Rainwater everywhere on Earth unsafe to drink due to ‘forever chemicals’(euronews.com)
euronews.com
Rainwater everywhere on Earth unsafe to drink due to ‘forever chemicals’
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/08/04/rainwater-everywhere-on-earth-unsafe-to-drink-due-to-forever-chemicals-study-finds
19 comments
We really need to adopt an 'unsafe-until-proven-otherwise' mindset for materials, similar to how we view drugs. If you read up on the history of leaded fuel and other products, it defies belief.
One general name for this kind of thing is the Precautionary Principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
if they really poisoned all water on earth, and did so knowingly, what we really need is pitchforks amd guilotinnes.
We have failed all future generations
We have failed all future generations
I certainly wouldn’t want to be a current or former DuPont, Chemours, BASF or 3M executive right now.
Just today I learned that all commercial beverage bottles and cans in the US are treated with fluorinated gases and then leach these same forever chemicals to whatever beverage they contain.
Just today I learned that all commercial beverage bottles and cans in the US are treated with fluorinated gases and then leach these same forever chemicals to whatever beverage they contain.
> I certainly wouldn’t want to be a current or former DuPont, Chemours, BASF or 3M executive right now.
Looking at the past, profits are more important that human or animal life. For example: https://qz.com/1630348/dupont-and-3m-face-a-growing-list-of-...
Looking at the past, profits are more important that human or animal life. For example: https://qz.com/1630348/dupont-and-3m-face-a-growing-list-of-...
There won’t be change until there are consequences.
Who is 'they' specifically? I'm sure you're buying products containing this stuff all the time.
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That's called the precautionary principle and it's law in the EU: http://data.europa.eu/eli/treaty/tfeu_2016/art_191/oj
It's not applied very uniformly though. The ongoing glysophate debate is a good example, there's reason to believe it's harmful in several ways and yet banning it doesn't look set to happen anytime soon.
Yes, the case you've mentioned is quite unfortunate, it's basically high level corruption.
Proving a negative can be extremely impractical. Maybe a better way would be to introduce a mechanism to have products removed quickly.
Removing forever chemicals can be more practical
Nothing is 100% safe. Water is toxic in high doses.
What do you mean “proven safe”?
What do you mean “proven safe”?
The common-sense defition would be something like "only transitory or easily correctable negative consequences after consumption of quantities encountered under everyday circumstances".
Water is unlikely to be consumed in the toxic doses. The few cases where water overdoses happened were drinking competitions where participants forced themselves to drink many liters of water as fast as possible, leading to fatal electrolyte imbalances.
Water is unlikely to be consumed in the toxic doses. The few cases where water overdoses happened were drinking competitions where participants forced themselves to drink many liters of water as fast as possible, leading to fatal electrolyte imbalances.
How do you define "easily correctable"? What are "everyday circumstances"?
You're basically describing the challenge itself - how do you balance risk vs. benefit? The FDA does it every day, all day and still makes the wrong call sometimes.
You're basically describing the challenge itself - how do you balance risk vs. benefit? The FDA does it every day, all day and still makes the wrong call sometimes.
I added "easily correctable" to account for things that are clearly not good for us in any sense, but also don't cause lasting damage if taken in moderation. Coffeine, alcohol and sugars for example. Everyday circumstances describe normal consumption outside of addictions, accidents, competitions, medical conditions that make us more vulnerable, and other things. And chemicals that accumulate in our bodies (forever chemicals, microplastics, dioxins and other fat-soluble goodies, heavy metals) or cause permanent changes deserve increased scrutiny and bias for safety.
Right now, I'd argue to be wary of _any_ novel polymers and substances (yes, it already happens for medicine and food), and to critically re-examine whatever was introduced before. The issue of microplastics and their impact on the ecosystem is clearly something we didn't think about before (more likely, we straightaway dismissed it).
Right now, I'd argue to be wary of _any_ novel polymers and substances (yes, it already happens for medicine and food), and to critically re-examine whatever was introduced before. The issue of microplastics and their impact on the ecosystem is clearly something we didn't think about before (more likely, we straightaway dismissed it).
Here is an example - birth control pills.
