Author: Betsey Piette Published on November 26, 2021
What's in your water? Can you believe that the paper wrapped around the takeaway sandwich - or the plastic flip cover - won't contaminate your food? What makes your carpet stain resistant? Should you finally throw away that old Teflon pot?
DuPont Washington Plant, Parkersburg, West Virginia
Although seemingly unrelated, these problems stem from the recent revelation that "permanent chemicals"-used to coat paper packaging, plastic packaging, Non-stick cookware-contains high levels of carcinogenic chemicals.
The ubiquitous permanent chemicals involve thousands of synthetic chemicals, called PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl substances), which repel oil and water and resist heat. Over time, these chemicals will accumulate in humans and animals. After being released in the environment, they can take hundreds of years or more to decompose.
There are more than 9,000 known PFAS compounds, 600 of which are found in the blood of most people they test using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, which raises concerns about widespread public exposure.
In January 2021, "Scientific American" magazine reported a study by the Environmental Working Group that found that the drinking water of most people in the United States may always contain chemicals. PFAS has been widely used, released and handled carelessly for decades, and is almost everywhere in the soil, the water we drink and even the air we breathe.
Numerous studies have shown that when these chemicals penetrate food and water, they can cause cancer, liver disease, kidney problems, decreased immunity, birth defects, and other health problems. DuPont, 3M, and other chemical companies that make these products have known this for decades.
DuPont’s Teflon was originally developed for use in the Manhattan Project during World War II, which produced warheads, liquid fuel tanks, and atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. DuPont was always looking for more profits, and soon discovered that these war-related compounds could be used in mass-produced consumer products.
Several Manhattan Project researchers joined 3M in the 1950s, when the company began commercial production of PFAS chemicals. The company is best known for its PFAS-based waterproof and antifouling agent Scotchgard. In 2000, the company agreed to stop the production of PFAS chemicals, but refused to declare them dangerous.
On November 19, Congress introduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit the use of PFAS in food packaging in the United States. Given the expected opposition from the chemical industry, its adoption is far from certain. A similar bill passed by the House of Representatives in 2020 was blocked by the Senate.
Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft report on two permanent chemicals-PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid), and found that they were "more toxic than previously reported." . The EPA has marked them as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" and plans to establish drinking water limits for PFOA and PFOS by 2023.
For decades, EPA has been aware of the hazards caused by these chemicals, but has hardly taken any measures to deal with them. For a long time, even very low levels of PFAS have been associated with a wide range of health problems. However, the EPA allows companies that produce PFAS to set their own pollution levels.
There is no federal drinking water standard to test whether PFAS chemicals cause harm. However, according to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, EPA must prove the existence of hazards before testing chemicals. In the past 40 years, the EPA has restricted only five of the tens of thousands of chemicals.
Concentrations of pollutants in drinking water are measured in parts per million (ppm) and parts per billion (ppb). PFAS is measured in parts per trillion (ppt)-equivalent to a drop of water in 20 Olympic swimming pools.
Independent research has found that pollution levels of these chemicals higher than one part per trillion increase the risk of testicular cancer, liver tumors, high cholesterol and other health problems. Calculated by 10 percentage points, more than 80 million people in the United States are at risk. However, in a statement to Scientific American, the industry-based American Chemistry Council claimed that there is no scientific basis for setting pollutant levels below 70 ppt.
Who is monitoring the dangers of PFAS?
Although the Trump administration opposed any efforts to regulate PFAS and promised to veto any legislation regulating the chemical industry, presidential candidate Joe Biden outlined detailed campaign promises to control and regulate pollution.
To ensure that the legislation introduced on November 19 is passed, President Biden can issue an executive order to set limits on the level of PFAS pollutants in drinking water and even prohibit its production, thereby avoiding any obstruction.
There is little evidence that he would do this. Biden's political career originated in the state of Delaware controlled by DuPont. He is just another politician in DuPont's pocket.
Whether under the leadership of the Republican or Democratic governments, the EPA's ability to supervise PFAS production in the chemical industry for more than 70 years has hardly changed. The industry controls politicians on both sides of the aisle.
DuPont's duplicity for decades
In 1951, DuPont opened a major factory in Parkersburg, West Virginia to produce Teflon. By 1961, the company knew that PFOA used in polytetrafluoroethylene was toxic. For decades, DuPont has pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA powder into the Ohio River and more than 7,000 tons of PFOA-containing sludge into open, unlined storage tanks.
As the chemicals seep into the ground, PFOA enters the local groundwater table, providing drinking water for more than 100,000 local residents.
In the 1970s, DuPont found high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid in the blood of its factory workers, but failed to notify the EPA. In the 1980s, after testing the children of pregnant workers in the Teflon department, they established a link between PFOA contamination and birth defects—two out of seven children had eye defects.
In 1984, the company found perfluorooctanoic acid in the dust discharged from its factory chimneys, which extend far beyond the boundaries of the factory. In 1991, DuPont scientists recommended that the internal safety limit of PFOA in drinking water should be one part per billion. The PFOA content of the water tested outside the factory was three times higher.
All of this was exposed in a 1999 class action lawsuit filed by lawyer Rob Bilott regarding the widespread pollution of DuPont near Parkersburg. In the long-term litigation that lasted more than ten years, DuPont responded by increasing its self-regulated PFOA level to 70 ppb.
Corporate profits vs. people's health
One of the main issues in limiting chemical pollutants is the manipulation of environmental regulations by companies. When the propaganda surrounding the Bilott lawsuit forced West Virginia to strengthen its oversight of PFOA, DuPont appointed corporate scientists from the state's Department of Environmental Prediction and then raised the allowable pollution threshold to 150 ppb.
In 2004, DuPont settled Bilot's class action lawsuit for US$343 million, involving 80,000 plaintiffs in six water districts. In 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's lawsuit against DuPont for failing to disclose the health risks caused by PFOA was settled for US$16.5 million. DuPont agreed to phase out the production of PFOA.
But these fines are less than 2% of DuPont's profit from PFOA production! Products that use PFOA are very important to DuPont's profits, which were valued at US$1 billion per year at the time.
Bilott's book "Exposure" (2019) details how DuPont concealed its internal occupational health and toxicity studies and the illegal dumping of hazardous waste by the factory. The lawsuit is also the subject of the movie "Dark Water" released in 2020.
On May 19, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where the author of this article lives, sued DuPont, Chemours, and 3M, accusing the company of using PFAS-containing fire-fighting foam to contaminate groundwater and soil at three locations in the county. The lawsuit alleges that these companies have known that these chemicals are toxic since the 1960s, and DuPont denies this. Since 2016, the Forever chemicals used in the fire-fighting foam at the Willow Grove military facility near Bucks County, Pennsylvania, have prevented residents from using local drinking water.
According to Berghahn Journals, as of March 2021, the United States has identified more than 2,330 known PFAS drinking water or groundwater pollution points. Nearly 110 million people in the United States have their tap water contaminated by PFAS. (tinyurl.com/fypxv5z8)
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