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That lawyer is an actual hero. Very few people would be willing to do the amount of work required to discover the wrongdoing and hold them to account, and then go on to dedicate years of their life fighting them in court and having medical studies done to find evidence.
From 1999-2003 I worked for a furniture store and sprayed hundreds of furniture units per week with Scotchgard from 3M containing PFAS forever chemicals, some people also occasionally sprayed co-workers with the chemical as a joke I was sprayed dozens of times with the chemical. In 2002 we were told that our company was discontinuing use of scotchgard and switching to stainsafe brand spray, we were like - "wait this stuff isn't safe?!" In 2006 I was 27 years old and diagnosed with IGA nephopathy the doctors never could figure out why my kidney's were failing at such a young age. In 2007 I had to start dialysis and in 2009 I received a kidney transplant and I am doing good now. I wonder if PFAS caused my kidney failure. UPDATE: I'm shocked at how much attention this comment got! Just want to clarify a couple things. We were told the spray was "just like a glue mist" and safe if it got on us. we were given no PPE, and the spray area was not in a well ventilated area, also the pump sprayer would frequently clog and hoses would spring leaks which would spray us with the chemical- again management told us it was safe when we questioned it. We did question it from time to time and our employer did have a OSHA materials handling book, I cannot remember exactly what it said about the scotchgard chemical- being this was over 20 years ago. I myself never sprayed anyone with it, but because we were told it was safe beyond telling people to stop it I didn't think it was extremely dangerous - it was 1999. My old employer went out of business in 2015 so I don't think I would have any recourse there. I'm not really lookin for recourse at this point. I am going to talk to my doctor and have a toxicology work up done. I did some more research after watching this and found a 2022 National Institutes of Health study that found PFAS in blood plasma associated with higher rates of IgA nephropathy and other glomerular diseases. Being that I had no family history of autoimmune or kidney disease, and that I had heavy, unprotected exposure to Scotchgard chemicals containing PFOS/PFOA during a critical 3-4 year period, before the chemical was pulled from the market in 2002 due to toxicity concerns, I am leaning towards it being highly likely that this was the cause of my end-stage renal disease which was diagnosed within 3 years. I am looking forward to doing the toxicology blood work. At least I have an idea what most likely caused my kidney failure, for decades I did not know. Thanks Veritasium for putting this information out there.
I had shingles in my eye and it caused some nerve damage. Olfactory senses changed. I was spraying that stuff on furniture for a job and halfway thru the day my nerves were fried and I was I stopped doing it and went home. Told the boss it's toxic and I couldn't handle it. Unreal.
The fact that Dupont knew about C8 for all those decades, very early on, and only phased it out when they were forced to is so diabolical. All that money in revenue but they didnt even try to create a way to safely dispose of their waste responsibly. Great job on this video guys.
It is something we see time and time again with companies, make/sell thing that will inevitably poison people, only stop once it either become unprofitable or the government says they can't do that.
@@RedShiftJellyFish Woah woah hey let's not get ahead of ourselves here I'm not denying at all that capitalism does encourage and enable this type of behavior but it certainly doesn't cause it Like you know how it's not valid to justify (understand or explain, sure, but not justify) Voldemort or Malfoy's actions throughout the books by "that's growing up in a rough household baby" because Harry also grew up in a rough household and chose differently? There are companies (okay, admittedly I actually can't name any but I'm sure there are) that exist within capitalism and still choose not to act like this. Capitalism doesn't cause bad behavior, greed does
@samstromberg5593 and by nature, those companies will always fall by the wayside because theres always going to be other companies that don't spend the resources buttoning everything up and being morally correct, theyll just spend resources pretending they do that. Its a dog eat dog world out there and if you want to be on top (which every publicly traded company does) you're going to have to get your hands a little dirty. Survival of the fittest.
@@samstromberg5593 Steam is a pretty ethical service. The way to tell the difference is if a company is public or not. Private businesses are much more likely to be ethical because they don't have to keep earning more than last year for the shareholders- because there's no shareholders. The shareholders are the problem.
😂😂😂 under rated comment. I immediately binned all my microwave popcorn, which I quite enjoyed, but I wish to live a bit longer so back to home made popcorn.
"Hey you know that time Dupont created a chemical that poisoned the entire earth and killed millions?" "No not that time" "No not that one either" "Nope not that time also"
My accountant called, said profits lookin' grand, somethin' 'bout "waste disposal plan" He winked and chuckled, patted on my back, said "Sometimes, you gotta cut a little slack!" My lawyer smilin', lookin' awfully smug, said "Deny everything, just give a shrug!"
As an environmental engineer currently designing and implementing systems to remove PFAS from our water sources, I truly thank you for bringing awareness to this issue. I have sent this to all my family and friends and suggest others do the same. If we cannot trust chemical corporations to manufacture their products responsibly, or trust our regulators to protect the nation's health, it falls to us, collectively, to demand change.
Thank you for attacking the neutralization of the compound. We all know that filtration is not the answer and just contributes to the problem with a disposable medium.
This, along with recent microplastic studies, has me thinking that unnatural chemicals being invented is the answer to the Fermi Paradox. Every intelligent species accidentally poisons itself to extinction for the sake of convenience.
It's incredible how people are listing names of companies that have knowingly poisoned people and still tried to hide it, and they don't realize that it's an inherent part of the capitalist system. It seems now like the only system possible, but I doubt that every intelligent species would land at capitalism, I think having a system more like in Star Trek would be required to even call that species intelligent in the first place.
