Forever Chemicals – the gift that keeps on killing

As Trump tosses regulations, PFAS – the “forever chemicals” continue their killing spree.  Humans and animals already have them in our blood. Colorado Hill reporter Sharon Udasin new book “Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America”. What really moves people to climate action? Penn scientists led by Allysa “Allie” Sinclair tell all in their new paper “Behavioral interventions motivate action to address climate change”. Brain tools on Radio Ecoshock.

Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

From Teflon pans to fire-fighting foam, stable chemicals that don’t burn or stick to anything are great. People sprayed PFAS-type products on couches and carpets for stain resistance. We welcomed them in because governments, corporations, and the military all hid their studies showing PFAS’s cause lots of cancer and a whole host of other deadly diseases. You have some in your body. They build up over the years.

Communities downstream from production facilities and military bases have been decimated. Activists can take you on a “death tour” pointing out each house and the family members lost. Millions of us in many countries are drinking these chemicals – even though reverse osmosis technology can remove them.

Of course that means the new “Make America Healthy Again” Trump Administration has to gut any rules controlling these chemicals. That was announced just last week. In response, uber-popular YouTuber channel Veritasium launched a video doc on May 14 “How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet”. Two weeks later it had 13 million views and counting.

As reported in Scientific American May 28, “YouTube Science Star Derek Muller Confronts PFAS “Forever Chemicals”—In His Own Blood”.

Let’s go in depth with reporters just back from the front: Cancer Alley to Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado.

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FOREVER CHEMICALS

SHARON UDASIN

A bomb with fallout that never decays has already exploded over the United States and the world. It is a chemical bomb and like radiation, leads to cancer and many other deadly diseases. Almost all of us have some in our blood and organs. Our pets, wildlife, and even seals at the Poles have them: PFAS’s, the forever chemicals.

Tainted drinking water is hot news. Recent headlines in several countries just announced regulations trying to control PFAS’s. How fortunate two dogged reporters just released their new book: “Poisoning the Well, How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America.” One author is Rachel Frazin, covering energy and environment policy for The Hill. The other is Columbia Journalism grad and Hill Colorado reporter Sharon Udasin. Corporate denial, regulatory failure, Veterans health, social justice this story has it all.

Listen to or download this 29 minute interview with Sharon Udasin in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

In the 1930’s, a DuPont chemist discovers a strange material. Nothing sticks to it and it never breaks down. Then comes the money-making, which turns into blood-money once the true risk is known. Governments turn a blind eye and dawdle. People die too soon – not knowing why.

This is a hot topic, in the news right now. Countries from Canada to Australia are moving to ban some PFAS uses starting this summer (see below)

The Trump administration is moving backward, trying to loosen or remove regulations on these chemicals imposed by the Biden Administration. According to Rachel Frazin (in an interview on News Nation): Trump is delaying implementation of the rule from 2029 to 2031 for utilities to install equipment to remove PFAS chemicals from drinking water. The Trump group also removed four chemicals from any regulation. Read “EPA to Repeal Key Protections Against Toxic Forever Chemicals in Tap Water” Wednesday May, 14 2025, PRN from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

WHAT ARE PFAS CHEMICALS?

According to an NRDC factsheet:

“Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals that are widely used in an array of consumer, commercial, and industrial products due to their ability to withstand heat and repel water and stains. Also known as ’forever chemicals,’ PFAS are extremely persistent in the environment and can accumulate in humans or animals. PFAS exposure is linked to many negative health effects at extremely low levels of exposure, including but not limited to kidney and testicular cancer, liver and kidney damage, changes in hormone and lipid levels, and harm to the nervous and reproductive systems.”

IMMUNE DAMAGE FROM PFAS’s

For those worried about COVID, bird flu or the measles, let me just quote from this 2021 peer-reviewed paper on “Perfluoroalkyl substances exposure and immunity”

“Several immunosuppression health outcomes have been studied in association with PFAS exposure in children including antibody levels in response to tetanus and diphtheria (Td) and measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines; and risk or severity of infection.”

