Secret {industry} paperwork reveal that makers of PFAS ‘endlessly chemical compounds’ coated up their well being risks

The chemical {industry} took a web page out of the tobacco playbook once they found and suppressed their data of well being harms attributable to publicity to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), based on an evaluation of beforehand secret {industry} paperwork by UC San Francisco (UCSF) researchers.

A brand new paper printed Could 31, 2023, in Annals of International Well being, examines paperwork from DuPont and 3M, the most important producers of PFAS. The paper analyzes the techniques the {industry} used to delay public consciousness of PFAS toxicity, and in flip, delay rules governing their use. PFAS are broadly used chemical compounds in clothes, family items, and food products, and are extremely immune to breaking down, giving them the identify “endlessly chemical compounds.” They’re now ubiquitous in individuals and the surroundings.

“These paperwork reveal clear proof that the chemical {industry} knew concerning the risks of PFAS and did not let the general public, regulators, and even their very own workers know the dangers,” stated Tracey J. Woodruff, Ph.D., professor and director of the us Program on Reproductive Well being and the Setting (PRHE), a former senior scientist and coverage advisor on the Environmental Safety Company (EPA), and senior writer of the paper.

That is the primary time these PFAS {industry} paperwork have been analyzed by scientists utilizing strategies designed to reveal tobacco {industry} techniques.

Opposed results had been identified for many years

The key {industry} paperwork have been found in a lawsuit filed by legal professional Robert Bilott, who was the primary to efficiently sue DuPont for PFAS contamination and whose story was featured within the movie, “Darkish Waters.” Bilott gave the paperwork, which span 45 years from 1961 to 2006, to producers of the documentary, “The Satan We Know,” who donated them to the us Chemical Business Paperwork Library.

“Accessing these paperwork permits us to see what the producers knew and when, but additionally how polluting industries maintain essential public well being info personal,” stated first writer Nadia Gaber, MD, Ph.D., who led the analysis as a PRHE fellow and is now an emergency drugs resident. “This analysis is necessary to tell coverage and transfer us in direction of a precautionary moderately than reactionary precept of chemical regulation.”

Little was publicly identified concerning the toxicity of PFAS for the primary 50 years of their use, the authors said within the paper, “The Satan They Knew: Chemical Paperwork Evaluation of Business Affect on PFAS Science,” although “{industry} had a number of research displaying adverse health effects at the very least 21 years earlier than they have been reported in public findings.”

The paper states, “DuPont had proof of PFAS toxicity from inner animal and occupational research that they didn’t publish within the scientific literature and did not report their findings to EPA as required beneath TSCA. These paperwork have been all marked as ‘confidential,’ and in some instances, {industry} executives are express that they ‘wished this memo destroyed.'”

Suppressing info to guard a product

The paper paperwork a timeline of what {industry} knew versus public data, and analyzes methods the chemical industry used to suppress info or shield their dangerous merchandise. Examples embrace:

• As early as 1961, based on an organization report, Teflon’s Chief of Toxicology found that Teflon supplies had “the flexibility to extend the dimensions of the liver of rats at low doses,” and suggested that the chemical compounds “be dealt with ‘with excessive care’ and that ‘contact with the pores and skin needs to be strictly prevented.'”
• In keeping with a 1970 inner memo, DuPont-funded Haskell Laboratory discovered C8 (one in all 1000’s of PFAS) to be “extremely poisonous when inhaled and reasonably poisonous when ingested.” And in a 1979 personal report for DuPont, Haskell labs discovered that canine who have been uncovered to a single dose of PFOA “died two days after ingestion.”
• In 1980, DuPont and 3M realized that two of eight pregnant workers who had labored in C8 manufacturing gave delivery to youngsters with delivery defects. The corporate didn’t publish the invention or inform workers about it, and the next yr an inner memo said, “We all know of no proof of delivery defects attributable to C-8 at DuPont.”

Regardless of these and extra examples, DuPont reassured its workers in 1980 that C8 “has a decrease toxicity, like desk salt.” Referring to experiences of PFAS groundwater contamination close to one in all DuPont’s manufacturing vegetation, a 1991 press launch claimed, “C-8 has no identified poisonous or sick well being results in people at focus ranges detected.”

As media consideration to PFAS contamination elevated following lawsuits in 1998 and 2002, DuPont emailed the EPA asking, “We want EPA to shortly (like very first thing tomorrow) say the next: That shopper merchandise offered beneath the Teflon model are secure and thus far there aren’t any human well being results identified to be attributable to PFOA.”

In 2004, the EPA fined DuPont for not disclosing their findings on PFOA. The $16.45 million settlement was the most important civil penalty obtained beneath U.S. environmental statutes on the time. However it was nonetheless only a small fraction of DuPont’s $1 billion annual revenues from PFOA and C8 in 2005.

“As many nations pursue authorized and legislative motion to curb PFAS manufacturing, we hope they’re aided by the timeline of proof offered on this paper,” stated Woodruff. “This timeline reveals severe failures in the way in which the U.S. at present regulates dangerous chemical compounds.”

Extra info:
The Satan They Knew: Chemical Paperwork Evaluation of Business Affect on PFAS Science, Annals of International Well being(2023). DOI: 10.5334/aogh.4013. annalsofglobalhealth.org/artic … es/10.5334/aogh.4013

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