PFOA, PFOS, MCLs, SCWO, and other PFAS acronyms: How to report on the “forever chemicals” soup
Everywhere you look, there’s news about the harmful effects of forever chemicals found in everyday household items and foods. During a lightning talk at Health Journalism 2024, STAT News Health Tech Reporter Brittany Trang broke down per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.” PFAS can have damaging effects on human health and can linger in their environments.
Displaying a model of the molecule, Trang described the acronym as a “bunch of fancy ways of saying molecules that have a bunch of fluorines on them.” Carbon-fluorine bonds are very strong and stable, and they don’t want to stick to other things, which is why they are used in many non-stick products, like Teflon. “This bond is not found in nature that often, and our bodies don’t know what to do with it,” Trang said.
When forever chemicals enter the body, they end up in places where they shouldn’t be and accumulate, and that’s when they start causing health problems. These chemicals have been linked to thyroid and liver disease, kidney and testicular cancer, low birth weights, birth defects, hypertension and even decreased vaccine response. There are thousands of identified forever chemicals, and Trang said there could even be millions.
Trang, a scientist-turned-journalist who earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Northwestern University where she helped develop per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) remediation methods, said forever chemicals are almost ubiquitous. They help make products with convenient properties and can be found in popcorn bags, paper straws, waterproof outdoor gear and dental floss. But that’s just a partial list. As consumers, we should not have to make individual choices to avoid forever chemicals, she said, and offered a guide (below) to help journalists look in the right places to ask questions.
Forever chemicals have also been the subject of multi-billion-dollar lawsuits and new EPA regulations. While lawsuits, like 3M’s $10 billion settlement for polluting with forever chemicals in multiple states, may seem like a whole lot of money for environmental justice communities, it’s not nearly enough money to fix the problem. In Minnesota alone, it would be $14-28 billion to remove forever chemicals from polluted areas. Trang asks us to think about what liability looks like when it comes to forever chemical pollution and to investigate what polluters knew at the time of release.
