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Up during the fringe, Taylor or Chelsea? Yeah,
during the fringe. Very clever and secretive
in our own ways. Here today to do a Chelsea episode,
so I will leave it to her from here. I don't
know, am I feeling non -secretive enough? Or
too secretive? Well, just don't reveal those
secrets that they gotta pay 10 grand for. Okay,
okay, okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Everything else
can be opened. Hey, Taylor. I got a Taylor episode
for you today, funny enough. I'm the one full
of bad news these days, and that's unfortunate
that I'm feeling so Taylor. Let's talk about
PFAS. Oh, good. And you know what? I asked Siri
about PFAS the other day, and she pronounced
it P -F -A -S. Oh, that's terrible. She's wrong.
Yeah. Okay, good. I was really concerned that
she was right. No. I know you're thinking about
it. I know we're all thinking about PFAS. And
do you like things generally to not stick to
other things? Like things like the food to your
pan or rain on your jacket or red wine on your
couch or clouds to your airplane? I was gonna
say it depends. That's how it works, right? Yeah.
I assume. I don't know, was that a problem in
like the 60s of clouds sticking to airplanes?
Just constantly. That's like the reason the Rafe
brothers only flew for like 100 meters because
the clouds kept getting them and weighing them
down. Yeah, see you're well read on the subject.
Yeah, yeah. I thought you would be. I mean, I
would say sometimes yes. I think that is the
correct way to say that. Sometimes I don't want
things to stick. Sometimes I do want them to
stick. That's true. Sometimes you really want
them to stick and they're not sticking good enough.
Yeah. In which case don't listen to this episode
if you're in that state of mind right now. Come
back when you're feeling like you don't want
things to stick. Or if you want bad news. So
where is this going? Well, I'll tell you. Do
I ever have a Taylor story for you today? Like
I already alluded to you. One that is not only
the origin story of PFOS. but also the story
of Dupont and how they knowingly poisoned probably
everybody in the world. Oh yeah, it's in all
of our blood. Yeah, yeah. We've been talking
about PFAS for a long time, so I assume you already
have a working knowledge of it if you've been
listening to us for any amount of time, because
it comes up quite a lot on how we're basically
made of them at this point. And the only way
to get rid of them is to drain your blood. Not
all of it, just some of it. Just some of it.
Just some. And then you got to keep doing it.
So let's talk about this. The DuPont Company
of Wilmington in Delaware. I don't even know
what that means, but apparently it means something.
Formed back in the 19th century, 1802 to be precise,
by the French -American chemist. Here's a good
pronunciation for you because this name isn't
even a word. Eleutherie? Irene Dupont de Nemours
and this guy dies in 1834 so he doesn't even
have a fucking thing to do with the story and
it's probably for the best that he didn't know
what happened to his company and he has nothing
to do with it so Let's just move on. Over a hundred
years later, DuPont the company is desperately
trying to come up with a less toxic ultra. I'm
just jumping right in. I don't even know what
DuPont does for a hundred years. Unless you know.
They probably just speak French as far as I can
tell. Yeah. Exactly, it doesn't even fucking
matter. The company's desperately trying to come
up with a less toxic alternative than the refrigerant's
methyl chloride and sulfur dioxide. Apparently
pretty toxic. In 1983, Roy J. Plunkett was the
scientist charged with finding the safer way
to cool foods and households throughout the U
.S. It's all about refrigeration. He was experimenting
with tetrafluorothylene, or TFE, which is a pair
of double carbons each bonded with two fluorine
atoms. However, when carrying out one specific
test on the compound, he found that it had spontaneously
polymerized into a white waxy solid, having been
a colourless gas prior. The material turned out
to be an inert fluorocarbon polyfluorothylene.
PTFE, that had super non -stick properties. That's
right, Roy J. Plunkett is the man you can blame
for inventing PFOS, the forever chemical. So,
in 1945, DuPont trademarked the chemical Teflon,
calling it, quote, the most slippery material
in existence, end quote. Then, just three years
later, the firm was producing two million pounds
of the chemical each year in its factory in Pertsburg,
West Virginia. For DuPont, Teflon, which was
used to coat pots and pans, proved to be a gold
mine. Nobody wanted their stuff sticking to their
pans. With sales peaking at roughly a billion
dollars a year in 2004, according to the company's
SEC filings. In 1951, DuPont created pure fluorolotatonic
PFOA acid, which is often referred to as C8,
due to its compound holding 8 carbon molecules.