Hormones excreted in the urine are measurable in waterways. Hormones have an impact on all sorts of organisms, even at low concentrations.
Would it have been better to ban birth control pills until we figured out a way to avoid contaminating waterways? What if we never figured it out?
Would the world be a better place without birth control pills but hormone-free waterways?
Hormones excreted in the urine are measurable in waterways. Hormones have an impact on all sorts of organisms, even at low concentrations.
Would it have been better to ban birth control pills until we figured out a way to avoid contaminating waterways? What if we never figured it out?
Would the world be a better place without birth control pills but hormone-free waterways?
> Would it have been better to ban birth control pills until we figured out a way to avoid contaminating waterways? What if we never figured it out?
Honestly, yes. The copper IUD was invented in the 1960s, not long after birth-control pills; besides, condoms had existed for a long time by that point. As far as contraception goes, the pill shouldn't be the first choice - many women experience significant mood changes from the hormones, and it's quite possible that the hormones circulating in the water have deleterious effects on both male and female fertility. I'm aware that the pill was a significant contributor to the sexual revolution, but the effects of that, 60 years later, are not uniformly positive.
Honestly, yes. The copper IUD was invented in the 1960s, not long after birth-control pills; besides, condoms had existed for a long time by that point. As far as contraception goes, the pill shouldn't be the first choice - many women experience significant mood changes from the hormones, and it's quite possible that the hormones circulating in the water have deleterious effects on both male and female fertility. I'm aware that the pill was a significant contributor to the sexual revolution, but the effects of that, 60 years later, are not uniformly positive.
It's a good example, I admit. I guess it depends on what hormones are excreted. It's probably fine if they are naturally occurring hormones, since women and females of other species excrete them anyways. It would be a consideration, but I guess more problematic for such an approval process would be other side effects.
Edit: the point is quite valid for other drugs though.
Edit: the point is quite valid for other drugs though.
Come on..
How do you prove water is not unsafe?
This is such an intellectually dishonest question.
You mean the thing that makes up the extreme majority of every living being is unsafe? Do you legitimately believe it is necessary to study and prove that?
You mean the thing that makes up the extreme majority of every living being is unsafe? Do you legitimately believe it is necessary to study and prove that?
It's not dishonest at all. The proposal is to say that we cannot use materials unless they're proven safe. Proving things safe is very difficult and different from finding evidence of danger. It's easy to imagine asbestos going through the safety test and failing. Water is something we generally think of as safe and should easily pass this test. So how would you do so to a satisfying degree? How would you nuance the test for different sources of water? You probably don't want the water from Flint Michigan. We already have a list of common failure modes for water quality that we check for.
What will you say if we discover another element that should be checked for in the water otherwise health risks occur? Was our proactive search to prove water safe insufficient? I guess so, but how could we possibly have done better ahead of time?
What will you say if we discover another element that should be checked for in the water otherwise health risks occur? Was our proactive search to prove water safe insufficient? I guess so, but how could we possibly have done better ahead of time?
For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest - in fact, public water (drinking water, rivers, lakes,...) is being tested very regularly, whether it's safe for drinking, swimming,...
The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, the point is that if you have a cool product idea like putting lead into fuel, you have to apply before you're allowed to market it. What exact tests they are going to run then will be subject to scientific debate and changes over time (so your product might get pulled if it's found to be toxic later). Some posters informed me that that's how it actually works already, in the EU at least. But in that case I guess we have to demand that they apply stricter standards if they miss chemicals that poison our rain water or kill the bee population.
The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility, the point is that if you have a cool product idea like putting lead into fuel, you have to apply before you're allowed to market it. What exact tests they are going to run then will be subject to scientific debate and changes over time (so your product might get pulled if it's found to be toxic later). Some posters informed me that that's how it actually works already, in the EU at least. But in that case I guess we have to demand that they apply stricter standards if they miss chemicals that poison our rain water or kill the bee population.
> The point isn't that you have to provide a comprehensive proof of safety, which is arguably a philosophical impossibility,
Then don't call it 'unsafe until proven otherwise'. Safety standards are a great idea. They're not this and calling it this is just a recipe for failure when new information makes it look like the original research was insufficient and that its a policy failure.