The EU tries to do that and it's a success of the Greens. The only chance we have to keep society in check is to use sortition. This would be true democracy.
You can never truly predict long term problems. But still when it does become known production should be stopped immediately, and not like this, ignored and covered up.
@@Flaggyt You can't predict them. But you can run test and find out something will cause long term problems. But our society is extremely shortsighted and very easily get lost in inmediate benefit, ignoring long term consecuenses.
It's the case for most polluants and dangerous products. Cigarettes, leaded gasoline, flame retardants, plenty of processed foods, pesticides, etc... Every company manufacturing those knew they were harmful well before anyone else and continued they business as if they didn't know until they had legal obligations to do something.
@@RudeMcRude do you think the communists treated the environment any better? There's scummy people everywhere in the world, regardless of the political environment.
As a chemist it never ceases to amaze me at how we continually find new, more creative ways to slowly poison ourselves. And the kicker is that these companies defer responsibility onto the public and private research groups so now instead of being forced to solve the problem themselves, they have millions of dollars in federal spending being sent to groups that could spend their time focusing on other topics. It’s the same fiasco with recycling and it’s maddening
For real. Why aren't they required to prove that their chemical disposal is safe, even if it takes 5 decades to prove? This reminds of the quote, "Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence".
@@fsnow55 Its so awful and all for the profit of the 1% wealthy and powerful that run these companies, and for their shareholders at the expense of the average person and consumer. Its beyond greed, its insane!!
I am not sure we can ask the company responsible to come up with a solution we could trust, if we dont already have any basis for trust..even if the company did make some solution the lack of trust would necessitate 3rd party validation anyway and as such the cost to the public is incurred anyway.
@@adrianantico3750 Back in the 50s/60s chemical manufacturing in Niagara Falls, NY shoveled their toxic waste into pits behind the plant. The only stopped when a new highway was built which overlooked them. At that point, they just buried it at another location and then gave the land to the city to become a school. Profit over all else.
I love that you got an interview with Robert himself! I don’t know of any other lawyer who has done something as important and impactful as he has. Without him bringing the toxicity of the chemicals to life who knows how high the world wide contamination levels would be right now.
Wait what???! You mean in every tv show, movie, book, the CEO is the bad guy and the Corporation is evil. Almost like we know but just don’t care. Because jobs and money! Merica! We need jobs!!!! That’s you that’s what you sound like when voting for people that could stop this.
Corporate US has always owned the US. No such thing as accountability when you own the ppl meant to hold ppl accountable. Nothing will change until the sheeple actually take a stand
there is an EU proposal for a ban of PFAS chemicals, but pressure from companies are strongly pushing for an incomplete prohibition which is frustrating! The timing of this was great. Did not feel like an hour
Yep Problem is that so much relys on these chemicals now that it's not easy to change. There arent any good alternatives that are proofen to work as required - that will take another decade..
@@SorbusAucubaria All we have to do is ban it from being used in food containers, but teflon cookware is still fine. Also regulate the companies that dump their sewage into public water, this is the real issue, the dumping of wastewater and dumping of chemicals into landfill instead of responsibly disposing of them.
Ban PFAS , but let the migrants pour in! You have to watch out for the "trucks of peace" plowing through streets, but hey, at least there's no non-stick pans anymore...
14:08 "Do you have a good attorney" is probably the last thing I'd ever want an expert in any field to ask me when I'm inquiring about something strange
@@Targe0if the government or a large corporation involved it can take decades and swarms of lawyers if it happens at all. U gotta have evidence that also can't be interpreted in any one but one. Were getting slowly better about chemicals released but most of the worst stuff just released elsewhere, hopefully the environment adapts.
Hey, as a firefighter I want you to know that I really appreciate the work you put into this. We’ve recently discovered that we’ve been lied to or at least misled by chemical companies for decades about the PFAS in our protective gear. We are all fighting for regulations and research into protective clothing that does not contain PFAS but it’s been an incredible struggle. As for foam, thankfully the foam used by most municipal fire departments does not contain PFAS and has not for years. The foam we use for house fires and other natural material fires (wood, vegetation, etc) is PFAS free and has been for many years. But the foam used by airports, fuel tank farms, industrial fire companies, etc is heavily PFAS based. Basically anything used for fighting large liquid fuel fires. Some places used to use PFAS foams for things like car fires, but my department and many, many others have stopped using this “Class B” foam simply due to the PFAS risk. If anyone feels like helping please write your legislators and tell them that finding alternative materials to protect firefighters and alternative materials to make foam for large fuel fires is absolutely critical and should never be considered a partisan issue. It’s ridiculous to me that removing substances that have contaminated literally everything on earth can be a political issue, yet here we are.
Really appreciate you sharing this - hearing directly from firefighters adds so much weight to the conversation. The PFAS issue is disturbing, and it's wild that finding safer alternatives is still such an uphill battle. Thanks for speaking out and helping push this forward.
And we vote for people who want to continue to deregulate corporations.. You know, because money is more important than people, that's their philosophy
This comment should be pinned by the channel. Public pressure is required when the system is in complete denial and that denial endangers everyone on the planet. Veritasium, please pin this comment.
Can we all agree that the CEOs and board members of DuPont that said “no economically satisfactory alternative can be found” should be forced to exclusively drink the wastewater from their facilities? Actually I think as a general rule, all CEO and board members of every company should be required to drink a gallon of wastewater from their dirtiest facility every month. I think you’d be stunned just how clean that water will get! 😂
@@jpcaretta8847 The factories and coal-burning plants. These produce orders of magnitude more waste and pollution than any one person could on their own. A person wearing a PFAS jacket can contaminate each body of water they visit, but a factory producing PFAS can contaminate every body of water before it is even discovered by hikers.