C8, which is a type of Pifa, went on to be used
to manufacture cling film, pizza boxes, electrical
cables, waterproof clothing, food wrappers, and
more. And like I said before, we've talked about
them before. We'll talk about them again. These
minuscule chemicals are now found in the blood
of most people and animals around the world,
as well as pretty much all our food products.
According to the U .S. Environmental Protection
Agency, exposure to PFAS can lead to harmful
consequences on a person's health. Peer -reviewed
scientific studies have found that exposure to
them can lead to reproductive effects. like decreased
fertility and an increase in high blood pressure
in pregnant women to name a miniscule amount
of things that PFAS cause. It also includes developmental
issues for children including bone variations,
behavioral changes, accelerated puberty, low
birth weights, as well as increasing the risk
of some cancers like kidney, prostate, testicular
versions of the disease. They also interfere
with the body's natural hormones, risk obesity,
increased cholesterol, levels and reduce your
immune system's ability to fight off infections.
To name only a few. There's nothing good that
these things do for you. Yeah, no it doesn't
make you like taller or something like that.
Not in the least, but every effect that it has
on you is negative. It makes you look cooler
to everybody around you. It makes you look cooler.
Oh my god, can you imagine if they tap into something
like that? Even at least cigarettes for a while
at least made you look cooler. That's true. And
it's not like some nutty professor type thing.
We just turn into like this cool guy that everybody
loves. So back to DuPont. They're capitalizing
on poisons. Let's talk about that. The trouble
was that the compound, C8 that is, which has
since been linked to a variety of health risks
including cancer, liver disease, you know, everything
we just talked about right there, developmental
problems, thyroid disease, plus more, escapes
into the air easily. In fact, C8 was often shipped
to factories pre -mixed with water to keep the
dust from workers' lungs. Why pre -mixed, you
ask? Do they know about the effects that these
are causing? Maybe we'll find out. Because it's
an extremely stable chemical, C8 does not biodegrade.
which is a super freaky thing. That's one of
the big problems that we have with it. And it
living in our bodies, literally. Just forever.
Instead, it bioaccumulates, building up in people's
blood over time. So literally, you are just acquiring
more PFAS over time. And if they continue to
drink, if you continue to drink, I'm going to
make this apply directly to you because they're
making you seem like it won't. If you continue
to drink water or breathe air, laced with the
substance. Due to its ubiquitous use, the chemical
can now be found in trace amounts in the bloodstream
of more than 90 % of Americans and even in umbilical
cord blood, breast milk, according to the Center
for Disease Control. Again, this is something
we've covered in many minis. I don't even know
if it's made it into an actual full episode until
now. Um, I think the recycling episode somewhat
speaks to it. The plastic one, yeah. It's also
been found in the blood of seals, eagles, dolphins.
I would go out on a limb to say, yeah, it's everywhere.
They're making it seem like it's not everywhere
because it's naming specific things. Literally,
we can just say it's in everything. There was
a fringy mini recently that we did where it was
that rocks were forming on a remote island in
the middle of the Atlantic of class. Yeah, so
yeah. Plastic bottles are made of this. The chemical
is expected to stay in the environment for thousands
of years. And I would go on a limb to say based
on the information that I just said, that it
bioaccumulates instead of not biodegrading, that
it's gonna be much more than thousands of years
affecting humanity. Concerns about the hazards
posed by Teflon and CA began to garner public
attention only about 15 years ago from this date,
from today, 2025. The company issued a statement
in 2019 about PFAS. So quote, this is from DuPont.
In June 2019, DuPont Demures Inc. was established
as a new multi -industrial specialty products
company. DuPont Demures has never manufactured
PFOA, PFOS, or firefighting foam, it read. While
DuPont is not a PFAS commodity chemical manufacturer,
it does use select PFAS compounds with industrial
processes pursuant to relevant environmental
health and safety rules and standards. Such uses
are necessary to impart specific product performance
criteria and only in products that are essential
to safety and the critical functioning of society.
