#bigchem — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bigchem, aggregated by home.social.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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#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.' "
#DuPontLied #DuPontKnew #DupontdeNemours #BigChem #PFasPollution #ForeverChemicals #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife
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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
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Chemical in #Roundup that causes brain damage found in common #cereals, new study finds
December 5, 2024 | Vivek Saxena
"Brief exposure to a weed killer found in breakfast cereals, oats, and orange juice has been shown to cause damage to the human body and brain.
"The weed killer, glyphosate (also known as Roundup), 'is the most widely used herbicide in the US,' according to the Center for Environmental Health.
" 'It is the most commonly used pesticide [#herbicide] in parks and is even found in foods that adults and kids love,' the center notes.
"Yet a new study conducted by Arizona State University researcher Ramon Velazquez and his team has found that active exposure to glyphosate 'can result in significant #BrainInflammation, and increase the risk of #neurodegenerative disease and #Alzheimer’s-like effects,' as reported by Arizona State University (#ASU).
" 'Our work contributes to the growing literature highlighting the brain’s vulnerability to glyphosate,' Velazquez said in a statement. 'Given the increasing incidence of #CognitiveDecline in the aging population, particularly in rural communities where exposure to glyphosate is more common due to large-scale #farming, there is an urgent need for more basic research on the effects of this herbicide.'
" 'My hope is that our work drives further investigation into the effects of glyphosate exposure, which may lead to a reexamination of its long-term safety and perhaps spark discussion about other prevalent toxins in our environment that may affect the brain,' additional study author Samantha Bartholomew added.
"The study involved testing both a high dose and low dose of glyphosate exposure on mice, with the lower dose being around the level that’s found in common foods like cereal and orange juice. While the high dosage dose caused issues, so did the lower dose.
" '[The] lower dose still led to harmful effects in the brains of mice, even after exposure ceased for months,' according to ASU. 'While reports show that most Americans are exposed to glyphosate daily, these results show that even a short period could potentially cause neurological damage.'
"A previous study commissioned by #MomsAcrossAmerica in 2017 found that one of the most popular #OrangeJuices in America, #Tropicana, also contains glyphosate.
" 'The discovery of glyphosate residue in orange juice is unacceptable, especially since a branch of the World Health Organization designated glyphosate a probable #carcinogen two years ago, back in the spring of 2015,' Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt said in a statement at the time.
" 'The EPA has had ample time to revoke the license of this chemical and restrict its use in our food and beverage crops. As confirmed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, our children (who frequently drink orange juice for breakfast) are especially vulnerable to pesticides and measures should be taken immediately to protect them,' she added.
"What remains to be seen is how the upcoming Trump Environmental Protection Agency will deal with this." [We know how that went!!! More #EPAFails!]
#EPAFail #Bayer #ToxicPesticides
#Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg
#BigChem #Corruption #Poison #Crapitalism #CapitalismKills #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol #Roundup #Glyphosate #BreakfastCereals #OrangeJuice -
From 2016 - #Glyphosate pesticide found in popular #Cereals
#CEH’s independent testing of a variety of American #cereals found many common brands of conventional products contained residue levels of the weed killer glyphosate. This toxic chemical has been shown to cause birth defects in laboratory animals and disrupt hormone function. Recently, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen.”
What is glyphosate?
Glyphosate, also known as Roundup, is the most widely used herbicide in the US. It is the most commonly used pesticide in parks and is even found in foods that adults and kids love.Is glyphosate hazardous for kids?
Absolutely. The Guardian said it best: “Because a child’s developing body is more sensitive to exposure than adults and takes in more of everything – relative to their size, children eat, breathe, and drink much more than adults – they are particularly vulnerable to these toxic chemicals.” (Source: The EU and Glyphosate: It’s Time to Put Children’s Health Before Pesticides)What foods are grown using glyphosate?
Corn and soybeans are commonly grown using Roundup, but is also used on hundreds of other crops. Glyphosate is sometimes used to dry out oats just prior to harvest.What foods are contaminated with glyphosate?
The best way to avoid glyphosate is by knowing which foods contain it. Since oats can be prepared for harvest using the pesticide Roundup, oat cereals were the likely culprit.CEH recently tested a variety of cereals and found glyphosate contamination in the following products:
Cereal Results:*
Beech-Nut Oatmeal (baby) 735 ppb
Beech-Nut Organic Oatmeal (baby) none detected
Cascadian Farms Organic Honey Nut O’s none detected
Comforts Apple & Oatmeal with Cinnamon Baby Food Puree none detected
Gerber Single Grain Oatmeal (baby) 545 ppb
Great Value O’s Oat Cereal 1220 ppb
Post Honey Bunches of Oats-Crunchy Honey Roasted none detected
Honey Nut Cheerios 557 ppb
Trader Joe’s Joe’s O’s Toasted Whole Grain Oats Cereal 672 ppb
Kroger Toasted Oats Cereal 346 ppb
Market Pantry Toasted Oats Whole Grain Oat Cereal 826 ppb
Malt O Meal Marshmallow Mateys (cereal) 303 ppb
Quaker Life Original Multigrain Cereal (cereal) 1254 ppb
Quaker Oatmeal Squares with a hint of Brown Sugar (cereal) 2015 ppb
Signature Kitchens Honey Nut Toasted Oats 762 ppb*These results are consistent with a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study of oatmeal (300 – 1670 ppb of glyphosate).
Other Results:
Enfamil Prosobee Soy For Sensitive Tummy Formula none detected
Gerber Graduate Cereal Bars Strawberry Banana 142 ppb
Nature Valley Soft Baked Oatmeal Squares Cinnamon Brown Sugar (bars) 39 ppb
Similac Soy Isomil For Fussiness & Gas Formula none detected
Up&Up Soy Infant Formula with Iron none detectedHow concerned should I be about CEH’s test results?
Very concerned. The research into glyphosate exposure shows that these substances can alter and damage the delicate functions of our bodies’ natural hormones, making them part of a group of chemicals known as endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs.Is it difficult to avoid glyphosate-contaminated food?
You can avoid this toxic chemical by buying organic cereals! Glyphosate is not used in the production of organic food. CEH recently tested two organic cereal products and neither were contaminated with glyphosate.A more permanent solution is to get dangerous chemicals like glyphosate and other hormone disruptors banned. Add your name now.
What is the takeaway here?
Toxic glyphosate is avoidable in most cases. Whenever possible, buy organic cereals."Source:
https://ceh.org/glyphosate-herbicide-found-popular-cereals/#EPAFail #Bayer #ToxicPesticides
#Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg
#BigChem #Corruption #Poison #Crapitalism #CapitalismKills #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol #Roundup #Glyphosate #Herbicides #CenterForEnvironmentalHealth #SoyProducts #BabyFood #InfantCereals