, PFOS and PFOA starting 20 years ago...?
