#bigchem — Public Fediverse posts

How the Planet-Altering Disaster of #ForeverChemicals Was Kept Secret

#3M knew that harmful “forever chemicals” had seeped into people’s blood decades ago and continued making them. A former company scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how a global environmental crisis was kept under wraps.

hosted by Jessica Lussenhop, with reporting by Sharon Lerner
September 3, 2026, 8:22 am

"We now know harmful 'forever chemicals' are likely in the bodies of most people on earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long."

Watch / read / listen:
https://www.propublica.org/podcast/forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-3m-secret-kris-hansen

#ProPublica #3MKnew #PFAS #PFOS #BigChemical #Dow #EnvironmentalDisaster #PFASManufacturers #MakePollutersPay #Pollution #Contamination #BigChem #Cancer #DuPontKnew #DuPontLied #3MLied #DupontdeNemours #DowChemical #c8 #SuperfundSites #WaterIsLife #Scotchguard #Carpeting #FirefightingFoam #FirefightingEquipment #DowChemicalKnew #ThreeM

How the Planet-Altering Disaster of #ForeverChemicals Was Kept Secret

#3M knew that harmful “forever chemicals” had seeped into people’s blood decades ago and continued making them. A former company scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how a global environmental crisis was kept under wraps.

hosted by Jessica Lussenhop, with reporting by Sharon Lerner
September 3, 2026, 8:22 am

"We now know harmful 'forever chemicals' are likely in the bodies of most people on earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long."

Watch / read / listen:
https://www.propublica.org/podcast/forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-3m-secret-kris-hansen

#ProPublica #3MKnew #PFAS #PFOS #BigChemical #Dow #EnvironmentalDisaster #PFASManufacturers #MakePollutersPay #Pollution #Contamination #BigChem #Cancer #DuPontKnew #DuPontLied #3MLied #DupontdeNemours #DowChemical #c8 #SuperfundSites #WaterIsLife #Scotchguard #Carpeting #FirefightingFoam #FirefightingEquipment #DowChemicalKnew #ThreeM

How the Planet-Altering Disaster of #ForeverChemicals Was Kept Secret

#3M knew that harmful “forever chemicals” had seeped into people’s blood decades ago and continued making them. A former company scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how a global environmental crisis was kept under wraps.

hosted by Jessica Lussenhop, with reporting by Sharon Lerner
September 3, 2026, 8:22 am

"We now know harmful 'forever chemicals' are likely in the bodies of most people on earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long."

Watch / read / listen:
https://www.propublica.org/podcast/forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-3m-secret-kris-hansen

#ProPublica #3MKnew #PFAS #PFOS #BigChemical #Dow #EnvironmentalDisaster #PFASManufacturers #MakePollutersPay #Pollution #Contamination #BigChem #Cancer #DuPontKnew #DuPontLied #3MLied #DupontdeNemours #DowChemical #c8 #SuperfundSites #WaterIsLife #Scotchguard #Carpeting #FirefightingFoam #FirefightingEquipment #DowChemicalKnew #ThreeM

How the Planet-Altering Disaster of #ForeverChemicals Was Kept Secret

#3M knew that harmful “forever chemicals” had seeped into people’s blood decades ago and continued making them. A former company scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how a global environmental crisis was kept under wraps.

hosted by Jessica Lussenhop, with reporting by Sharon Lerner
September 3, 2026, 8:22 am

"We now know harmful 'forever chemicals' are likely in the bodies of most people on earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long."

Watch / read / listen:
https://www.propublica.org/podcast/forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-3m-secret-kris-hansen

#ProPublica #3MKnew #PFAS #PFOS #BigChemical #Dow #EnvironmentalDisaster #PFASManufacturers #MakePollutersPay #Pollution #Contamination #BigChem #Cancer #DuPontKnew #DuPontLied #3MLied #DupontdeNemours #DowChemical #c8 #SuperfundSites #WaterIsLife #Scotchguard #Carpeting #FirefightingFoam #FirefightingEquipment #DowChemicalKnew #ThreeM

How the Planet-Altering Disaster of #ForeverChemicals Was Kept Secret

#3M knew that harmful “forever chemicals” had seeped into people’s blood decades ago and continued making them. A former company scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how a global environmental crisis was kept under wraps.

hosted by Jessica Lussenhop, with reporting by Sharon Lerner
September 3, 2026, 8:22 am

"We now know harmful 'forever chemicals' are likely in the bodies of most people on earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long."

