lawn02

Maybe? But how would you know, if the acceptable upper limit is defined in parts per trillion. You'd need lab grade instruments to even detect if the Brita filter is working to spec, which considering how cheap it is, is probably not something done in QC. I'd probably rely on ZeroWater for something like this but even then I would have doubts and assume my water has some unacceptable level of PFAS.

I believe so. I don't see how a plant would be able to push these molecules out with the xylem alone. It would require a sort of filtration that separates hydrogen from oxygen and reforms them at the target site, and then deny all other molecules, which I don't believe is something we've seen in plant life.

Except this is how laypeople perceive chemicals when they react to them as a (possible) threat. They conflate "chemical" with a compound beyond natural complexity. Humans excel at creating compounds that naturally do not naturally occur in abundance for thermodynamic reasons. Chlorofluorocarbons come to mind immediately.

So how is it scaremongering? It is both accurate (PFOAs, etc are indeed chemicals) and of the proper connotation in the common parlance (using "chemical" to mean something manmade rather than naturally occurring).

Your argument holds no water.

By the way, an article in Scientific American isn't scientific literature. It's a magazine intended at lay audiences. You might be confusing it with something like Nature journal.

Despite Biden traditionally being a corporatocratic right-of-center Dem, it is possible that this progressive wave in opposition to Trump is so powerful that Biden will placate it in order to save face. We might witness "meme magic" in the making, in other words.

I don't rely on Biden to decide, of his own volition, on the right solution to anything, but the anti-Trump energy is so strong right now that perhaps he will be far more progressive than we would soberly expect. Let us hope for the best.

What an unhelpful comment. The phrasing is defined in the article

>These compounds may take hundreds, or even thousands, of years to break down in the environment. They can also persist in the human body, potentially causing health problems.

It is clear that this means "Teflon" and similar molecules that aren't processed biologically. "Forever chemicals" here is excellent phrasing. They in fact last an indefinite amount of time in the ecosystem, and they are "chemicals" in that they are not naturally occurring.

For you to insist this is fearmongering is disingenuous and you should feel ashamed. This isn't at all the same as calling water "dihydrogen monoxide" and hyping up fear of "chemicals". There is in fact an active industry that promotes the production of these compounds for reasons of profit, and the externalities thereof are not at all taken into account by the mainstream understanding.