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3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe
- staffanj 4y agoWe had some scandals here in Sweden also - mostly around military airports (perhaps normal airports also) that practice with putting out burning airplanes.
- Spooky23 4y agoYeah, never buy a house near a military base, especially one active during WW2 or later. If you do, don’t consume groundwater. The military’s approach to dealing with waste in that era was essentially “dump it over there” or “burn it with fire”. Airbases are particularlye bad as the crap they spray on the wings for de-icing and the firefighting foam. Is everywhere and often is nasty stuff.
- zxspectrum1982 4y agoDark Waters is an entertaining movie about PFAS and PFAO https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/
- cr1895 4y agoCan someone provide the text of this article please?
- pdw 4y agohttps://archive.ph/eSqP4 https://archive.ph/eSqP4
- mdp2021 4y agoIt seems like a "payfence" (instead of a full "paywall"). You may like to check the served content.
- jhugo 4y agoYup. E.g. reader mode works fine.
- jessaustin 4y agoTurn off javascript for this domain.
- superkuh 4y ago>PFOS—perfluorooctanesulfonic acid—is referred to as a forever chemical, because it accumulates in soil, rivers, and drinking water and is almost impossible to get rid of. She had about 300 micrograms of it per liter in her blood, more than 60 times the level recommended as safe today by the European Union. Almost impossible, but not impossible. It has been found that giving blood (and then throwing that blood away) significant reduces PFOS levels. Not that I'm defending 3M or any of this. My favorite rivers where I fish turned out to be full of PFOS due to a leaking 3M waste dump and this was only announced in 2021. So I spent some time looking for solutions. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2790905 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... https://www.aabb.org/news-resources/news/article/2022/04/26/regular-blood-or-plasma-donation-may-reduce-pfas-levels-in-blood-serum https://www.aabb.org/news-resources/news/article/2022/04/26/...
- RobertRoberts 4y agoAre you recommending bloodletting as a cure for some of the nastiest pollution ever created by humans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting
- WrtCdEvrydy 4y agoTo be honest, I've been given similar advice for high levels of iron once from a doctor. Let go of a few gallons over a year and my iron has never been that high before.
- Beltiras 4y agoI think it spoke to the desperation of the situation, not that it was a solution worthy of being called "a cure".
- fmajid 4y agoIt's either that or pumping for breast milk. Since we have no idea what gender "superkuh" is, the latter may not be an option, despite their username...
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- MrBuddyCasino 4y agoNothing will change until there are prison sentences, and the very deliberate system of shielding managers and corporations from responsibility is changed. It was known for decades that Asbestos and cigarettes causes lung cancer, that adding lead to gasoline is a terrible idea, that burning oil warms the atmosphere. The truth was suppressed through intimidation, lawsuits and bribes. Regulatory agencies are corrupted by the revolving door system. You cannot trust these organisations.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoI mean NO2 from diesel exhaust is provably reducing longevity i.e. killing people sooner, still no prison sentences happened for any of the heads in VW. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
- londons_explore 4y agoI support no prison sentences for VW... The engineers were meeting the letter but not the spirit of the rules, just as so many other companies do. You probably have done the same when you did revision just before a geography test at school - you probably only learnt the syllabus rather than going to the library and learning everything in the geography section. The VW engineers made a car that had only 'revised' enough to do well in the test, not to do well in the real world. Here is another example of engineers doing the same in a different industry[1]. [1]: http://omattos.com/2021/11/11/appliancegate-the-energy-efficiency-fraud.html http://omattos.com/2021/11/11/appliancegate-the-energy-effic...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fnimick 4y agoAnd anyone who has done the same to cheat the tests in other industries should also be penalized accordingly. I can't believe you're excusing deceptive behavior and test cheating because "everyone does it!"
- elil17 4y agoAfter reading the series "A Chemical Hunger" by the blog Slime Mold Time Mold, I'm pretty convinced that chemical contamination is a global-warming level threat to humanity. The authors talk about the evidence that chemicals released into the environment by human activity (such as PFAS) are causing obesity, and they present compelling evidence that this is plausible. They are also working on research to confirm this hypothesis. But regardless of whether obesity is caused primarily by environmental contamination, chemical contamination is a huge risk for a few reasons: -Once in the environment, chemical contaminants can react in unforeseen ways, creating new chemicals that we will have no idea how to monitor for. -Health data prior to industrialization is not good and is confounded by poor medical practices, so we may think we've "solved" chemical contamination when in fact we haven't (e.g. maybe heart disease would go away if it weren't for some chemical that we started using in 1910 but we can't tell because everyone was dying of dysentery). -The solution, in some most cases, may mean giving up significant technological advances, especially polymers and heavy metals extracted from the ground. https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-part-i-mysteries/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...
- mensetmanusman 4y agoWhen my mother moved in and we went on daily walks, she lost a pound a week for a year. Her entirely sedentary lifestyle (and that of most Americans I know) is a major factor for her obesity. Standing is now considered exercise it has gotten so bad. But people will blame anything instead of taking action, so…
- xxpor 4y agoWhat if the chemicals aren't making you fat directly, but messing with your neurotransmitters and sapping your motivation? Doesn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThat would be an interesting study. I wonder if one could find an ethical human study that could parse out a molecule and its effect on demotivation compared to the effect of media, sunlight exposure, obesity, etc.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIt would be an interesting future historical study to see what caused more harm: -Manufacturing the best firefighting chemistry (e.g. military purchases for missile warehouses, resorts, apartments, etc.) -Using the chemistry to actually fight fires It might be a case where sometimes second best should have been the way to go, but it’s hard to know beforehand I imagine, especially in safety scenarios where people are laser focused on optimizing for that.