Watch / read / listen:
https://www.propublica.org/podcast/forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-3m-secret-kris-hansen

#ProPublica #3MKnew #PFAS #PFOS #BigChemical #Dow #EnvironmentalDisaster #PFASManufacturers #MakePollutersPay #Pollution #Contamination #BigChem #Cancer #DuPontKnew #DuPontLied #3MLied #DupontdeNemours #DowChemical #c8 #SuperfundSites #WaterIsLife #Scotchguard #Carpeting #FirefightingFoam #FirefightingEquipment #DowChemicalKnew #ThreeM

#Dupont Finally Held Accountable for #PFASPollution in Historic Settlement Valued Over $2B

August 4, 2025

Excerpt:
"NJ Sierra Club Chapter Director, Anjuli Ramos-Busot, issued the following statement:

" '#DuPont has been knowingly poisoning our lands and waters for decades. As an entity of chemical innovation, DuPont brought prosperity to New Jersey. But, like with all polluters with a ROI bottom line, the true impact brought to #NewJersey was hidden from us. However, now the contamination from DuPont is so obvious and widespread throughout the state that they can no longer hide. We are now at the point where we have entered the billion-dollar level to clean up #PFAS pollution, which goes to show the severity of contamination. DuPont has finally been held responsible for what they have done to New Jersey, to our public health, and to our environment.

" 'Can we call this justice? Not yet. DuPont has done this across the world and in many other parts of the country. Until all of those sites are cleaned up and PFAS is no longer in our environment or in our blood, then we can call it justice.

" 'Today’s settlement is an incredible and historical achievement for New Jersey. This is the state’s third PFAS settlement with corporate polluters to come in two years, which continues to reinforce that their negligence will no longer be tolerated.

" 'As we face the dismantling of the EPA , rollbacks in PFAS regulations, and the cutting of environmental protections at the federal level, we must step up in New Jersey to protect ourselves and ensure clean drinking water and air for all. We thank Attorney General Platkin and NJDEP Commissioner LaTourette for doing just that, for standing up to the multi-billion dollar chemical industry in an incredible legal fight with one of the titans of the industry, and we urge them to keep the momentum going.' "

Read more:
https://www.sierraclub.org/new-jersey/blog/2025/08/dupont-finally-held-accountable-pfas-pollution-historic-settlement-valued

#DuPontLied #DuPontKnew #DupontdeNemours #BigChem #PFasPollution #ForeverChemicals #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife

Better Living Through Chemistry (slogan)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The phrase 'Better Living Through Chemistry' (BLTC) is a variant of a #DuPont advertising slogan, 'Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry'. DuPont adopted it in 1935 and it was their slogan until 1982 when the 'Through Chemistry' part was dropped. Since 1999, their slogan has been 'The miracles of science'.

The phrase 'Better Living Through Chemistry' was used on products that were not affiliated with DuPont to circumvent trademark infringement.[citation needed] This transmutation is now more commonly used than the original. This statement is used for commentary on several different topics, from the promotion of prescription or recreational drugs, to the praise of chemicals and #plastics, to the sarcastic criticism of the same."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Living_Through_Chemistry_(slogan)

#BigPlastic #BigChem #DuPontLied #PFAS #ForeverChemicals #PlasticPollution #DuPontdeNemours #Vespel #neoprene, #nylon #Corian #Teflon #Mylar #Kapton #Kevlar #Tyvek #Sorona

Inside America’s carpet capital: an empire and its #toxic legacy

Covering the world in carpet came with a cost no one wants to pay

By Dylan Jackson, Jason Dearen and Justin Price, February 5, 2026

"Bob Shaw glared at the executives from the chemical giant #3M across the table from him. He held up a carpet sample and pointed at the logo for Scotchgard on the back.