@@daviddavis4885 I'd be the first to volunteer. My plant's effluent is far cleaner than our mains water and we track both 24/7. Any other practice rightly invites suspicion.
The only problem is that if the antidote or treatment for the poison costs $1,000,000, it's still in the CEOs financial best interest to pollute the water, drink from it, and get treated afterward. Actually, I'm sure the company would pay for the medical treatment no matter the cost to make the water appear safe.
It’s terrifying how long this was covered up. Generations exposed, ecosystems poisoned, and all for profit. Massive respect to those who fought to uncover the truth. 🌍
just wait until you find out about the herbicide Atrazine, and what the chemical company Syngenta did to threaten Dr. Tyrone Hayes. You know the alex jones gay frog meme? well it's real, and alex jones was referring to Hayes' research. The stuff is basically rampant in our ground water, and is a known endocrine disruptor. Syngenta hired Hayes to find out whether it was unsafe to be in the ground water, and when they didn't like the results, basically tried to destroy his career. And ever since they've done a good job of covering it all up. But the chemical is still there, in our water, leeching from farms...
I worked at a federal government agricultural research station for 7 years. It was my job to spray pesticides on plants. My boss Dr. Gill once got some of this chemical (TEPP) on his finger and showed me to wash it off immediately if it ever happened to me. It turns out that this stuff was an Organo Phosphate that was actually used as a Nerve Gas in WW2. I started using every protection when I sprayed this stuff twice a week. My co-worker was not as careful. We had to go for Colonestry (spelling) tests every three months. This co-worker had his result come back as Colonestry down to 30. The doctor said he should be dead. He got transferred to a different department, so I had to do all of his spraying. After one more year of this I lost my nerve and quit. I came back a few years later, and they told me that Dr. Gill had died from some kind of nerve disorder. But it wasn't from spraying TEPP. Ya right...
& too many chemicals are still used...like weed/ garden sprays. Fish kills (red tide).😳😷🤑 it feels as if a helpless situation, in which Life has little value. C'est la Vie.👽
I'm so sorry for what you've endured (been exposed to) and hope this finds you in good health. FYI: there is a group called EWG (Environmental Working Group) who routinely tests foods, cleaning products and cosmetics for side effects and toxins.. Check them out! Best wishes & Stay Strong. Thanks for the share! -Cheers.
My dad is an environmental engineer and has warned his clients about PFAS for years. He's always been surprised by how few people know about PFAS, so I'm glad that this video is gonna raise awareness about it.
I live in Dordrecht, The Netherlands next to the DuPont factory, it is now rebranded to Chemours to make it harder for lawsuits to stick. A few years ago we got told it isnt safe to swim in the water in our city, which everybody has been doing for over 60 years! DuPont has known this wasn't safe for decades. The higher ups in these companies are the biggest criminals in the world! CHEMOURS, JE KANKERMOEDER❤
"Especially now." Exactly. People complain about the EPA and government regulations but those are the only things stopping commerce from poisoning all of us. Corporations can never be trusted to do the right thing if it adversely affects their bottom line and it nearly always does.
@@jameshisself9324 That is capitalism for you. Everything for the shareholders. The shareholders don't know the details and the ones that know the details don't make the decisions.
@@jameshisself9324it blows my mind how many people are so deeply averse to regulations and watchdog government agencies. They are accountable to the public, have to be transparent and make their information publicly available, and are massively underfunded. I suppose it’s the decades of intense propaganda and lobbying by these companies, but the fact that people actually trust private companies that are only accountable to their shareholders no matter how many people are harmed, over public service employees is insane
This video has really humbled me. I have a colleague at our lab, who is very excited about investigating the routes to remove/eliminate PFAS, PFOS and the sister groups. During his initial days he had made compelling arguments and data driven statements on the need to study pathways for the destruction of these chemicals. It was my lack of insight and a failure as a researcher to properly understand the gravity of the situation and the urgency of the work. He is one the most gifted researchers I've ever come across when it comes to wet lab operations and is still hard at work on this challenge. I'll try my best to help him with his work and try to be more accommodating and put more effort and scientific rigor to understand the motivation behind the work of the other researchers. Thank You so much Veritasium. Truly a wonderful and humbling video.
For people with high levels, has dialysis been tried as a treatment instead of just "bloodletting" and passing the chemicals on to ill people who need the blood but don't need the extra chemical load from the donated blood?
I can’t cook a meal without anxiety thanks to that movie all the pots and pans in eu are covered with teflon that they claim is a new kind that is healthy, also I could spend hundreds to buy real pots and pans but then when you go to a restaurant it’s the same conundrum that movie made me extremely paranoid about our society 😂
@@AmirArmada It just being on pots and pans is relatively fine unless every pan youre eating off of every day is majorly scratched up. Probably get indigestion or something. In the case of Dupont and 3M, they were letting factory runoff get dumped straight into the surrounding environment, incouding the water supply. Honestly, even a food manufacturing company could prompt that sort of disaster if theyre regularly dumping toxic machine oils and etc. off straight to drinking pipes. Companies that fail at envirnmental standards with these stunts can still have relatively safe consumer grade priducts, its just deadly for anyone living near or downstream the factory. *video mentions relatively safety in consumer products near the end. Teflon itself is pretty safe, PFAS stuff on the other hand, you ideally dont want to eat those. So raincoats are pretty safe since you dont eat them, but you probably shouldnt be leaving food directly in them and warming it. We'd need pretty serious water purification plants to fix the water issue though.
I love that you show the old advertisement for methyl chloride refrigerators which say "harmless"! "Safe for your home"! Industry has never NOT lied to people about the actual safety of their products, yet our governments continue to let them continue to cause horrific harm.
Chemistry is so fascinating. I took a year of it at college and then snuck into a mid level organic chemistry class( I was an accounting major). That was the outer limits of my ability. Much respect to those who have conquered it.
the fact that this started being used around the 40s/50s and its JUST NOW getting the attention for being toxic is so alarming. these companies really just get away with whatever, huh?
Many of us knew about fluoride and avoided it like the plague that it is. When so many people stopped thinking and researching for themselves, and settled for being spoonfed by money loving corporations, governments, media moguls, and other world leaders through "tell a vision" society started picking up speed toward annihilation.
Imagine spending your entire life dedicated to saving your cows and there’s just some big billionaire trying to hide that it’s their fault not only poisoning cows but everyone else. Wow my trust is non existent now
why do you think the gov sent all our factories to china? they dont have any environmental protections at all. and they then give massive kickbacks to the politicians to keep it all legal. china now is contaminating the entire world and oceans with more toxic chemicals than the US ever did.
Companies routinely do shitty things and only stop when either people or the government step in to fight them. So I was 0% surprised that it took this long.
SCOTLANDDDDDDDDD The graph at 44:00 makes me happy to live in one of the fewer touched places and gives me growing concerns for those here that don't look after our natural beauty
I work in the field of refrigeration and let me tell you this: The PFAS problem will only become worse. The chemical industry is pushing synthetic refrigerants and trying its best to delay any regulatory legislation or the mass adoption of environmentally save, natural refrigerants like CO2. Virtually every car build for the European market since 2015 is using R1234yf - a synthetic refrigerant which eventually degrades into TFA (trifluoroacetic acid), once it leaks into the atmosphere (no A/C system is 100% leak tight!). When TFA is washed out of the atmosphere by rain and mixes with groundwater, no natural process will ever get it out again and it will slowly accumulate in the food-chain. In first studies, TFA has shown to have harmful impacts on human and mammal health (damagin fertility, liver-toxicity, harmful impact on embryos) European public health will see the effects first and they will be *non-reversible*. In the end, thousands of people will get sick or even die from this... silently, without public outrage, because it will be burried in statistics.
The US still has a small chance to steer the boat in the right direction. Most American cars use the refrigerant R134a. It is nowhere near as bad as R1234yf in terms of TFA. But being a strong greenhouse gas (1400 times worse than CO2), it will most likely be replaced at some point - hopefully with a natural refrigerant. But frankly, I doubt it... most people neither know, nor care what type of refrigerant is in their car's or home's A/C. And if I have learned one thing, following this topic for almost 20 years... the immorality and corporate greed of the chemical industry knows no bounds. Same goes for politicians... saving a few thousand jobs in the chemical industry within their term carries a greater weight than protecting the health of future generations.
@@leeross8648 No, at least not as dangerous in terms of the above described TFA problem. Cars homologated in EU before 2015 mostly use R134a, a hydrofluorocarbon, which is still the most common refrigerant in vehicles worldwide. It was replaced when EU legislation limited how much global warming potential (GWP) a refrigerant was allowed to have. While it was, from an enviromental point of view, the right call to replace it, they replaced it with a class of refrigerant that (as we now know) slowly and steadily poisons the planet forever. If you know the history of refrigerants, this is isn't the first time something like this happens. But unlike the hole in the ozone layer, TFA in our water won't magically go away.
@@kqsqI just don’t understand the logic behind how the EU bans something, the replacement is worse and the EU says “eh you tried!” and just shrugs? If this stuff is horrifying, EU should be up and arms about it too no?
Thank you for covering important topics that impact billions of people. The public should be more informed on the shady business these big corporations are doing.
So basically, it boils down to: 1) invent a chemical you know is poisonous 2) drop it everywhere 3) pretend it’s not toxic/you don’t know/I don’t know/whatever excuses 4) let it cook and be studied by the general public 5) have the same conclusion that it’s poisonous 6) tweak and repeat. Oh, and make a profit from that fraud, ofc. Edit: +wonder why general public doesn’t trust corporate science anymore.
Its worth pointing out that it is not clear that PFAS chemicals are specifically harmful. Even in this video there is a lot of talk about how they are everywhere but nothing about millions of people getting sick from them.
oh i forgot you're one of the science guys who doesnt stop every two seconds to repeat something we were supposed to have learned in second grade, huge W
Good. Right? If the future archeologists are also a species born in this planet, that "should" help them avoiding our own mistakes. If we over anthropologize things: perhaps geology is a way every gravitational well that can sustain life has to allow the complex life they produce to endure the errors caused by their earlier "attempts" at complexity...
There are no alternatives that are economically feasible. That's why they are still in business. People take low cost of products for granted nowadays but never question where it all comes from.
@@thecolorgreen9022but also like Derek said, in some.situations.especially in the medical field, there are simply no other options available currently.
@moisavictoria this is also an oversimplification. Oil is needed for so many of our industrial machines, cars, etc..sure in a world with infinite money or no need for money we could just take years to replace everyone's cars for free, replace all manufacturing and use natural oil alternatives. But that's not the world and grinding to a halt is not a realistic option. Does greed play a part? Absolutely. But that's a small world to live in and doesn't actually factor in how our society currently functions.
Never thought i would set down and watch a documentry, let alone about Teflon. This documentry is very well made and keeps everyting interesting and attention grapping. Well done Gregor.
Being a polymer engineer I can tell you guys the stuff you call plastic are way more dangerous then you think. Although the plastics themselves are harmless i.e. PP, PE, PET etc. It’s the fillers, plasticisers, dyes and other additives which have potential for actual harm to living beings. C8/ PTFE are just tip of an iceberg. PVC is another very dangerous one. We are tirelessly working in research to find alternatives hopefully we will sort it all out in the next 50 years.
1:44 The fact that courts would sooner prosecute Veritasium for "defamation" than prosecute these companies proves that we shouldn't be asking for justice. We should be forcing it. Jail time would be too lenient.
Defamation is civil matter and it is Dupont that would file suit against him, not the government. Unless you live in clown world like New York, where the AG sues political enemies for civil torts where the alleged victim says they are not a victim.
I have recurrent metastatic testicular cancer that came back after 20 years from PFAS exposure as a baby from living in a small town along the Mississippi River in Iowa that got their tap water from the river. The source of the PFAS was the 3M plant in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. My late wife died from Pleural Mesothelioma which was caused by talc baby powder that had talc contaminated with asbestos. Neither one of us had occupational exposure. After 25k lawsuits the baby powder and jock itch spray manufacturers eliminated talc and switched to corn starch. She was an IT consultant, and I was a corporate engineering director.
I'm a certified water treatment operator, and we're dealing with the new EPA regulations on PFAS and PFOS, and a handful of similar compounds. The biggest issue is if you do have a contaminated water source, there's not really a cost effective way to treat it. The only way to remove some of the shorter chain PFAS-type contaminants is reverse osmosis or similar, which doesn't really solve the issue just kicks it down the road. See, an R/O system essentially concentrates the containments on one side of a filter and pulls clean water from the other, which leaves you with a extra-concentrated wastewater, usually at a 2:1 ratio of waste to clean. As in there's two gallons of wastewater to one gallon of clean. Not very efficient, and we still have to deal with the concentrated waste. So now what do we do? We can't just flush it down the drain, if we do then the sewer department has to deal with it in THEIR treatment plant, because they can't just dump it back into the environment to recontaminate the water sources! We're all waiting for a better solution, but if not, we're looking at a massive increase in cost to water that has even 5 parts per TRILLION of PFAS/PFOS
Sell it as Exclusive Ultra Expensive Luxury Drink. If it passes through the FDA, you'll be passing the problem over to those who can afford the industry change.
I'm a wastewater plant operator. It'll take billions and billions to retrofit all of the plants to be able to filter it out successfully. Good luck getting the small towns/municipalities to go along with it when a lot of the plants are severely underfunded and running of tech from the 70s. Short of genetically engineering the biology to metabolize it to something safer, there's not a good solution for us either. The solids we filter out either go to the landfill or are burned. And our treated effluent is injected back into the aquifer. We don't have a good way to stop the cycle of keeping these chemicals in the water supply. The days of cheap water bills will be over within our lifetime.
I'm an environmental toxicology graduate researcher that is helping to test water filter technology to address PFOA. I've specifically been avoiding this episode because I'm beyond exhausted with the new policies we have to deal with. Thank you for addressing that. This was very well done.
Expecting the government to fix this is not "exhausting" its naive and foolish. Unless the culture changes and people start using alternative sources nothing will change, you will simply shift supply chains to communist pollution factories like China. Nobody is going to save you, you have to do things like use a home water distiller with VOC venting, watch what foods you are eating, and what products you use at home.
Keep the faith. Our town is spending millions to remove PFAS from our well water supplies--- and what do you do with the filters once they've done their job??
FYI: These practices are still done as we speak. In Belgium the government covered up PFAS waste. They knew about it in 2017 but didn't take action. They waited until the media gave it some attention and started taking measures 4 years later (2021). Court ruled that the government was negligent in their duties, resulting in ... nothing but a symbolic compensation. The company that caused it was 3M btw
Love it when the punishment for crime is a fine far lower than what was earned while committing said crime. Imagine stealing 10000 bucks and getting a 50 buck fine as "punishment", while keeping what you've earned through crime.
also its worth nothing that pfas is still present in some of the every day products we use. For example dental floss that isnt specifically mentioned as pfas free lol (ps, there are safer opinnions, they just arent as cheap)
As a Polymer Scientist, I am so happy that you made this video on Fluorocarbons like PTFE and PFAS. These forever chemicals have a huge impact on environment as well as humankind. I worked in a chemical factory that manufactured polymers and I have used PTFE so many times as a lubricant. It generally leaches out when exposed to high heat. Thank you for making a 1 hour video on this topic. Love from India
Could you tell me why those factories let those toxic chemicals get into Rivers, couldn't they put into one land where general public is unreachable? Do they still do the same? Also, can you suggest me a book that can cover everything this video talked about and related to your field maybe something foundational?
Your firsthand experience in polymer science adds a valuable perspective to this discussion. It's alarming how PTFE and PFAS leach under heat, yet their risks were downplayed for so long. The video really highlights the gap between industrial use and public awareness. Great to see experts like you engaging with this issue.
Yeah it's less than 1% of a year's revenue. The judge should have made it 1% of a year's revenue for *each* year that the company had been dumping the chemicals into the environment, but then that would actually hurt the company and we can't have that.
Reading the book "Weapons of Doubt" right now, and there are a few notable companies and hired scientists who have consistently and deliberately lied and spread misinformation to protect profits even as the near unanimous scientific consensus was against them. This was the case for smoking risks, CFCs effect on the ozone layer, acid rain, global warming/climate change, lead in gasoline, and now PFAs. Government regulation of corporations is a GOOD thing!
Donating blood, especially hemoglobin reduces pfas by 30-60% (as summarised by AI) if you keep donating for a year So I guess save a life and improve your health.
Wanted to donate for a long time and what better video than this! When you make someone watch science and health for an hour straight and they don't even realise it? You guys are doing something incredible. My first donation, but definitely won't be my last. Cheers!
I worked for an environmental consulting company for a little while and we started testing for PFAS a few years back in water treatment plants. The glassware we used to test had to be new and used for nothing else, rinsed 16 times with de-ionized water and 4 different chemicals, and still there was no way to get perfectly clean PFAS free equipment BEFORE the tests even started. PFAS is already everywhere, down to the very water you drink. Absolutely terrifying if you think about it.
Dang, this sucks. So basically the only way you can avoid PFAS in your diet is to live underground and use deep drilled ice cap for water. Awesome, thanks Petro companies for killing us all slowly.
The level of contamination is staggering when even the testing equipment can't escape PFAS. It really drives home how pervasive these chemicals are, down to the most controlled environments. Makes you wonder what long-term solutions could even look like at this point.
Yes, and what he does is great but it will not stop these huge companies to produce it; to believe that is extremely naive and idealistic. He doesn't accept reality because he doesn't understand reality. The ONLY thing to change their behaviour would be informing us, all of us, about the danger; exactly like this youtuber is doing so excellently; therefor we must; 1) understand this so we are able to speak about it and this way share what we now know, 2) we must stop using these products (which will never happen either) or at least use less of it and avoid these products completely. In my country we spoke about this so so so much in the late 70's and all through the 80's; did you listen? The only real solution would be to get beyond conventional solutions, break the law and get close to these responsible few; but of course no one will do that and I am not saying they should. But what use is Green peace if they play at "their" rules? Maybe Trump - who is intelligent and has the power - when he hears of this; will find a solution. I fail to see other solutions.
There’s an excellent movie about him and his work against forever chemicals called “Dark Waters”. He’s portrayed by Mark Ruffalo. Anne Hathaway plays his wife.
@@presentnotperfectOr just make teflon without this chamicals, yes they exist and in the EU they can't be used in sertain things and in steps (they do it in steps, so that the companies have time to change their production and find alternatives) it will be allowed in fewer things until they aren't allowed in anythings.
No @cary9479… They are not being made without these chemicals… There are over 14,000 sister chemicals in this family. They are lying to you… All the non stick today is forever chemicals, even if it claims it is feee from a couple of the well known forever chemicals like PFOA and PFAS… We still have massive exposure through everything nonstick, all the paper coatings for paper plates, food wrappers, the linings for all canned drinks, all canned goods, rice cookers, air fryers, waffle makers, etc. etc. etc. This is all that whack a mole game mentioned in the video. The best thing you can do is avoid all of these things like the plague and use yer brain. If you do ALL of that and happen to live in an area with decent water, you might have not end up with average levels in yer blood. A lot of forever chemicals are used in pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. There is PFAS in Roundup aka Glyphosate, Atrazine, 2-4-D, etc. etc. There has never been a better time to eat all organic, avoid all plastics, and buy the best reverse osmosis filter you can find. Never ever believe any health and safety claims made by the people selling any product.
Even though this is the longest episode ever, I have been following you and watching your content for at least 14 years.. you are a gem on this planet.
Filtration of the drinking water in highly contaminated areas, avoid food and healthcare products with PFAS in them or in their packaging and frequent blood donation has the POTENTIAL to decrease already accumulated levels.
@@botondlengyel2877 So, passing off contaminated blood to somebody else? Are you insane? That's one of your solutions? My god people on the internet are stupid.
@@OceanusHeliosAre you dumb? Everybody is contaminated, that's the point. Also, they clean the blood before actually giving it to someone else. This allows you to create new blood that will be less contaminated, and the person that gets your blood will get a cleaned version of it.
Teflon is an interesting case. I use it for 3D printing, and components made from teflon intended for mechanical uses all come with a disclaimer stating "Do not heat above 260°C. If heated above the listed temperature, vacate the area" with some warnings even specifying that the reason you must vacate is that "When heated, this material releases neurotoxic agents and harmful fumes". It's amazing that if you take one step away from mechanical applications and into cookware, you get no such warning, despite many recipes calling for DANGEROUSLY close temps. The following cooking techniques would actually EXCEED this threshold: Broiling/grilling, dry searing, any application within a pizza oven, stir frying and caramelization of sugars. These cooking methods, if done in a teflon coated pan, would release the neurotoxic effects listed in the warning labels. I think its crazy that they don't even feel the need to mention this to customers...
260°C is 500°F. Why would broiling, dry searing, stir frying, or caramelization of sugar ever exceed this threshold? All of those take place around 180°C/360°F. Exceeding that threshold by even 10% or 20% entirely ruins the food. Same with deep frying. Paper famously burns at 451°F. This does not seem reconcilable with your statements of risk regarding food safety.
@@skyfiter99 Most countries legally require a 1.5x or higher safety factor for buildings - even things like elevator cables can go up to 10x. But when it comes to something you literally put in your mouth, like Teflon, it doesn’t even meet the bare minimum. A slight slip in usage - like preheating a pan too long - and you're past 260°C, entering toxic fume territory. That wouldn’t fly in structural engineering, but apparently it’s fine in cookware. Also worth noting: you’re confusing food temperature with pan surface temperature. Just because food burns at 200°C doesn’t mean the pan stops there. Teflon doesn’t care if your steak is medium-rare - it breaks down when the pan surface crosses 260°C.
