#PFAS are forever?

How the #ChemicalIndustry is fighting back against regulation

13.07.2023

"Corporate Europe Observatory uncovers the story of how the toxics industry is fighting back against the upcoming regulation of PFAS or 'forever chemicals', which are found in everything from frying pans to food packaging. Using access to documents requests and LobbyFacts data we show how chemical companies paint themselves as reasonable, concerned actors, whilst at the same time privately pushing hard for exemptions for their own PFAS products, and warning in dramatic terms of the economic fallout of banning them. Meanwhile the real catastrophe – the impacts on human health and the environment – as well as the costs of clean up, continue apace.

"The companies producing PFAS knew for decades about the toxicity of these chemicals, but they chose to do nothing about it. Recent academic analysis of previously secret documents from DuPont and 3M shows that companies knew PFAS were 'highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested' by 1970, 40 years before the public health community. The analysis further notes that the industry used several strategies also common to #tobacco, #pharma, and other industries to influence science and regulation, including 'suppressing unfavorable research and distorting public discourse'.

"According to documents analysed by the news show #Zembla, #DuPont knew 30 years ago that it was seriously contaminating the groundwater under the #Dordrecht plant in the #Netherlands and in the surrounding area with large quantities of toxic and carcinogenic PFAS. Sidenote In 2022 it was recommended not to eat vegetables or fruit coming from gardens within a one kilometre radius of this PFAS factory."

https://www.corporateeurope.org/en/pfas-are-forever

#ChemicalManufacturers #ChemicalIndustries #DowKnew #ZemblaKnew #DuPontKnew #ForeverChemicals

@jotbe "Tatiana Santos, the head of chemicals policy at the European Environmental Bureau, said: 'The #EU’s failure to control harmful #chemicals is written in the contaminated blood of almost all Europeans. Every delay brings more suffering, sickness and even early deaths. The EU’s regulatory retreat could be the nail in the coffin of the European green deal, fuelling cynicism about untrustworthy elites doing deals with big #toxic lobbies, unless the commission makes good on its promise to detox products and stand up to polluters.'"
#ForeverChemicals #PFAS #ToxicChemicals #DowKnew #BASFKnew