Then don't call it 'unsafe until proven otherwise'. Safety standards are a great idea. They're not this and calling it this is just a recipe for failure when new information makes it look like the original research was insufficient and that its a policy failure.
It's about the mindset, I called it similar to how we talk about the burden of proof in criminal law. The burden should be with producers to defend their products' safety, and in doubt we should err on the side of caution.
In law you assume something is innocent until proven guilty. You are suggesting guilty until proven innocent. That's the opposite of how criminal law works (in reasonable places).
Most of the mentioned tested public waters either don’t test for these forever chemicals, do so unreliably, or fail the tests miserably.
And you think that's good the way it is? I'm saying we should change that.
You literally just asserted
> For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest
> For water you test for known contaminants like these forever chemicals and a host of others. Your question is insinuating that we don't know how to test for water safety, which is dishonest
You provided the answer yourself: there already is a list of limits for things we definitely don't want in our water. If we find new things that we didn't notice before, we ASAP figure out what their health impact is, and introduce appropriate limits and procedures to mitigate the hazard. And such checks are already applied to water sources and distribution facilities to ensure their safety.
In your world, disease and famine would be much more common than they are now.
If you are referring to fertilizers, a lack of those definitely wasn't the main reason for mass deaths in the years following their discovery - and I'm only asking that safe products are delayed for a bit until we are reasonably sure they're safe. I don't know what you mean by diseases, because we are already doing exactly that for pharma products.
It's mainly a change of mindset - leaded fuel is such a good example, it was known to be toxic right from its invention (almost killed its inventor), yet it took us decades of arguing before we were ready to act on that knowledge - because said inventor and his cronies always managed to cast a shadow of doubt, and we seemed to act like as long as we weren't 100% sure we couldn't ban anything (so basically 'safe-until-proven-otherwise').
Things haven't really changed, not even in the EU that purportedly already acts under this principle, if you look at the current debates like on glyphosate.
It's mainly a change of mindset - leaded fuel is such a good example, it was known to be toxic right from its invention (almost killed its inventor), yet it took us decades of arguing before we were ready to act on that knowledge - because said inventor and his cronies always managed to cast a shadow of doubt, and we seemed to act like as long as we weren't 100% sure we couldn't ban anything (so basically 'safe-until-proven-otherwise').
Things haven't really changed, not even in the EU that purportedly already acts under this principle, if you look at the current debates like on glyphosate.
It is, it has just been subtle and normalized over numerous generations
what is the amount of normalization that makes something more common than it is?
> Rainwater almost everywhere on Earth has unsafe levels of ‘forever chemicals’, according to new research.
And yet the title of the research paper, the journal in which it was published, or even the vaguest description of the experiment that was performed are not mentioned. I've given up ever getting a direct link to a paper, but this takes laziness and cynicism to new extremes.
Abysmal science reporting.
And yet the title of the research paper, the journal in which it was published, or even the vaguest description of the experiment that was performed are not mentioned. I've given up ever getting a direct link to a paper, but this takes laziness and cynicism to new extremes.
Abysmal science reporting.
Yeah, it's frustrating. :/
Direct link to the study: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765
Cousins et al., Outside the Safe Operating Space of a New Planetary Boundary for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), Environmental Science & Technology, 2022
Direct link to the study: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765
Cousins et al., Outside the Safe Operating Space of a New Planetary Boundary for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), Environmental Science & Technology, 2022
I suspect the root cause is this linguistically unfortunate journal title: "Outside the Safe Operating Space of a New Planetary Boundary for [PFAS]" which you can attempt to review here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765
It would seem environmental science wishes to call everything an environment, and discuss the status of the PFAS chemosphere, which would be confusing if you weren't paying close attention.
Edit: The abstract was also, maybe geared towards SEO? Discoverability? Here's maybe a clearer rendition
"ABSTRACT: It is hypothesized that environmental contamination by [PFAS] [is spreading globally, by clouds and rain in the atmosphere]. This hypothesis is tested by comparing the levels of four selected [PFAS substances] in [rainwater, soils, and surface waters] with [state agency guidelines]. [...] it is concluded that
(1) levels [in rainwater] often greatly exceed US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ["Lifetime Drinking Water Health Advisory levels"] and [are] often above Danish drinking water limit[s...] (2) levels [...] in rainwater are often above Environmental Quality Standard for Inland European Union Surface Water; and (3) [the rain contaminates the soil, on a widespread basis] above proposed Dutch guideline values.