That wording really makes me angry. Our use of
PFAS is limited and managed as a substance of
concern, brackets SOC, end quote, consistent
with the company's chemical management policy.
Substance of concern. We are currently pursuing
alternatives to PFOS where possible. It continues.
Additionally, we have rigorous systems, processes,
and protocols in place to ensure that PFOS are
used safely, are controlled to the highest standards,
and are minimized in our operations. We support
science -based efforts to develop guidelines
for PFAS and commit to meeting these requirements
in our global operations. We will continue to
ensure our products and processes are fully compliant
with laws and regulations on PFAS. Safety, health,
and protecting the planet are core values at
DuPont. We are committed to continuous improvement
of our chemical stewardship process and to upholding
the highest standards for the safe operation
of facilities and the protection of our environment,
our employees, our customers, and the people
of the communities in which we do business."
End quote. What a bunch of bullshit. That's fun.
Sorry, I'm not spoiling anything from here by
calling that bullshit, but I think you're already
getting the gist of it. By 2003, DuPont had disbursed
almost 2 .5 million pounds of C8 from its Washington
Works plant into the mid -Ohio River Valley area,
according to a peer -reviewed study. The company's
shockingly bad disposal practices occurred before
US environmental laws were first written in the
1970s and included burying toxic waste in drums
along the banks of the Ohio River and dropping
barrels of it out into the open ocean, where
it once caused a scandal when a local fisherman
dredged a barrel up in his nuts. countries. How
many things we just put into the ocean is like,
well, the ocean is the ocean. We'll never have
to worry about it. It's too big. Yeah, it's too
big. Like, it just takes it and then we never
have to think about it again. Or deal with the
repercussions. Like, it's just ocean now. I think
it's off the coast of Britain. They buried in
the ocean all of their, like, war chemicals.
from World War II and there's like we don't have
to worry about them because they're in the ocean
now so exactly they don't belong to us they belong
to no one now in the ocean all the way out there
just remember that when somebody says we have
too much regulation these days we had to put
this into place because people just kept saying
it's the ocean we can put stuff there yeah nobody
even knows what's at the bottom of that thing
it's so big I don't even think there is a bottom
yeah exactly yeah Hence why the ocean is in such
rough shape right now. We're literally killing
the ocean and everything in it. Yeah. I would
maybe call it dead, but like it is dying for
sure. Oh yeah. Which is super sad to think about,
but yeah, here we are. Boy, we're talking plastics.
That's just nice. Yeah. So yeah, and in more
recent decades burying it in local non -hazardous
landfills that is the drums filled with toxic
PFAS. Now information emerging from millions
of pages of internal company reports reveal that
several DuPont scientists and senior staff members
had for many many many many years either known
or at least suspected that C8 was harmful. Yet,
DuPont continued to use the chemical, putting
its own workers, local residents, and the American
public and world and environment at risk. And
the important thing here, when you're making
a profit off it, the suspicions that it's bad
are inconvenient. So we're not going to look
into them. Exactly. Because people over profit
over people. I'm sorry. I got that very very
wrong. Well, no, it's it's not profit over people.
It's profit. Don't look at the other stuff. If
it's not profit, it doesn't matter. And if it
goes against the profit, you cover that up. Don't
worry about it. I'm sure it's fine. Yeah. The
document shows that signs of C8 toxicity began
to emerge very quickly as DuPont scaled up its
Teflon productions in the 1950s. The company
funds its own safety testing laboratory, the
Haskell Laboratory of Industrial Toxicology,
in part to screen workers for signs of illnesses
that might be tied to DuPont products. I'm just
going to add in here because I don't know that
I put it anywhere else. 3M, the company, is also
along for the ride with all of this. Yeah. In
1961, company lab tests linked C8 exposure to
enlarged livers and rats and rabbits. DuPont
scientists then conducted tests on humans, asking
a group of volunteers to smoke cigarettes laced
with C8. Nine out of ten people in the highest
-dose group were noticeably ill for an average
of nine hours with flu -like symptoms that included
chills, backache, fever, and coughing, the researchers
noted. 1961, experimenting on humans. Oh wow,
so they knew this pretty early. They're actually
doing this. Yeah, I know, right? I mean, the
statement that they released in 2019 was just
dripping of bullshit. How were we to know? Yeah,
exactly. How were we to know? We don't have a
precedent of this over 50 years of learning about
it. It's not like we tested it for ourselves.