One peer-reviewed study found PFAS in over 650 different species, and counting. We may be making the animals sick, so our food doesn’t stick to the pan. Even dogs and horses have this toxic chemical in their blood.

NATIONAL REGULATIONS ON PFAS’s Four Countries

I did a small check on countries where Radio Ecoshock broadcasts, aside from the United States.

* Canada banned some PFAS chemicals, but most of them are still unregulated. The bureaucracy claims to be studying wider controls.

* In the UK, some PFAS chemicals are restricted. They are not completely banned. The UK is behind controlling these poisons, but as Sharon writes in her book, “London’s Heathrow Airport has ‘successfully used fluorine-free firefighting foams for years.” The EU is also a mixed bag, slightly ahead of America but behind the chemical wave.

* Australia is set to ban the import, export, manufacture, and use of certain PFAS chemicals starting July 1, 2025. But they are doing it on a state-by-state basis.

There are tens of thousands of forms of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. This sounds like a game of whack-a-mole. Regulators outlaw a few chemicals after the damage is done.

A SIGN OF HUMANS

The weird thing is: you can’t dispose of a product that never breaks down. This seems like a permanent addition to the planet, like a mark of our civilization. We thought radiation defined the human era, but maybe it’s really PFAS chemicals.

Suppose my town installs reverse osmosis tech to really clean chemicals out of drinking water. What happens to the captured PFAS stuff?

It is quite likely some of our listeners are not feeling well, or suffer from body break-downs associated with PFAS chemicals. They may not have used those products or know about the risk. Can people get tested for PFAS, and are family doctors aware of these risks and conditions?

Writing this book “Poisoning the Well” Sharon and Rachel Frazin went to the hotspots, talked to survivors. It sounds like a horror documentary. They took the “death tour” of neighborhoods blighted by deaths – with PFAS activists in the cancer zones.

INDUSTRY CONCEALMENT

Internal industry documents reveal that manufacturers knew about the toxicity of PFAS as early as the 1970s but obscured these risks from the public and regulators for decades, delaying protective measures and contributing to widespread contamination. Just 12 big corporations make this wave of forever chemicals.

DuPont published a pamphlet called “The Anatomy of a Rumor,” decrying the accusations. The
pamphlet’s author, DuPont toxicologist John A. Zapp Jr., acknowledged the existence of polymer fume fever – likening it to influenza – but stressed that there are “no lasting physiological effects” and linked the symptoms to soot pollution, as opposed to gases related to Teflon.

THE HUMAN MARKER

This layer of stable chemicals – they never degrade. They continue to bio-accumulate in species up the food chain, a threat to “higher” life forms. If there humans a thousand years from now, they will have to contend with PFAS chemicals.

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CLIMATE INTERVENTIONS

ALLYSA SINCLAIR

How can we persuade people climate change IS a stupendously real tidal wave – that we need to quickly seek higher ground? What can we say to the work-mate or uncle who denies it, the friend who agrees but does nothing? Seeking answers, intelligent people methodically tested strategies, tools we might call “interventions”. On May 13, in the top journal PNAS, their results appear in the paper “Behavioral interventions motivate action to address climate change”. Let’s shop for tested tools we all can use.

The lead author is Alyssa H. Sinclair, known to all as “Allie”. She is a Postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania. Allie won her Ph.D. at Duke University in Psychology & Neuroscience. Her co-authors include Emily Falk and Michael Mann.

Listen to or download this 27 minute interview with Allysa Sinclair in CD Quality or Lo-Fi

THE MEGA-STUDY

There was a huge international study published in 2024, let by Madalina Vlasceanu at Stanford. It involved almost 60,000 participants from 63 countries in a tournament approach. Allie’s new study builds on this and adds new dimensions.

The 2024 study found interventions only reached a small group who already believed in climate change. Also interesting from that big 2024 study: they used “expert-crowd-sourced interventions”. Apparently expert ideas for climate action aren’t so great.

