The Chicago Tribune on how forever chemicals aren’t going away. We need better alternatives:
Just like DDT, PCBS and asbestos, a group of substances obliquely known as PFAS are incredibly useful, potentially deadly and devilishly difficult to clean up.
Since the 1950s, PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated substances) have been used in products ranging from pacemakers and fireproof foam to cosmetics and food containers. They persist in the environment practically forever, and it’s thought that almost every person on the planet carries at least a trace of these “forever chemicals.”
Animal studies show they can stunt development, damage the liver and compromise immune systems. The effects on humans are still being fully assessed, but the Environmental Protection Agency recently issued health advisories saying they’re much more dangerous than previously understood.
The good news is that companies making the most widely distributed PFAS chemicals are phasing them out under pressure, as lawsuits pile up. The bad news about PFAS is, well, complicated — and it just keeps coming.
For starters, these chemicals really do last “forever,” and they’re showing up all over the place.
The Tribune’s Michael Hawthorne has chronicled how PFAS have wormed their way into drinking water and the food chain. This stuff has spread from the North Pole to Antarctica, and many people are consuming PFAS in quantities exceeding the EPA’S latest proposed standards. No one can be sure if any amount is truly safe.
Making matters worse, PFAS are still found in some common products, and phasing them out is no cinch. Without PFAS, some types of umbrellas would leak, nonstick cookware would stick, and stain-resistant carpets would stain. Some common cleaning products wouldn’t clean as well. Those may sound like relatively minor annoyances, but what about eye surgeries that require small amounts of PFAS to help ensure successful outcomes? Or rocket ships that need PFAS as lubricants, or to make sensitive computer chips in mission-critical components? PFAS also are used to prevent contamination of surgical gowns. Commercial aircraft and low-emissions vehicles similarly rely on them.
Scientists have scrambled to reformulate products without using PFAS, and in some cases they’ve made it work. But no widely accepted substitute exists, and some of the alternatives might be no better for the environment and health.
The clock is ticking. Earlier this month, three of the biggest PFAS makers agreed to pay $1.2 billion to help remove the chemicals from U.S. public water systems. That’s one lawsuit down for those companies, and many more to go.
Just last month, a leading maker of Pfas-drenched firefighting foam, Kidde-fenwal, filed for Chapter 11, saying its liabilities far exceed its ability to pay. More corporate bankruptcies are inevitable, and plaintiffs’ lawyers are targeting the government and military as well.
Remember hearing about the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, which enables veterans to sue based on exposure to toxic chemicals? Yep, the main culprits were PFAS, mixed with other toxins, and in those legal cases the Defense Department is expected to be both a plaintiff and a defendant.
It would be no surprise if the chemical industry sought a government bailout, which is premature. Meantime, the government is late in playing a leadership role.
In a recent letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-ill., and U.S. Rep. Betty Mccollum, Dminn., pointedly asked for details about how — or is that, if? — funds from the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 are being used to research PFAS alternatives,.
As it stands, the letter says, these hazardous chemicals are still “vital to our economic and national security.” Belatedly, the letter directs the Commerce Department to sort out “essential uses” from frivolous ones and get busy solving the problem of what new substances to use instead.
There you go, bureaucrats. In case you didn’t know, it’s past time to swing into action.
Meanwhile, everyone should hold onto their wallets. The full scope of the PFAS health and environmental disaster is just beginning to materialize, and the cleanup cost is going to be astronomical.