I for one look forward to the check from DuPont that will surely cover all this.
The spin they put on this is that "it is possible for these chemicals to be used safely", but the parameters for safe use are not realistic in the real world.
The fine print on your frying pan or waterproofing contains legal get outs that are unrealistic.
Nevermind the fact most paper straws, fast food wrappers (McDonalds) and others are lined with these chemicals.
They knew. They knew they don't break down, bio-accumulate and cause health issues, but still tell the world they can be safely used.
Jail them all.
I knew something was off about those paper straws...but they put PFAS in them?? It's like we're saying: copper is too damaging when mined, let's replace our water pipes with lead.
Not sure about paper straws specifically, it's put in paper based fast food containers as a waterproofing/greaseproofing agent.
Then McDonalds and many others, via packaging companies, greenwashed to paper looking containers lined with PFAS type materials.
The paper degrades and leaves the sealant in the environment.
Sickening really, given they know this happens. But if you can't see it happen, hey, better than polystyrene because it is easier to get away with.
At least my burger box seems greener.
Plastic doesn't seem so bad now eh?
What world are you living in that has "fine print" on pans? The pans I bought recently certainly doesn't have them, probably because the PFAS/PFOS risk is only there during manufacture, not usage.
That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_fume_fever
Any non stick pan comes with a warning you can’t use it in the same house/building as pet birds. Just like canaries in a coal mine, birds are highly susceptible to things which are also dangerous to humans. Just because it doesn’t kill you dead within minutes of turning on the burner does not make it safe.
source? The guidance from the FDA contradicts your claim
>Some PFAS are approved for use in the manufacture of non-stick cookware coatings. These coatings are made of molecules that are polymerized (i.e., joined together to form large molecules) and applied to the cookware through a heating process that tightly binds the polymer coating to the cookware. Studies show that this coating contains a negligible amount of PFAS capable of migrating to food. Similarly, the PFAS used in manufacturing of gaskets that come into contact with food do not pose a safety risk because they are also made of molecules that are polymerized.
https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/questions...
Like giving people a drink that can only be stored below 5C or it may become dangerous. Is your fridge exactly always below 5C? Mine isn't.
Hence the material being dangerous under normal conditions.
Do you cook steak with a thermometer on the pan?
I'm sure plenty of people sear steak in a non-stick pan.
(a) do not heat above 220C (b) do not use metal utensils
This isn't because they think these things won't happen (they know they will, and you do too). And it isn't because they want to ensure the longevity of your pan (the opposite is true). It's because they can say that the pan was used incorrectly, as highlighted by FDA testing parameters, and therefore liability for any ingesting of hazardous material is the user's problem.
Now, on the scale of things, probably the obesity epidemic due to sedentary life styles, sugar, etc. is 10-100x more of a societal health issue, but it’s harder to blame someone else for that.
Are they the same thing though? The "PFAS contaminated water" are from chemical plants or firefighting foam. That's not exactly the same thing as the polymerized coatings that's on pans. They're all vaguely PFAS adjacent, but people seem to be lumping the fumes (from burning their pans), the coating itself, and the precursor chemicals as if it's one thing, which probably isn't correct. paraffin, gasoline, and plastic are all petroleum adjacent, but they're all vastly different chemicals with different safety profiles. They all might be bad for you, but for different reasons. Just because plastic might be leeching chemicals that give you breast cancer, doesn't mean that you're going to get breast cancer from touching candles.
This is true, PFOS is not the same as PFAS, but the media already is fear mongering enough that politicians and juries are thinking it’s all the same. This is probably analogous to what happened with nuclear science, where the risks were worth it but we opted for more dangerous technology because of fear.
It's only $4,000 because the court saw clear evidence that the value of my home was damaged, but couldn't assign damages based on an increased risk of cancer; I would have had to actually get cancer to sue successfully for damages there.
For context, the old USDA/EPA threshold for health hazards was 70 ppt, new June 2022 directives say "negative health effects may occur with concentrations of PFOA or PFOS in water that are near zero and below EPA’s ability to detect at this time."
Too late to edit...
If ten million people have been negatively affected by PFOS (surely an undercount) then that's a fat US$179 per person.
"Okay, so force them to pay a portion of future profits."
Ah, the Purdue Pharma solution. But is everything else that DuPont making known to be harmless? If we discover a PFOS-2 in ten years, should they be required to keep making it in order to pay off the victims of PFOS-1?
The problem with taking over a company to operate it in the national interest is that a country can be tempted to continue operating it in the national interest. In 1947, the UK nationalized all its coal mines. In 1966, a coal mining waste pile collapse and killed 116 children and 28 adults.
Nobody was ever prosecuted, and no person ever went to jail. What was the government going to do, punish itself?
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/02/1082871843/rich-companies-are...
> Here's how the maneuver worked. First, last October, J&J spun off a subsidiary in Texas called LTL.
> Then, using a wrinkle in Texas state law, J&J was able to transfer all of the potential liability linked to the tsunami of baby powder asbestos claims into the shell of the new company, while keeping valuable assets separate.
> LTL then quickly filed for bankruptcy in North Carolina. That move immediately halted the baby powder cases, which could remain on hold for months or years.