So, concerns about the potential toxicity of
C8 had been raised internally within DuPont by
at least 1954, leading DuPont's own researchers
to conclude by at least 1961 that C8 was toxic,
and according to DuPont's own toxicology section
chief, should be handled with extreme care at
the very least. So we can continue on. Well,
yeah, but that's only workers. Customers are
fine. I think that's how it works, right? It's
only people like who you have to pay to deal
with it, who have to worry about the health implications,
not people who pay you for it. Yeah, exactly.
Not the people using it for sure. That's how
that works. So this is Bartlett's February 2013
suit against Tupont Allege. So not to spoil anything,
but... It wasn't until the 1970s that DuPont's
researchers began to understand that C8 was building
up in the bloodstreams of workers and soon after
they began to see troubling signs that the chemical
could pose serious health risks. The stakes were
high. The Washington work plant where Teflon
is manufactured was one of the biggest employers
in the region. The plant currently employs more
than 2 ,000 people, 3 ,000 if you include subcontractors
in a sparsely populated Appalachian community
alongside the Ohio River separating West Virginia
from Ohio. In 1981, the company ordered all female
employees out of the Teflon division after two
out of seven pregnant workers gave birth to children
with birth defects. One of those children, Buck
Bailey was born with just one nostril and other
facial deformities that required many painful
surgeries to fix. In 1984, DuPont quietly began
collecting tap water samples from Ohio and West
Virginia, discovering that its chemical C8, PFOA,
had contaminated local water supplies at levels
eight times higher than normal. Internal documents
revealed the company was more concerned about
its public image than public health and deemed
pollution control too costly. Instead of reducing
C8 use, DuPont increased production while continuing
to dump the chemical into the environment. This
is fucked. I'm sorry. I know I wrote these notes,
but this is absolutely fucked. In 1989, many
DuPont employees were diagnosed with cancer and
leukemia. And they're just fucking dumping this
shit into the river. The contamination came to
light in 1998 when West Virginia farmer 1998
they've now been dumping the shit into the environment
30 years 35 years Since what? Where did we start
out? 1945. Oh, 40, yeah. So 50 years almost.
So 1998, a West Virginia farmer, Wilbur Tennant,
sued DuPont after hundreds of his cattle died
due to runoff from a nearby landfill. So he's
living next to a factory. Tennant's lawyer, Robert
Billet, uncovered thousands of pages of internal
documents revealing that DuPont had known about
C8's risk for decades. but kept it secret. The
documents showed alarming internal emails and
reports including concerns about the need for
gas masks and deliberate efforts to downplay
the chemicals risk to regulators. This is fucked
up. So I don't have it in my notes, but I've
been listening to a few things here and there.
There's a lot to this story that we're not going
to cover on here. I'm going to recommend something
for you to listen to at the end if you want to
look into it more. But this this farmers cows
were drinking from this runoff. They were dumping
into the river and their teeth would turn black
and they were essentially the cows were drinking
from this and it killed them and just had these
horrific. effects on these cows, and that's what
tipped this guy off. This actually leads to a
class action lawsuit in 2001 on behalf of 80
,000 people exposed to C8 through their drinking
water. The EPA also sued DuPont, resulting in
a $16 .5 million fine, the largest civil penalty
in the agency's history, still minor compared
to DuPont's profits. At that point you don't
deserve any profits. Who would hope, but that's
not how our system works. No, unfortunately not.
DuPont agreed to a 100 million plus dollar settlement
and funded a large health study. They've been
doing this the whole time. Oh yeah, like 60 years,
right? Yeah. No, they've been studying it the
whole time. Like they clearly know that this
is not good. At the very minimum, they know it's
killing a lot of people and it's not good. Which
makes it worse. Like, why are they studying it
and then not doing anything? Why? Like, why don't
you just say we don't need to study this? Yeah.