" 'That’s not a logo,' fumed Shaw, CEO of the world’s largest #carpet company, one attendee later recalled. 'That’s a target.'

"Weeks earlier, 3M Company announced it would reformulate its signature stain-resistance brand under pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency because of human health and #environmental concerns.

"Mills like Shaw’s had been using Scotchgard in carpet production, releasing its chemical ingredients into the environment for decades. And on a massive scale: The shrewd CEO built Shaw Industries from a family firm in Dalton, Georgia, into a globally dominant carpet maker worth billions.

“I got 15 million of these out in the marketplace,” Shaw told his 3M visitors. 'What am I supposed to do about that?'

"A 3M executive replied that he didn’t know. Shaw threw the sample at him and left the room.

"The answer to Shaw’s Scotchgard question from that moment in 2000 would be the same as that of the broader industry. Carpet makers kept using closely related chemical alternatives for years, even after scientific studies and regulators warned of their accumulation in human blood and possible health effects. Customers expected stain resistance; nothing worked better than the family of chemicals known as PFAS.

"A lack of state and federal regulations allowed carpet companies and their suppliers to legally switch among different versions of these stain-and-soil resistant products. Meanwhile, the local public utility in Dalton responsible for ensuring safe drinking water coordinated with carpet executives in private meetings that would effectively shield their companies from oversight.

"Year after year, the chemicals traveled in water discarded during manufacturing from mills across northwest Georgia, eventually reaching a river system that provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people in #Georgia and eastern #Alabama.

"The #pollution is so bad some researchers have identified the region as one of the nation’s PFAS hot spots. Today, the consequences can be found everywhere. PFAS, often called forever chemicals because they can take decades or more to break down, are in the water and the soil.

"They’re in the dust on floors where children crawl, the local #fish and #wildlife, and as ongoing research has shown, the people.

"Doctors have few answers for those like Dolly Baker who live downriver from Dalton’s carpet plants. She recently learned her blood has extraordinarily high PFAS levels.

" 'I feel like, I don’t know, almost like there’s a blanket over me, smothering me that I can’t get out from under,' she said. “It’s just, you’re trapped.' "

Read more:
https://apnews.com/projects/pfas-forever-stained/

#PFAS #Scotchguard #ThreeM #3MKnew #3MLied #BigChem #Accountability #WaterIsLife #CancerCausing #EnvironmentalPollution #ForeverChemicals #Carpeting #WoolRugs #HempRugs #DontTrustBigChem #PFASPollution

Environmental #pesticide exposure and the risk of irritable bowel syndrome: A case-control study

Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology
Volume 98, March 2023, 104076
Lola Rueda-Ruzafa, Pablo Roman, Diana Cardona, Mar Requena, Carmen Ropero-Padilla, Raquel Alarcón

Highlights

• The risk of irritable bowel syndrome is higher in areas of high pesticide exposure.
• Agronomic criteria were used to categorize pesticide exposure in the study population.
• A total of 18,807 cases of irritable bowel syndrome were studied.
• Environmental pesticide exposure is linked to irritable bowel syndrome.

Abstract
The agricultural model in southern #Spain is highly productive, mainly due to the intensive cultivation under plastic. Despite strict pesticide regulation, human exposure to pesticides in the environment has been connected to an increase in diseases such as #CeliacDisease. Certain pesticides have also been associated to the disruption of the intestinal #microbiota, which has been xtied to the development of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). A case-control study was conducted in Andalusia, south #Spain, to assess the prevalence and risk of IBS related to pesticide exposure. This research found a high prevalence of IBS in #Andalusia between 2000 and 2021 in areas with high pesticide exposure using agronomic criteria. Furthermore, the odds ratio for IBS was significantly higher in the population with high pesticide exposure. This study suggests that pesticides may be involved in IBS, whereas more research is needed to determine the role of pesticides in IBS symptomatology.