It is, therefore, concluded that the [rainwater, soils, and surface waters, across the earth, have all been contaminated]. [We also hypothesize] [the soil contamination] are especially poorly reversible because of the high persistence of [the chemicals] and their ability to continuously cycle [...]. Because of the poor reversibility of environmental exposure to PFAS and their associated effects, it is vitally important that PFAS uses and emissions are rapidly restricted."
It would seem environmental science wishes to call everything an environment, and discuss the status of the PFAS chemosphere, which would be confusing if you weren't paying close attention.
Edit: The abstract was also, maybe geared towards SEO? Discoverability? Here's maybe a clearer rendition
"ABSTRACT: It is hypothesized that environmental contamination by [PFAS] [is spreading globally, by clouds and rain in the atmosphere]. This hypothesis is tested by comparing the levels of four selected [PFAS substances] in [rainwater, soils, and surface waters] with [state agency guidelines]. [...] it is concluded that
(1) levels [in rainwater] often greatly exceed US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ["Lifetime Drinking Water Health Advisory levels"] and [are] often above Danish drinking water limit[s...] (2) levels [...] in rainwater are often above Environmental Quality Standard for Inland European Union Surface Water; and (3) [the rain contaminates the soil, on a widespread basis] above proposed Dutch guideline values.
It is, therefore, concluded that the [rainwater, soils, and surface waters, across the earth, have all been contaminated]. [We also hypothesize] [the soil contamination] are especially poorly reversible because of the high persistence of [the chemicals] and their ability to continuously cycle [...]. Because of the poor reversibility of environmental exposure to PFAS and their associated effects, it is vitally important that PFAS uses and emissions are rapidly restricted."
I find it disconcerting that this has apparently been known since the 1970s. Seems like the Big Tobacco playbook all over again (only with even worse effects).
From the book “Exposure” by Robert Bilott, the real-life lawyer portrayed in the “Dark Water” movie:
> The internal alarm bells had first been sounded at 3M and DuPont after the publication of a scientific paper by the American Chemical Society in 1976. The paper had a curious impetus: Donald Taves, a University of Rochester toxicologist, had discovered two different kinds of fluoride in his own blood. Finding inorganic fluoride was not surprising—it is routinely put into the public water supply as an aid in preventing cavities. But the other form, organic fluoride, is man-made in industrial labs. What was it doing in his blood? Dr. Taves wanted to find out. So he teamed up with W. S. Guy, a faculty member of the College of Dentistry at the University of Florida. They gathered plasma from blood banks in five cities and tested them for the presence of both kinds of fluoride. They also obtained records of how much fluoride was put into the water of those cities. As expected, the levels of “regular” (inorganic) fluoride in blood correlated with the levels of fluoride in the public water. But the levels of synthetic fluoride (organic) did not. Where was it coming from? Guy and Taves noticed that the compounds found in the blood had a chemical structure consistent with compounds “widely used commercially for their potent surfactant properties.” In their publication of those findings, they hypothesized that the source was industrial fluorochemicals manufactured by 3M.
From the book “Exposure” by Robert Bilott, the real-life lawyer portrayed in the “Dark Water” movie:
> The internal alarm bells had first been sounded at 3M and DuPont after the publication of a scientific paper by the American Chemical Society in 1976. The paper had a curious impetus: Donald Taves, a University of Rochester toxicologist, had discovered two different kinds of fluoride in his own blood. Finding inorganic fluoride was not surprising—it is routinely put into the public water supply as an aid in preventing cavities. But the other form, organic fluoride, is man-made in industrial labs. What was it doing in his blood? Dr. Taves wanted to find out. So he teamed up with W. S. Guy, a faculty member of the College of Dentistry at the University of Florida. They gathered plasma from blood banks in five cities and tested them for the presence of both kinds of fluoride. They also obtained records of how much fluoride was put into the water of those cities. As expected, the levels of “regular” (inorganic) fluoride in blood correlated with the levels of fluoride in the public water. But the levels of synthetic fluoride (organic) did not. Where was it coming from? Guy and Taves noticed that the compounds found in the blood had a chemical structure consistent with compounds “widely used commercially for their potent surfactant properties.” In their publication of those findings, they hypothesized that the source was industrial fluorochemicals manufactured by 3M.