Don't spend money on this, yeah. Why spend money
on this when no one's bad? We're just documenting
how bad we know it is. The independent C8 science
panel ultimately linked the chemical to six serious
health conditions, ulcerative colitis, pregnancy
-induced hypertension, high cholesterol, thyroid
disease and testicular and kidney cancers. To
name a few, blood tests from residents showed
C8 levels far above the national average. Thousands
of residents then filed personal injury lawsuits,
including Carla Bartlett, whose 2015 victory
set the tone for future cases. DuPont, meanwhile,
shifted its liabilities to a spin -off company,
Shemmers, and began marketing C8 -free Teflon
products, though the safety of replacement chemicals
remains unclear. I'm sure they know. Yeah, they
apparently do study that for some reason. Just
to make sure they're being evil, I guess. Exactly.
Just to make sure that every non -stick fan is
coded. We don't want it to be environmentally
friendly or to be beneficial in any way. Coded
in so much evil. New possibility to suppress
information for decades was partly due to weak
U .S. chemical regulations. The 1976 Toxic Substances
Control Act, which is the TSCA, if you like to
put things in acronyms, heavily influenced by
industry, and DuPont itself didn't require safety
testing for most chemicals already in use. As
a result, chemicals like C8 remained unregulated
until legal and public pressure mounted. Although
reform efforts have gained momentum, critics
argue proposed changes still fall short of giving
the EPA the power and resources needed to protect
public health, which is a fucked sentence if
you ask me. The story of C8 reveals the deep
flaws in America's chemical safety laws and the
influence of industry on regulation. There are
now a ton of legal things going on around this
in, well, within the last little while. In 2015,
DuPont spun off its chemical division into a
new company, Schemmers, as I kind of mentioned
up above, and later Corteva. Corteva. Cortiva.
Aimed to limit liability for PFAS -related harms.
She pursued DuPont in 2019, claiming that DuPont's
liability estimates were spectacularly wrong.
The case was dismissed in 2020 over procedural
issues. I mean, if anybody does know about the
damage that they could do, technically is the
company who's been researching it for like, I
don't know, 80 years. So maybe we should listen
to them on that. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, though.
I don't know for sure. Yeah, you can't give them
that much damage. We couldn't. We've looked at
it for 80 years. It couldn't hurt that many people.
But what about their bottom line? I don't think
you're getting the most important part. Fuck.
The Environmental Working Group has documented
the decades long deception of chemical companies
like DuPont burying the truth that PFOS build
up in our blood and present risk to human health.
EWG, which is the Environmental Working Group,
I'm sorry I bring that on you like that. Created
a timeline that shows by the 1960s, animal studies
conducted by DuPont revealed that PFAS chemicals
could pose health risks. I mean, you don't need
to convince me at this point. I don't know. I'm
still skeptical. You're still skeptical that
they knew about it? Yeah. You really had to prove
it. For decades, these corporations have knowingly
contaminated our drinking water, food supplies,
and the blood of virtually every person on the
planet. Need I say it again? with these highly
toxic chemicals," said Scott Faber, EWG's senior
vice president for government affairs. It's long
past time that the polluters pay for their malicious
drive toward profits over public health. Way
to go Scott Faber. The binding memorandum of
understanding establishes an immediate cost -sharing
arrangement, including an escrow account worth
upward of $1 billion to cover potential future
legacy PFAS liabilities from before the spinoff.
Under the terms of the agreement, expenses will
be split 50 -50 with DuPont and Cortiva responsible
for half and Schemers responsible for the other
half. Both companies have agreed to share the
cost of certain qualified expenses over a period
of no longer than 20 years or an amount over
$4 billion. separately. DuPont, Corteva, and
Schemers have agreed to settle ongoing matters
in the multi -district PFOA litigation in Ohio
for $83 million. DuPont will contribute $27 million.
Corteva will contribute $27 million. Schemers
will contribute $29 million in the settlement.