- dmos62 4y agoHere's an instance of the phenomenon. > In fact, in the case of the V-2, more than twice as many Allied prisoners died outfitting the factory and producing it than did Allied civilians and soldiers hit by it in rocket attacks. https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/wonder-weapons-and-slave-labor https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/wonder-weapons-...
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThat is amazing, thanks for the link!
- dylan604 4y agoAt this point, we have an over abundance [edit: of evidence] that when we as humans do new science in pursuit of good, we tend to overlook the negative aspects. Chemical companies spend a fortune on development of the new chemical and rush it to market to recoup investments. We never spend enough time looking at the down side of these new chemicals even though we have all of the information we currently have that shows these chemicals tend to not do so well in the environment. We also have abundance of examples where these companies knew the dangers and hid them in order to make their money. Yet with all of this information, nothing is done to prevent the release of these chemicals without 3rd party testing. The citizens being affected have very little recourse.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoGreat point. It seems like we need everyone working together because it’s such a complicated game theory problem. Is humanity’s goal to march forward with scientific discovery at the risk of inventing risky things? Or is the goal to make people comfortable? (was going to say healthy, but I think that ship has sailed in the west where we are approaching 50% obesity with no foreseeable counter measure). [insert other goals from key stakeholders] E.g. if the civilian government said “we need the best X” but it also can’t by Y,Z,Q, etc. and the more qualifiers you add the less likely that there will ever be something new in the arena (which is good for corporations that rely regulatory capture).
- pmarreck 4y agoAny way to get a kit to test yourself? Or can any doctor do this? (Asking from NY in the US)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- carapace 4y ago*Stands on soapbox* I've been kicking around an idea I've been tentatively calling "techno-conservatism". The tl;dr: "Like Amish, not Luddites." It's becoming more and more clear that each of our technologies has trade-offs, and the uncritical acceptance of those trade-offs has lead us to poison ourselves and the world in several fairly significant ways. This would seem to me to make a more considered and conservative relationship with our technology imperative. There are movements like the "Slow Food" movement, and of course the Amish are famously conservative in their acceptance and use of modern technology. The general idea is to start with a simple and ecologically harmonious low-tech (but sophisticated!) lifestyle and then add essential technology (in a kind of "progressive enhancement", eh?) to increase QoL (Quality of Life) without, y'know, poisoning anything.
- IYasha 4y agoAs long as tech owners openly state that humanity should be reduced in quantity, it is pretty clear that they don't care, at best, if not contrary (create harmful tech on purpose).
- carapace 4y agoWell, to hell with the tech owners then, eh? If they are committed to being "Dr. Evil" villains then I don't see why the rest of us should take them seriously?
- doitLP 4y agoI like that idea. But because of the way these chemicals get everywhere, we need pretty much everyone on board. That won’t change unless we change incentives and negative externalities are felt by the actors that decide to use the chemicals. How do we do that? Same question for nuclear war, fossil fuels, and any other tragedy of the commons type situation.
- carapace 4y agoMy hope is that this "techno-conservatism" would reflect and facilitate a mass movement which could then generate enough of a political and economic mandate to leverage us out of destructive applications of technology using existing systems of government. I feel like a lot of people, especially young people, are kind of already leaning this way. But I'm fairly apolitical myself, I don't want to start a revolution, y'know? If I run this up the flag pole and no one salutes, so be it. "Techno-conservatism" isn't a political stance. Ecological harmony isn't a political goal, it's a prerequisite of any durable regime at all. The thing is living in harmony with nature is fun and economical so I would hope it's very popular once you've experienced it. (E.g. we have some hydrogen-powered buses here and the exhaust they put out is not smelly poison, it's actually refreshing! It has a delightful not-quite-aroma, it's moist and oxygenated. You only have to stand upwind of one once to realize that ICE vehicles are inferior.) In the short-term, and on the personal scale, I'm imagining something like a neighborhood or small town as a kind of experimental zone or context. ( Check out Village Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Homes ) You're right that this wouldn't mitigate truly global issues like "forever chemicals" or global warming, but it's an improvement on what we're doing now. I think once there's a kind of "theme park" you can visit that shows what it's like to live well without messing up the environment it would really convince people to do it.
- synu 4y ago3M PFAS has poisoned the Westerschelde estuary here in the Netherlands and Belgium to the point where you can no longer eat fish from there, and the only thing 3M has done about it is complain to anyone who will listen that they unfairly haven’t been allowed to reopen their plant. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/05/health-body-says-avoid-eating-fish-shrimp-caught-in-the-westerschelde/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/05/health-body-says-avoid...
- timst4 4y agoInteractive PFAS contamination map: https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
- forgotmypw17 4y agoIf there's ever been a case for building a parallel agency, it's environmental investigations.
- fomine3 4y agoIt also causes shortage of 3M fluorinert that is needed by semiconductor manufacturer https://www.barrons.com/articles/chip-production-plant-shutdown-3m-pfas-51649361014 https://www.barrons.com/articles/chip-production-plant-shutd... https://www.thelec.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=4082 https://www.thelec.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=4082