Hacker News Reader

Comment by agtech_andy | Hacker News Reader

What will become clear over the next 5 years is the extent to which the worldwide environment is polluted with PFAS.

Given how much PFAS has been found in remote corners of the world, I think it is safe to assume that most of the world has been touched by PFAS. Everywhere humans try to find PFAS, we find it. The reason we hear about it so often now is that we are checking for it everywhere. And like the article describes, there are new PFAS being discovered all the time.

This is a generational issue.

View on HN

It's actually fascinating just how much power private business has to keep their chemical lists private _now_, in the _past_ and concievably in the future.

The fact that we can't just ask them "what were you chemically making 20 years ago" is really an absurd blackhole in regulatory frameworks.

Basically, even the leading edge regulatory frameworks tackling PFAS are doing so _after it's polluted things_ and has _no idea_ what they're associated with, other than large scale manufacturing, 3M, etc.

On the one hand, it's easy to understand since manufaturing has so many different components, but a sheer "there's clearly chemists somewhere, making this shit up and detailing what they're doing" issue, it's pathetic.

It's not pathetic, it's a collection issue. Estimate the cost of setting up that regulatory framework, and the cost of that reporting on the businesses themselves, and you'll quickly understand why it hasn't been done. Even the cost of estimating, is itself a cost. Without proper awareness of the issue and incentive to fix, a lack of that information isn't anything other than a natural consequence of reality.

> Without proper awareness of the issue and incentive to fix

They were aware, and the incentive to fix was there. There have been consistent and sustained attempt to cover up these issues for decades, because of sheer greed.

So greed was the strongest incentive? That means they weren't properly incentivized.

No wonder cancer is on the rise

What do you base this on?

cancer being on the rise

Reply on news.ycombinator.com