The problem is 3M scientists have know toxicity to human and have withheld the information to the public and regulators. Since 1970s.
* We use silk dental floss (we use Radius)
* We use glass storage containers instead of Tupperware
* For cooking, we use All-Clad.
* If a recipe calls for non-stick (e.g., pancakes) I use a braiser from Le Creuset, which works reasonably well.
(Edited: formatting)
1: https://www.mamavation.com/beauty/toxic-pfas-dental-floss-to...
A few examples:
- food containers coated with PFAS (usually single use, often cardboard) - water-repellent PFAS spray for clothes, shoes, cars/whatever - surface PFAS treatment of clothes/shoes/whatever (better but still rubs off) - PFAS bike-chain lube
Why are any of these things legal? They cause much more exposure, by design cannot be contained and spread PFAS everywhere you go. They are the reason there are PFAS in snow on Mt. Everest.
Pans, medical tubes and maybe even inner layers in clothes can at least theoretically be responsibly disposed of, e.g. by reasonably contained incineration. I don't want to support unneeded PFAS, but pans seem a whole different category than spray-on PFAS for "weather-proofing" that people use because shrug "it helps I get less wet".
As a non-chemist I don't claim to have a comprehensive understanding, but as far as I can tell: PTFE (Teflon) is found in consumer products today, and has not been directly linked to cancer yet, i.e if you eat teflon (and you have) it will supposedly just pass through your gut in an inert fashion. PFOA and more generally PFAS are used to manufacture PTFE, these are known carcinogens according to independent studies and (allegedly) internally by 3Ms own research, unfortunately PFOA is also in your blood and my blood, not because you ate teflon from a frying pan, but because once it's in the environment it doesn't get broken down, and so inevitably we end up ingesting it.
The reason we have to generalise to the group of chemicals "PFAS", is because once PFOA specifically was found to be problematic companies looked for similar alternatives, but these have also found to cause similar issues.
To complicate matters the PTFE in your non-stick frying pan can also releases PFOA if heated high enough, supposedly the threshold is around 300 degrees C, however it has been found that this threshold varies between products and can be realistically reached under in "normal" cooking scenarios, but usually when someone accidentally dry heated a frying pan too much, or is just plain cooking on too high a temperature. The side effects of being exposed to PFOA in this way are supposed to feel similar to catching a cold that disappears fairly quickly, and is often mistaken as such, I presume this is because it's vaporised.
Even knowing all this (that provided you don't nuke your cookware it likely makes no personal difference) I've still decided to personally go down the stainless steel route, it's not very scientific, but the relationship between PTFE and PFOAs is close enough, and it flakes off my frying pans frequently enough that I've decided I don't want to keep on ingesting it only to find out later that it's also a problem. Although stainless is not hazard free, because you can get problems with metals leaching into the food and have to be careful with acidity, and also make sure you buy high quality pans. They also require more skill to cook with without destroying them, but ultimately last indefinitely if you can take care of them.
The main problem with continuing to use PTFE in products is the indirect cost to the environment and human health through the "externalities" of manufacturing.
You can get it on Amazon too - price is the same as Glide, Reach, etc.
>They [PFAS] are used in all kinds of products that I personaly use everyday from pans to dental floss.
Perfluorooctanoic acid enhances colorectal cancer DLD-1 cells invasiveness through activating NF-κB mediated matrix metalloproteinase-2/-9 expression
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4637576/
I just do not understand how people can be so "whatever" about this stuff. It is sad and infuriating.
Instead, government should require disclosure of new chemicals, tax the chemical industry (or use general fund), and perform its own studies on new chemicals.
Sometimes I send them back and ask for another; always I remove the straw quickly.
And why don't you just ask for a drink without a straw instead of removing it later?
In short, industrials chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. That's great for the justice system. It's a complete clusterfuck for Mother Nature and all her creatures, including humans.
There are so many guns in the US, and we hear about rogue snipers and school shooters, but never about one guy that decided a CEO should pay for his bad deeds in blood.
Maybe it shows that the average human being is quite stable and peaceful?
We are also very far removed from nature and death. Most of us fear death and do everything to avoid it. Few of us have any experience in killing.
It's easy to get a gun and kill someone in broad daylight. But you have to be really motivated to overcome all that I mentioned and accept the consequences.
The chemicals in question have stopped being made for decades by 3M.
3M manufactured a non-stick coating used by thousands of companies on thousands of different products. What is the end game here? They never produce teflon again and industries like biomedical suffer?
For new inventions (not well-known issues), it would be far better to be fast-reacting and no-fault rather than slow-reacting with vengeance.
Run studies as the use of the chemicals scales up and start raising warnings early so the company has time to collect more information and adapt formulas or applications. As the costs become apparent, start placing those costs on the companies ahead of time rather than 50 years later. That will sort out who really needs the new chemical, versus who just wants to spray it everywhere.