And the agreement resolves approximately 95 pending
casings as well as unfiled matters. That's all
I have. This is as every episode of ours is for
the most part. It's literally a skim over of
what is going on right now. And there is a documentary
right now that I want to recommend that is gonna
cover a lot more than what I just went over if
you're interested in it. Is it Aaron Brockovich?
by chance it is not okay it's called dark waters
not what i was just about to say the devil we
may know which is apparently another documentary
that is an investigation documentary of the health
hazards from teflon Probably go watch that. I
might go watch it too. But Dark Waters is the
one that I'm specifically referring to or was
thinking of and it's talking about the legal
fight against DuPont. So the devil we know might
cover it a little bit differently. Dark Waters.
It's all the people bringing against the class
action towards DuPont that was started by that
farmer, if you remember him. But yeah, super
dark. These corporations, in my personal opinion,
These guys just need to be shut down. Yeah. And
like, we need to stress this. Like, you listening
now are impacted by this. This is in your blood
because of them. Like, it's an unfathomable percentage
of people are impacted by this. And just like,
yeah, they still exist. They're still profitable
because this all came and passed. And I mentioned
Erin Brockovich because the movie Erin Brockovich,
that lawyer Erin Brockovich from the movie, who
I keep saying her name a lot. It was 3M is one
of the companies she went after. Oh, it is. Yeah.
Okay. I can't remember Erin Brockovich that well,
Erin Brockovich, but Erin Brockovich did that.
She's actually still very prominent in like these
types of things. Yeah. Is that PFOS as well?
I'm not read up on it. I don't know if it's specifically
that. I had to watch the movie again, but yeah,
me too. It is that this is what she's doing.
At least we know it's 3M. And 3M is along for
the ride with DuPont on this because they were
also using the same chemicals. I just didn't
talk that much about them. Super crazy story.
This is something that the world is gonna be
dealing with, who knows, for the rest of the
world's existence. I don't know, like at least
a thousand years, isn't it? Like minimum? It
said a thousand years in this, but it also said
that it is... It doesn't break down. Like it
doesn't break down. Then it said a thousand years.
So that did not add up to me. It bioaccumulates.
So it doesn't break down. Like you're just gaining
more and more PFAS over your life and henceforth
over the Earth's life. So it's never gonna go
away and it's a poison. It's causing cancers.
It's not conducive to life. It is killing. life,
they dumped it into waterways and oceans. And
yeah, it's everywhere. We were cooking with pans
that are on it. I'm pretty sure we still have
Teflon. It's probably a little bit more regulated
than it used to be now, but everyone was cooking
with it. Everybody had it on their couch. Everybody
had it in the takeout and the plastic bottles
that they were using. It was advertised as a
good thing they could upcharge for. Yeah. Remember
those commercials? Oh no, I spilled wine on my
couch and it just slid off. It didn't absorb
into the couch at all. It's poison! It's gonna
kill ya! But that was in the five - No, it wasn't
in the five print because they technically weren't
investigating it at that point. Yeah. But it
also had been for like 60 years almost. Exactly.
We've known about this for a long long time.
Which is fucked. And just about surmises everything
that's wrong with corporations that run the universe
at this point. And I just, wow, I didn't suspect
I would be the positive one this week. I know,
and last week. Yeah. Son of a bitch. But here
we are. Yep. It's me now. Just happened to make
sense of the world, and yeah, like, if you need
it, like, I think it's probably important to
remind everybody, technically, you can get rid
of some of the PFOS in your body by donating
plasma. That has been shown to have no good effect.
What about just blood? Just blood, okay? It still
helps, it's not as good. Because you technically
filter more of your blood when you do a plasma
donation than you do with blood donation. Son
of a bitch. So, here's a Chelsea problem. The
only plasma donation center is so far from me.
So I can only conveniently donate blood, so this
makes no sense. Ask them to do more and they
give you some of it back. Can you please filter
this and give it back? Okay, next time. I'm sure
they'll be receptive to that. And for more tips
for your local blood donation clinic, I have
been Taylor. You were Chelsea. We are Journey
to the Fringe. Thank you all for listening. We'll
see you next week. Bye. Thank you for listening
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