What was it about the 70s? It seemed like a really weird time. Like maybe the first time the earth was really properly under attack from industry at scale.
It's mind blowing that the people manufacturing this stuff didn't have their doubts, but oh well, 1970s...
It's mind blowing that the people manufacturing this stuff didn't have their doubts, but oh well, 1970s...
In the mid-70's my first job out of college was at a research chemical place out in the industrial park a few miles from the UF campus, which had actually been founded by one of my professors back in the 1950's.
We were fluorine and silicon chemistry leaders, and there was even a bulk tube-trailer of elemental fluorine parked on the site, rendering us un-insurable.
One time it was pentafluoropropionic anhydride day. This is some agressive stuff, and had to be handled in a disposable glove bag under an inert nitrogen atmosphere.
It had to be flame-sealed into special glass bottles because it would eventually escape from any other type of closure.
When it comes into contact with moisture or humidity, it separates into two short-chain PFAS molecules that are still notably acidic and tend to bond to living tissue and not let go.
The acidic form was more widely available and was handled in regular drums, and I guess you could say it was quite a bit milder as a bad actor.
There was an operator who had left his gloves on top of a drum and a number of grams of fluorinted acid had gotten into them before he put them on again later. There was a delayed reaction but his hands did start burning after a while, fortunately this stuff was mild enough that his hands did not even fully dissolve.
But you can't wash it off and it keeps burning for years until you get accustomed to the pain. The scarring alone was painful to look at.
Anyway they put a brand new student model mechanical balance into the glove bag with the world's only kilo of the anhydride and weighed it into portions. It was possible to watch the paint peeling off the scale in real time and the corrosion process proceed to destruction. The glove bag and the scale were then discarded.
Out in the pit with everything else.
The temporary closures were then flame-sealed under a hood, and I get to pick two of the smallest ones for the analytical lab, one to test and the other to hang on to unopened.
Well they don't always seal, and upon inversion a couple micro-drops flew out and hit me on the shoulder and the hip, soaking right through the fabric and basically evaporating before long without doing visible damage. It did start to burn after a while but it mostly felt like a couple mosquito bites. Small red spots did show up along with the irritation which faded quite a bit over a few months but it took a few years before it could easily be forgotten.
In following decades though, the same red spots would re-appear if I was over-exerting myself and almost feeling like I was going to get heat stroke or something, yep, there they were still.
No surprise when I found out that Gainesville industrial park was an EPA Superfund site decades ago.
Now it's also been a couple decades or more since one of the most brilliant workers I had in Texas, later moved to an oilfield services group where they were injecting rare kilos of as many different short-chain perfluoroalkyls as they could, and using them as tracers to determine subsurface formation characteristics, when the different compounds could later be detected in the producing wells across a vast field.
Perfluoroalkyls are really inert and not acidic at all, but they are forever and they were thought especially good for geological tracing for that reason.
My associate became a specialist in a type of fluoride-specific ultra-trace detailed analysis that was more sensitive than what they were doing before.
Fluorides are a bitch.
Nobody's fault but mine.
We were fluorine and silicon chemistry leaders, and there was even a bulk tube-trailer of elemental fluorine parked on the site, rendering us un-insurable.
One time it was pentafluoropropionic anhydride day. This is some agressive stuff, and had to be handled in a disposable glove bag under an inert nitrogen atmosphere.
It had to be flame-sealed into special glass bottles because it would eventually escape from any other type of closure.
When it comes into contact with moisture or humidity, it separates into two short-chain PFAS molecules that are still notably acidic and tend to bond to living tissue and not let go.
The acidic form was more widely available and was handled in regular drums, and I guess you could say it was quite a bit milder as a bad actor.
