66
votes
How 3M covered up "forever chemicals"
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe
- Authors
- Sharon Lerner, Haruka Sakaguchi
- Word count
- 8009 words
No comments yet, so I feel obliged to: I saw this on Mastodon earlier today (which is precisely why I keep checking in over there every other week: to encounter 1-3 incredibly interesting topics and dip again), and read through the whole thing.
It’s insane when you try to wrap your head around what this company has done to people, nature, and the planet as a whole.
Artificial, toxic ompounds which are found in virtually every living human being?
Environmental and health damage so high you’d have to liquidate the company in its entirety to maybe be able to cover a single year of undoing-it-payments?
I do not get how this isn’t on everyone’s minds, all the time. Well, we’ll see. Maybe (hopefully?) more people will become aware after this excellent piece gains more traction.
Took me a while, kept reading during work breaks, but also read the whole way through. That PFAS accumulate and are toxic isn't news to me. What really hurts (but doesn't really shock) about this article for me is the depth and longevity of the selfishness (to put it lightly) of 3M and its leaders.
On one level, simply unconscionable. I sometimes joke about wishing I had fewer morals so I could become rich; stories like this make that joke in bad taste.
On another, dumbfoundingly stupid in their shortsightedness. I have sympathy for Kris Hansen; yes, wilfully ignorant but also by all accounts used, ignored, and ostracized for her early efforts. Less sympathy for Johnson if only because he's painted as an asshole. It's the upper leadership/execs/owner who drive the corporate culture and decisions who are the source of my ire. They undoubtedly had families, lived in the area. Were they really so self-centered as to not care about their children's future? So self-assured as to think they and their families couldn't possibly be impacted?
There are so many more costs to the goods we use everyday than monetary. It's just a matter of when the bill comes due.
I really think we need criminal charges in cases like this, where damage is known, accepted, and covered up. It's crazy to me that you can do this level of institutional damage and jump off the plane with a golden parachute.
I'm with you there. It's not just 3M, or Bayer/Monsanto, or big oil, or Intuit, or the Sacklers, or the military industrial complex and so on... It's happening across all industries where there are large profits to be found and it's happening all the time.
It's not hard to understand why people aren't focusing on it though, it's a dauntingly hard to solve problem. These companies don't just have endless funds for lawyers and PR, they have decades of regulatory capture and revolving doors with Washington. The only thing that can control them is government, and they have government in their pocket. Especially in the US.
I think people would rather believe the world is a different sort of place than it is, and I genuinely can't blame them. It's going to get increasingly harder to ignore though, as climate change ramps up and the global health effects of PFAs (and so much more) start impacting ever increasing numbers of people directly.
I couldn't get more than 5 paragraphs in before feeling an intense feeling of helpless dread. I'll have to read it in chunks, but I'm assuming it'll only confirm my thoughts that unfettered capitalism will destroy us all.
I'm cautiously optimistic that the general public is very aware of these forever chemicals, but I'd wager that they simply can't be bothered to be inconvenienced in changing their ways. My fiance and I are always reconsidering purchases based on plastic content, but I doubt most others do to the same extent. Even if the general public did vote with their wallets and not purchase any 3M consumer products, they are still used so much commercially and behind the scenes it's likely nigh impossible for general consumers to make any meaningful impact towards their bottom line. And I have no faith in our government to levy any meaningful fines or penalties towards them either. Even if they did, we're all still full of plastic.
Aside from voting with our wallets or commiting Tyler Durden-esque violence—throwing Molotov cocktails into 3M factories and offices; what can we do? I feel so helpless and I'm sure most people do too. My growing apathy says the only solution left is for the Earth to brush us off itself like dandruff on its shoulder and let life start over.
You're probably right, but as long as major outlets keep reporting on it, more and more people will start to pay attention.
We've been trying to avoid the worst of it for years but it's amazing how extensively sketchy stuff is used.
Incomplete list of things where you'll find PFAs and BPA, starting with the most obvious:
Key thing to bear in mind: It builds up in the body and no one has any idea what's going to happen as people accumulate more. We're pretty sure it will be bad.
Sorry if I'm stressing anyone out. The way I look at it is that you can't avoid it completely so just minimize it as much as you can and leave it at that.
You're right that that there isn't a lot individuals can do, short of devoting their lives to politics or activism. That and being conscious about what they buy. However there is one easy thing: support progressive politicians. The Biden administration isn't perfect, and an 80 year old president isn't ideal, but the president really isn't the person who matters. It's the people the admistration installs in key positions. There has been more regulation of large corporations, and strengthening of evironmental oversight, under this adminstration than there has been during any presidency for decades.
I posted a topic on the difficulty of avoiding Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) not too long ago. Plasticizers like BPA or phthalates are found in tons of our food. It's a nightmare and it's not something individual consumers should be trying to avoid on their own — this needs a regulatory solution.
So back when I took toxicology coursework in the 1990's, it was very well known that halogenated organic compounds [paywall, but read the abstract], as a class, are toxic, bioaccumulative, and environmentally persistent.
Given prior incidents with DDT, Agent Orange/dioxin, vinyl chloride, perchloroethylene, PCBs, PBBs, and CFCs, you'd think the EPA, REACH, WHO, or some regulatory body somewhere would have deduced that PFAS could be hazardous. But 3M, Dupont, and other manufacturers used strategies similar to the fossil fuel and tobacco industies to manipulate research results, muddy public perception, and influence regulators and policymakers.
There is such a long-standing pattern of greed, wilful blindness, recklessness, and disregard for future generations that it's an easy way for me to sink into despair.
Wow, this sounds like a worldwide disaster on par with leaded fuel.
How evil do you have to be to willingly continue to poison the entire human race and every living thing on earth? We should make examples of the leaders both past and present of 3M and similar companies that know their products are dangerous, then continue to sell them and keep quiet anyway, so in the future others are not inclined to side with their company over the safety of the rest of the world.
This article only just reminded me of a project I did back in school, early '10s, related to waste management within a specific region. In part, I was trying to find data on potential historical and modern sources of point pollution, and in part looking to understand the existing public and private waste management practices, which led me to reach out to a 3M facility within the region.
They never responded. Not even some vague boilerplate nonsense about following the most rigorous ISO standards, or caring for the environment. Sure, I was young and tactless, and I'm sure I could have been much more strategic in my intro/questions. Still, it makes me look back on that in a different light. I'm not sure I even knew what the facility manufactured; now I'm curious!