Excerpts: "[In the locations of the study], the most commonly used insecticides are #organophosphates (primarily chlorpyrifos), N-methylcarbamates, macrocyclic lactones, #neonicotinoids, and pyrethroids. #Fungicides frequently used in plastic greenhouses include (di) thiocarbamates, conazoles, dicarboximide), anilino-pyrimidines, and copper salts. Bipyridyl (paraquat, diquat), organophosphonates (#glyphosate), chlorotriazine, and phenylurea are the herbicides most popularly used in the study areas (García-García et al., 2016)."

[...]

Studies on Rats

"A wide range of environmental pollutants, including heavy metals, insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides, can cause gut dysbiosis (Jin et al., 2015, Lin et al., 2020, Reygner et al., 2016). As suggested in our findings, there is also an increased risk of IBS precisely in pesticide-heavy areas and particularly in women. Previous research have found sexually dimorphic metabolic effect after pesticides exposures (Lukowicz et al., 2018). In this regard, #Roundup®, a glyphosate-based herbicide (#GBH) widely used in Andalusian crops, can increase the #Bacteroidetes group while decreasing the #Lactobacillaceae family in fecal samples of female rats (Lozano et al., 2018). Similarly, chronic glyphosate exposure reduces Corynebacterium, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Lactobacillus in mice following GBH administration (Aitbali et al., 2018). Exposure to fungicides such as imazalil can also alter the composition of the GM after acute and chronic administration. Specifically, in mice, imazalil increases the relative abundance of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria while decreasing the abundance of Bacteroidetes (Jin et al., 2016). Insecticides such as chlorpyrifos, diazinon and aldicarb also disrupt the GM of rats and mice (Aitbali et al., 2018, Gao et al., 2019, Gao et al., 2017, Joly et al., 2013). This modification has been associated with increased intestinal permeability and bacterial translocation in the case of chlorpyrifos (Condette et al., 2014). Diazinon inhibits several SCFA-producing genera in the Lachnospiraceae family, which operate as an energy substrate for colonic epithelial cells, altering energy harvesting in the intestinal epithelium (Gao et al., 2017)."

Read more:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1382668923000170

#IBS #Bayer #ToxicPesticides
#Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg
#BigChem #Poison #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol #Roundup #Glyphosate #Herbicides

#GMOCorn & #Glyphosate: New evidence for precaution from Mexican scientists

March 4, 2025

"Most #corn grown in the U.S. is #GeneticallyModified to tolerate the spraying of #glyphosate-based herbicides. These #herbicides are linked to cancer, endocrine disruption and other health concerns.

"#Mexico banned genetically modified (#GM) corn from use in tortillas in 2023. The #US challenged the policy as an unfair trade practice, claiming Mexico’s precautionary policies were not based on science. In response, Mexico’s national science agency compiled one of the most comprehensive and thorough reviews to date of current scientific evidence showing #HealthRisks associated with production and consumption of the most widely grown crop in the U.S.

"In this webinar, the former director of Mexico’s National Council for Humanities, Science and Technology and the agency’s lead researcher on the topic presented Mexico’s recently released scientific review document. The evidence draws on recent literature to make the case that there are unacceptable health risks from GM corn and glyphosate for Mexican people who consume large quantities of minimally processed corn in food products such as tortillas.

"Dr. #ElenaÁlvarezBuylla, who directed the national science agency for six years, outlined the research carried out to underpin Mexico’s 2023 decree to restrict the use of GM corn in tortillas and other minimally processed corn products, and to phase out the use of glyphosate.

"Erica Hagman Aguilar presented the key findings from the well-referenced 200-page science dossier, which was recently translated into English.

"This webinar was moderated by researcher and writer Timothy A. Wise.

"The discussion was co-hosted with #USRightToKnow, a nonprofit public health research group. It was presented with simultaneous English/Spanish interpretation. "

Learn more / watch [videos available in both English and Spanish]:
https://www.healthandenvironment.org/che-webinars/96960

#EPAFail #FoodWaterWatch #Glyphosate #Bayer #ToxicPesticides #Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg #BigChem #Corruption #Poison #Crapitalism #CapitalismKills #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol