Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

Don’t blame the average everyday citizens

The manufacturers of “forever chemicals” used in products like nonstick pans and waterproof clothing knew about the dangers their materials posed more than 40 years before the general public, according to previously secret industry documents. By following the same playbook as Big Tobacco, including suppression of their own research, the companies successfully stymied regulation for decades while the cancer-causing chemicals became ubiquitous in the water, air, and soil.

Major manufacturers are already spending billions to settle lawsuits and millions fighting federal regulations, including landmark environmental rules proposed this spring. The revealing industry documents, analyzed in a new study from researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), could bolster efforts to hold the companies accountable for widespread contamination from chemicals that take hundreds of years to break down. The manufacturer 3M is reportedly preparing to pay $10 billion to settle claims that it polluted thousands of public water systems, but the cost of cleaning up the chemicals in drinking water nationwide will likely top $400 billion.

During the 1970s, a DuPont-funded laboratory carried out a series of studies to test the effects of exposure to the chemical coating Teflon. The laboratory had already established that Teflon dispersions could be highly toxic when inhaled, according to a 1970 DuPont memo. Subsequent tests found that rats exposed at low levels developed enlarged livers; dogs injected with higher ones died within two days.

But instead of reporting these findings to federal regulators, as required by law, the company adopted a communications strategy equating the toxicity of the chemicals to common table salt.

By 1980, employee surveys by DuPont and 3M found that pregnant workers exposed to the chemicals were giving birth to babies with abnormalities in their eyes and tear ducts. While assuring workers that they had discovered “no evidence of birth defects,” the company quietly removed female employees from high-exposure areas.