The love story between corporate chemical companies and the US gov shielding their criminal behaviors runs deeper than this. The EPA largely exists to protect these companies from endless law suits.
This is the golden standard of how science should be presented and communicated. Not too much unnecessary numbers but also not dumbed out to be just the headline and a story. We all knew that PFAS were bad and that everything was contaminated with forever chemicals but never understood why exactly and how inescapable they were. Good to know that solutions are being worked on and it's not all doom and gloom. Hopefully more scientific research videos follow Veritasium's caliber of quality!
I agree with you completely, but I for one, had never heard about pfas before and would be shocked if I were the only one. Great video for sure, always look forward to Ve uploads.
It is true they are everywhere but the conclusion that they are poisoning us and we are all going to get cancer is just unsupported by evidence, and indeed the actual harm they cause only takes up about a minute of this one hour video. This is a pretty big excercise in begging the question that everyone does when talking about PFAS chemicals.
Well, yeah, it is. When people fall ill, they need medication for their diseases. And now have a guess which business nearly every company of the chemical industry is involved in : yes, pharmaceutical products.
@@cymbala6208 pharmaceutical companies we know better. They just want money so people can come purchase a lot of medications to resolve their sickness. I believe that there are pharmaceutical companies that have cure for some disease, but won't commercial distribute them
yes it is, that company made billions of dollars in profits and are still a massive part of the markets they are in poisoning the public is bad for the public, not for capital
@@OratileTrusts well in a sense in a capitalist system you don't even need greed to explain it, if someone doesn't want as money that much and demands things be more safe they're just going to have less power than those who do want more money, so we can't even just replace the people if we don't change the system
I feel Veritasium is being a bit disingenuous They really went to hammer home that the doctors couldn't be involved in this problem since it was the company that covered up the info. Meanwhile it has been in the news this whole time. It just seems that is the light they want to see it in, or they want to make sure doctors are guilt free because somehow if money doesn't flow into their coffers like water out of a dam, then the quality of work that they do as individuals will suffer. There are doctors that are scientists but most of them push medical dogma, not education.
This has been known for years. It's not a revelation -- it's simply another example of someone, or an organization, that was either ignorant, uncaring or willfully withholding the truth, and for whatever reason has decided to finally tell others about it.
@@hikari8858 except that it was revealed in the 70's and is being used by youtubers to pedal the idea that someone needs funding to prevent it from 'going unchecked' for a long time again...bs
@@hikari8858 Did you hear when they explained that Plunkett was applying teflon to his fishing rod wire 🎣 in his home one night? He was “fishing” for a way to get rich quick using practical magic. The answer came in the form of his wife walking in the room and saying, “Nobody’s gonna buy that. Here, spray it on our cooking pans.” In other words, feed your chemical invention to people because people always need to eat. Did she question its safety? No. She was only thinking about money, just like he was. That’s how these problems get out of control. Because people see something that’s convenient and just assume that corporate and scientific authority figures have their best interests in mind and are telling them the truth. Because grown adults are stuck in this childlike trusting state, as if the people delivering their products to them, running their governments, educating them, employing them, and providing their medical care etc. are like their parents who want the best for them. In that way, it’s actually a benefit in a deranged society like ours to have untrustworthy parents, because then you learn to question everything and do your own research instead of just accepting what you’re told.
As a computational chemist seeking to devise novel and environmentally friendly ways to remove these forever chemicals from ourselves and our enviroment I am very happy to see this video has 10,000,000 views already!
10:07 And I immediately recognized that this was biochemically problematic. Our cell membranes are made from phospholipids that form bilayers or micelles, just like PFOA. Effectively, all living organisms are now poisoned and bioaccumulating these toxins that are incredibly inert and stable.
@@rareraven Yeah, remember the soviet union? Never did anything to hurt people or the environement, because there were no profits to be made. Right? RIGHT?
Oh they had profits. Only for the communist commissariat though, aka rich politicians/people who were entangled with them. Communism and Capitalism both share that problem. Corruption isn't exclusive to one side of the political/ideological spectrum.
Beep, bop... I'm the Philosophy Bot. Here, have a quote: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." ~ Albert Camus
I live in a city with a MASSIVE PFAS issue. We had a local company illegally dump a HUGE amount of PFAS into the environment right next to a river. The river and the land they were on is heavily contaminated, and the land has been blocked off to be “cleaned” for over 10 years, and they aren’t doing much of anything to fix it. DuPont was also notorious for dumping known toxic chemicals into waterways next to their plants illegally. They have killed so many people knowingly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew this was toxic and used it anyways.
I've seen numerous PFAS articles from reputable local news sources over the past years, one highly scientific backed one analysing PFAS consumed through private owned hen laid eggs. But this video really captures the PFAS story to the origins and explains both the science, economic and ethic sides of the story at a much better rounded out level and quality in RUclips than the "professional" media in my (EU) country does. Thank you Veritasium team for these insightful lessons.
"at a much better rounded out level and quality in RUclips than the "professional" media in my (EU) country does" With all respect for Derek and the team, which have done a great job here, it simply impossible for written journalism to capture an audience like a youtube video can. The video's script, in longread article form, just wouldn't have the same impact. At the same time, established EU media such as DW (Deutsche Welle) have certainly put out similar high quality video essay content on this topic (hitting pretty much all the same notes) albeit not necessarily in a 1 hour documentary format, which is probably pushing the limits for Veritasium as well (I must admit I'm curious about the viewer engagement metrics on their end). So I think you're underestimating traditional media. I assume Derek and the team came across plenty of high quality content over the course of production.
