In West Virginia, the Tennant family who owned about 200 cattle noticed something was very wrong when their cattle started dying. After DuPont, a chemical company turned a plot near their farm into a private landfill, the animals owned by the family started falling sick.
The case against the chemical company, which was settled in 2000, revealed that the company has been using the land to dispose of sludge that contained a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid. This chemical was used in the manufacturing of Teflon and hence, was ending up in the water supply of the area.
DuPont is not the only company that has been using these chemicals. Since the 1940s, after it was manufactured, many companies have heavily been using PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) because of their ability to repeal liquids like oil and water.
Phil Brown is a professor of sociology and health sciences at Northeastern University. He said “You have it in your blood. Ninety-eight per cent of us have it in our blood at various levels.”
Professor Brown studies the impact of PFAS chemicals on health and the environment. According to him, these chemicals prevail in day to day products that one uses like, personal-care and household products, food, water, and air. These constant prevailing chemicals are very harmful as they may pose a risk to the human body. Major diseases like cancer, thyroid conditions, other auto-immune diseases, and kidney diseases may be triggered by these chemicals.
“They’re called ‘forever chemicals’ because they stay in the environment,” Brown says. “They get recycled into the food we eat, the milk we drink, the dust that we breathe, and there’s no end to how long they’re going to stay around. We’ll be constantly re-exposed to them.”
“Every day we’re finding new sources,” Brown says. “We knew that these were in a lot of carpets, in stain-resistant fabric. They’re in many places, like pizza boxes, microwave popcorn, dental floss.” Apart from these products, PFAS are regularly found in products like paints, water repellents, non-stick products, cleaning products, food packaging, fire fighting foams, etc. We are constantly in contact with these chemicals through these daily usage products and hence these are called “forever chemicals”.
Disha Mazumder
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