There was an operator who had left his gloves on top of a drum and a number of grams of fluorinted acid had gotten into them before he put them on again later. There was a delayed reaction but his hands did start burning after a while, fortunately this stuff was mild enough that his hands did not even fully dissolve.
But you can't wash it off and it keeps burning for years until you get accustomed to the pain. The scarring alone was painful to look at.
Anyway they put a brand new student model mechanical balance into the glove bag with the world's only kilo of the anhydride and weighed it into portions. It was possible to watch the paint peeling off the scale in real time and the corrosion process proceed to destruction. The glove bag and the scale were then discarded.
Out in the pit with everything else.
The temporary closures were then flame-sealed under a hood, and I get to pick two of the smallest ones for the analytical lab, one to test and the other to hang on to unopened.
Well they don't always seal, and upon inversion a couple micro-drops flew out and hit me on the shoulder and the hip, soaking right through the fabric and basically evaporating before long without doing visible damage. It did start to burn after a while but it mostly felt like a couple mosquito bites. Small red spots did show up along with the irritation which faded quite a bit over a few months but it took a few years before it could easily be forgotten.
In following decades though, the same red spots would re-appear if I was over-exerting myself and almost feeling like I was going to get heat stroke or something, yep, there they were still.
No surprise when I found out that Gainesville industrial park was an EPA Superfund site decades ago.
Now it's also been a couple decades or more since one of the most brilliant workers I had in Texas, later moved to an oilfield services group where they were injecting rare kilos of as many different short-chain perfluoroalkyls as they could, and using them as tracers to determine subsurface formation characteristics, when the different compounds could later be detected in the producing wells across a vast field.
Perfluoroalkyls are really inert and not acidic at all, but they are forever and they were thought especially good for geological tracing for that reason.
My associate became a specialist in a type of fluoride-specific ultra-trace detailed analysis that was more sensitive than what they were doing before.
Fluorides are a bitch.
Nobody's fault but mine.
This has been coming for a long time. How are our systems and thinking so blind this kind of thing?
If we’re lucky it’ll take years if not decades to as a society stop this contamination.
These levels are just the beginning and we’ll look back on them as the good ol days when the levels were ‘low’.
If we’re lucky it’ll take years if not decades to as a society stop this contamination.
These levels are just the beginning and we’ll look back on them as the good ol days when the levels were ‘low’.
With a systems view, it appears governments are not able to be responsive enough to known environmental problems. This is a big part of why I advocate for electoral reform (in particular a citizens' assembly on electoral reform) to move to a proportional system where we as individuals have representation and can actually have our votes matter. Without citizens able to control their governments, it just leaves large corporate interests to control them, and blame everything on what people buy. We don't get long term systemic change that favours the well being of people without upgrading the electoral systems first.
> our systems and thinking
our systems and thinking have not been blind to it, there have been both serious and emotional objections at every single step. The ugly truth is that there is very little of "we" when it comes to control and making money.
our systems and thinking have not been blind to it, there have been both serious and emotional objections at every single step. The ugly truth is that there is very little of "we" when it comes to control and making money.
Some huge damage to the planet here for very little relative reward. No comment on how the rainwater distributes these chemicals, too. Also no mention of how firefighting drills with modern fire suppressants at airports and military bases have poisoned the earth and local water supplies; it's not just the rain that's a problem.
The paper on which this article is based: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765
Not only is it in rain water, the level often exceeds the US guidelines for lifetime(!) intake. I wonder how cancer rates among tribes and off-grid homes will increase, as those dewllers aren't likely boiling their rainwater.
This is probably going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better, like the leaded gas problems of the 1960s.
This is probably going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better, like the leaded gas problems of the 1960s.
Does boiling water actually help with chemical contamination. The main benefit is killing microorganisms. The heat can also destroy some toxins, but as far as I am aware PFAS stick around at boiling temperatures.
Boiling doesn’t help with forever chemicals.
Off-griders and preppers are likely able to deal with this, as they can incorporate appropriate filter systems into their setups. If they are aware and care about them of course.
> [...] linked to fertility problems,
> increased risk of cancer and developmental
> delays in children.