I want to dip back into a 2021 neuroscience paper Sinclair published in PNAS. After stipulating predictions of the future are built on memories of the past, she investigates the role of surprise, or error. Crazy weather these days has lots of surprises. We expected all this much later and we’ve never seen such damaging events before. So when we realize the reality of climate, or we get shocked by emergency, do our brains need to go back and rearrange our memories?

Sinclair also found that a shocking change can lead to false memories. We could see more muddled memories in survivors of big storms, wildfires or floods.

Another study led by A. Sinclair’s found memories created by curiosity stay with us longer and clearer – compared to memories formed during high stress events. So, creating urgency might actually decrease memory about climate science, compared to luring people in with curiosity?

Our brains are like editors, almost Orwellian in re-writing the past. Many people think the past was better. Climate activists talk about a future with a lot of changes to ideals, powers, and personal action. But what if the majority don’t want that future, or any different future? Could memory act against climate action?

Millions of people spend more time in cyberspace than on the ground. Is it enough to be an “information warrior” reaching people’s cyber persona – or do we need physical meetings, rallies and gatherings? We need a new strategy to reach both the person and the net persona, like two different people. (People do act differently on the Net).

THE NEW STUDY WITH SINCLAIR, MANN ET AL

Most people believe climate change is happening, though not all of those people agree humans are causing it.

“Approximately 72% of people in the United States and 85% of people worldwide believe that climate change is occurring, though beliefs about the causes of climate change (anthropogenic vs. natural) also vary within this group.”

“Despite this widespread acknowledgement of climate change, multiple psychological and structural barriers impede climate action (5–8). For instance, individuals may struggle to relate climate change to themselves and people they know, perceive climate change as an abstract future threat, or believe that their actions are not efficacious.”

ALEX THINKS: There could be other reasons, like fear of losing one’s job, getting paid to think otherwise (like an oil company executive or politician), legal threats (from the government, or corporations suing you). They did not take every cause of climate inaction, but zeroed in on three most common causes.

There is a tendency among people, and this shows up in studies, to believe they can see rightly on climate, but most other people do not. We cast denial on others, even when polls show the opposite, that there is more support than denial for climate action.

SEE: G. Sparkman, N. Geiger, E. U. Weber, “Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half. “  Published August 23, 2022 in Nature Communications. Open Access (free).

BUYING THE WRONG ACTIONS

Sinclair et al say:

“… interventions that quantify individuals’ carbon footprints are widely promoted by major environmental agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Wildlife Fund even though this approach was developed by British Petroleum and there is little empirical evidence of effectiveness.”

Michael Mann says (in a BlueSky post:

“Individual carbon footprint messaging Not only is it the product of a decades-old deflection strategy by polluters, it doesn’t actually work from a climate action standpoint.”

But here is what does work (summary courtesy of Jon Owen on Bluesky)

“Interventions that target future thinking, such as writing a letter for a child to read in the future, are the most effective ways to motivate climate action”.

During the interview I mention this earlier paper:

Prediction errors disrupt hippocampal representations and update episodic memories
Alyssa H. Sinclair et al. Dec 15, 2021

Here is a short video about this 2021 research.

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OVER AND OUT

Does reality still exist? Was the whole tower of human knowledge just an illusion entrancing the cave people, the pre-digital ones? As we fool around being Gods, we are about to find out. It may or may not be cooler where you are this June. A wide belt of the world is hot beyond human tolerance. A billion people are trying to lead lives, to stay alive, in blistering heat. As you heard, the World Meteorological Organization just predicted the next five years will be the hottest ever.

Truth exists. It arrives in higher storm surge, chains to tornadic storms, wildfire smoke from Northern forests, and heat, heat, heat. When we change the environment, the environment changes. The truth is: we are not going to like the future, because we are wrecking Natural Eden right now. We can change, but only if we re-embrace reality. Step out of the cloud and into the green.

I’m Alex. Thank you for continuing to feed your mind, for going deep when the world gets shallow. Thank you for caring.