Part of the issue, and why this is 'existential', is that 3M appears to have known about the issues and deliberately hid the studies from the government or downplayed them. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst... citing https://theintercept.com/2018/07/31/3m-pfas-minnesota-pfoa-p... where you can read:
] A lawsuit filed by Minnesota against 3M, the company that first developed and sold PFOS and PFOA, the two best-known PFAS compounds, has revealed that the company knew that these chemicals were accumulating in people’s blood for more than 40 years. 3M researchers documented the chemicals in fish, just as the Michigan scientist did, but they did so back in the 1970s. That same decade, 3M scientists realized that the compounds they produced were toxic. The company even had evidence back then of the compounds’ effects on the immune system, studies of which are just now driving the lower levels put forward by the ATSDR, as well as several states and the European Union.
For a large company like 3M, the goal isn't to figure out who really needs the new chemical, it's to figure out how to profit the most from that chemical. And who will fund all the testing required? I can just hear the cry of "too much government paperwork" and "bureaucratic obstacles in the way of the innovation and the free market."
The blame game gives the politicians and bureaucrats a nice excuse for inaction, and not much else. And 50 years later it just looks ridiculous.
Sure, if someone does something bad, blame may be a part of the response. But you need good outcomes first and foremost, not bad outcomes and blaming.
What does this actually mean? It's just showing off a big number without giving any real context. 3M is the only manufacturer of tons of important materials as I understand it, so it's not like they can just get erased from the market. But what does accountability actually mean in this context?
1. The US government 2. Bondholders 3. Equity shareholders
3M has plenty of assets to be distributed to the creditors - the manufacturing capabilities that you mention, intellectual property, relationships with purchasers. These assets might be sold directly on the market (this is easier with physical assets like manufacturing labs). A new corporation with new management might be established to handle liquidating the assets, or even running the business (this is what happened with FTX). Either way, it seems like bondholders and shareholders alike would get zero'd out and the US government could do what it want with 3M's assets.
To answer your question succintly: > 3M is the only manufacturer of tons of important materials as I understand it, so it's not like they can just get erased from the market
3M is a corporation and one of their assets is their ability to manufacture tons of important materials. 3M the corporation would be obliterated but their ability to manufacture tons of important material would likely be sold off.
That won't happen, but wouldn't it be nice if it did? Just once.
At a minimum it reduces inflation a tiny bit which helps everyone.
The private markets are great, but cannot be trusted to clean up after their own mess - they have proven this time and time and time again. The taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook for this payout, and that's simply unacceptable.
If the public has to bail out this company, at the very least, the board and C-Suite need to be liquidated and be fined substantially for this sort of behavior. They've known about the danger of these chemicals for almost 60 years, and not once did they (AFAIK) go to the government and actively ask for help to replace said chemicals with safer alternatives that don't literally last forever if consumed.
Seems to me that would make them as whole as possible, while retaining 3M's ability to manufacture other crucial products.
Scientists, regulators and legislatures should decide what the rules are and then hold companies accountable for actually breaking the rules.
That said, if 3M knew about and covered up known health effects, then take em for all they're worth.
From the perspective of a driver, this fits: i am held responsible for harm i cause even if i was otherwise driving lawfully. But should my car maker be held responsible for the harm their car caused under lawful use?
Toxicity is a wide spectrum so the truth could be somewhere in between. Maybe teflon coated products don't have enough to be toxic, but dumping the chemicals wholesale into the water supply is enough to be toxic. And 3M could have concealed this high-dosage toxicity from regulators. (I'm trying to reconcile "3M scientists have know toxicity to humans" and the fact that these chemicals aren't banned)
They're being sued for selling products they knew to be toxic, without disclosing that information, which is already against the law.
https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/06/08/critics-s...
Additional info: https://www.millerandzois.com/products-liability/3m-combat-a...
I am curious about this because they did to chemistry what (? the nuclear bomb programmes?) did to physics?
This that I have seen happen against computer technology during my short time on earth so far (related: "war on general purpose computers").
...that for the sake of safety (you wouldn't want randos making TNT? then nuclear bomb... now computer malware or 'dangerous' AI tools?) a way is found to make knowledge inaccessible (for safety's sake)
on the level of reasoning i'm seeking, 3M is one of many examples of an older 'deeper' practice around knowledge, accessibility, government, organization-constructing, etc...
We go to war over terror attacks. And for this, we probably won't even bankrupt 3M, nor DuPont.
To my mind, it brings into question what qualifies as terrorism. Is it not terrorism if many people die to push the stock price up when it's terrorism if many people die for some other selfish end?
You may recall Exxon's famous memos from the 60s or 70s when they realized that continued use of fossil fuels was going to incinerate the planet.
I don't see such a big difference in intent. I think it's more that terrorist groups have people that do what they do for selfish reasons very directly. And corporate groups have people that do what they do for selfish reasons in a way where they are acting on behalf of shareholders' greed, and they aren't really directly harming anyone right now. So it's very indirect. But the intent is kind of similar morally - personal gain at the cost of crimes against humanity, right?
We're out own worst enemies and greed is so often the issue.
Blaise Pascal
It'd be better if 3M received a penalty (severe but manageable over time) and mandate to set a higher bar for industry practices (or risk further consequences).
Govt is far too slow to regulate.
Lawyers will win in the end regardless of what happens.
And giving either is a good thing, so if this can mean people will give 2 or 3 times a year, everybody wins.