Cancer isn’t much of a problem for most other animals due to their shorter lifespans.
If they never break down then how do they react in the bodies to produce any effects?
Is it because of acidic stomach environment?
Is it because of acidic stomach environment?
There are plenty of chemicals that can cause a chemical reaction to happen without being destroyed themselves. These are known as catalysts and include enzymes, for example. I don’t know what the mechanism is for these chemicals to be carcinogenic but there’s no reason to assume that just because they don’t break down that means they are safe to ingest.
These chemicals contain many fluorine ions as a part of their molecular structure. This is what gives them their ability to keep things like water, fat and protein from sticking to them, as well as their ability to lower the surface tension of liquids.
In the human body, these properties are unwanted, slightly speaking. These molecules screw up pretty much everything at the cellular level—worse, they tend to accumulate in internal organs, which slowly makes them more and more water-repellent and non-sticky.
Imagine having your liver and kidneys try to do their thing with those molecules everywhere interfering with the entire organ structure as well as the movement of fluids.
In the human body, these properties are unwanted, slightly speaking. These molecules screw up pretty much everything at the cellular level—worse, they tend to accumulate in internal organs, which slowly makes them more and more water-repellent and non-sticky.
Imagine having your liver and kidneys try to do their thing with those molecules everywhere interfering with the entire organ structure as well as the movement of fluids.
Ah the carbon fluorine bond, truly the most underappreciated 20th century demon. Ya know, nothing in the biosphere can reliably break that bond today! That's some geological epoch boundary shit right there.
They dismiss the drinking of rain water too readily in the article.
In many places, like Hawaii, where you can't drill a water well for whatever reason, and don't have access to filtered surface water, rain catchment is the primary source of water. This is common.
In many places, like Hawaii, where you can't drill a water well for whatever reason, and don't have access to filtered surface water, rain catchment is the primary source of water. This is common.
If there exist treatments to remove those chemicals, those places should consider adopting them. I'm curious how water treatment facilities in other places remove these chemicals. I would actually not be surprised if most of them don't, or just process sources that happen to be clean.
> But others say that no cause and effect can be proven between these chemicals and poor health.
If the health effects of these chemicals are really as bad as it's claimed they are, then shouldn't it be easy to conclusively show some small but nonzero effect?
If the health effects of these chemicals are really as bad as it's claimed they are, then shouldn't it be easy to conclusively show some small but nonzero effect?
Wasn't clear to me from the article or this thread how you might avoid forever chemicals.
But there are filters for them: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2022/02/...
But there are filters for them: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2022/02/...
I don’t get it. How can it be in rain water? Does it have the same boiling point as water?
Doesn't need to have the same boiling point, just needs to have some partial vapor pressure at 1 atm and be miscible with water.
One big mechanism for dispersal is sea spray aerosols, probs because pfas chemicals have fun surface chemistries. Concentration of pfas in sea sprays can be 10,000x concentration in bulk seawater
One big mechanism for dispersal is sea spray aerosols, probs because pfas chemicals have fun surface chemistries. Concentration of pfas in sea sprays can be 10,000x concentration in bulk seawater
PFAS has a boiling point of 189C. I don’t think many things naturally get this hot so it seems unlikely.
So that nice smell of ocean air is actually poisonous?
It could also stick to dust particles that happen to float around. Especially in cities, I usually try to avoid exposure to rainwater for the first few hours of rain, because it clears the air of a lot of gunk (heavy metals, exhaust gases, pollen, spores, forever chemicals, ...) that I don't exactly want to have near my body.
Agree. Was hoping to see the mechanism of how it got in the rainwater. Fluff article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film) is a great film.
Sometimes it seems as though making the Earth uninhabitable to existing lifeforms was the goal of some entity.
Hanlon's razor says 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity'. But, after 150 years of it, is stupidity truly an adequate explaination for the unending rain of 'better products for better living through chemistry'?
Hanlon's razor says 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity'. But, after 150 years of it, is stupidity truly an adequate explaination for the unending rain of 'better products for better living through chemistry'?
Technological hubris is a helluva drug. We would each be wise to develop our own capacities for humility.
Irrelevant