You should get a reverse osmotic filtration system, like waterdrop g3p600. Which gets 98% of PFAS out of the water.. and start flushing your system with clean water... By drinking a little over 2 liters a day, the coming year.. and then measure again.... Because I bet you anything.. that will get those levels down.. not an affiliate.. just like your videos.. @@veritasium
@@rongeurtsvankessel1908a form of conveying information that keeps the viewers attention, and is more accessible from an understanding standpoint for more people, adds to he value.
We know even less about microplastics, it's an extremely broad topic (all plastics are wildly different) and to my knowledge no studies have yet succeeded in linking them to specific harms (not to say there aren't any!). It's extremely hard to say anything concrete about them, and they're even more unavoidable than PFAS since they're not a chemical group that has a few specific sources, plastics are unavoidably in EVERYTHING and all of that sheds microplastics. It's more feasible to at least on a small scale filter out PFAS and then avoid products that contain PFAS than to avoid everything that contains and sheds microplastics.
@@landsgevaer In sight of greed, future problems tend to be ignored. It's not that we do not know how to test a chemical before it is safe before we release mass quantities into the environment. We know how to do it before it gets a problem. The problem is, and is usually in these cases. A product gets launched quickly due to high demand without doing nessessary checks to make sure it is safe or not producing harmful waste products, initial research on the product shows that it is dangerous and the problem gets kicked down the road till other people start noticing and fight back.
Beep, bop... I'm the Philosophy Bot. Here, have a quote: "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." ~ Albert Camus
Retired environmental chemist here. The best chemistry lesson I have ever seen in my life! The best toxicology lesson I have seen in my life! The best statistics lesson have seen in my life! They all fall short. As a fellow scientist, please know that I was enraptured! So well done! This is what the Intertubes are for! ✊ Keep it up!
My dad worked for DuPont in the 1980s and 90s, and we actually lived in the part of West Virginia affected by this stuff at the time. I had no idea about any of it, I was a tiny child, but he never let us drink the water there and later in life he told me about meetings where executives were warned about this stuff. They basically slept through all the health and safety briefings and the lawyers' presentations until they heard the words "And this is the part where individual members of the board may face incarceration" which was the only consequence any of them were concerned about. Everything else was just fines they'd pay with other peoples' money to compesnate other peoples' suffering, so it wasn't even *interesting* to them, much less something to worry about.
What is it with Americans letting these things happen? The population knew about the farmer and instead of standing up for their own and their children's health chose to exclude him, for money over health (since they worked at DuPont). Then there was the lawsuit from the population. But no such thing as public protests, or crowds stepping up, employees stepping up. There seems to me, as an outsider, a real lack of protest from the public in America. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Regulations and harsh consequences are the only things that will prevent CEOs from killing people through their decisions. Friedrich Engel called this "social murder" - a way how bosses kill their workers and communities in a way that is socially acceptable.
"We don;t care for your product", speak for yourself there. Teflon is one of the most vital materials in modern civilization. If you don't want to use it you are free to live like they did in the middle ages (because most infrastructure like sewage systems and water lines now use Teflon they gets disqualified), but than you have to remember how sewage was dealt with back then.
Just because we can use Teflon everywhere doesn’t mean we should. People might miss their nonstick pans, Teflon tape, and Gore-Tex, but it won’t set civilization back to require non-toxic alternatives.
It is absolutely Insane that the company has not been shut down for this and people don't get locked up behind bars for this. they knew from the start how dangerous it is.
This video absolutely needs to be translated and shared to everyone - This is mind blowing, I knew about PFAS in Europe but I never measured how much of an impact it had. We normalize bad stuff so much it becomes normal when in reality those companies and our governments should be sued by all of us.
Back in the mid 90's I had a cute little website, on that site I had a page about caring for parrots, and in that was a very intense warning about having birds anywhere near teflon cookware, and I also noted that if it killed birds, maybe rethink using it around your family and kids. Someone emailed me once warning that the makers of teflon were contacting site owners like me and threatening them with lawsuits if they didn't remove the info. I kept the info up and even expanded it a bit. I never did get any threats but probably because my site was so small.
How have you determined that it has gone viral? Viral would mean that it would reach practically everybody at least everybody that has contact with the Internet, which is not everybody by a longshot! It came to my list of RUclips videos, the last few days and I am into watching this kind of thing; I subscribe to Veritasium (ha ha, it wants to write “very potassium“) as well as many other science channels; I really doubt that it as yet has gone viral. It would be great if and when it does! But that it’s out there is hopeful that pressure would rise two levels. We can’t ignore to do something about this, except for the fact that we have a very ignorant, new administration!
@@shadow-_-king444 Donating blood, especially hemoglobin reduces pfas by 30-60% (as summarised by AI) . So I guess save a life and improve your health.
![FIRST DAY IN A NEW SCHOOL & ITS PURE CHAOS | Kindergarten 3 [1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HuUiqY29Qtk/mqdefault.jpg)
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okkkkkkkkkkkk
7 hrs???
I love the new schedule for videos
WAZZZUHHHHH
Came early today
The fact that disclaimer is even needed at the start speaks volumes about DuPont and 3M.
*dupont entrepreneur* got a lot to explain fr
Also the Trump admin, they overturned regulations on PFAS, and they send people to concentration camps
Dupont is probably the worst company in the world.
DuPont approach works every time!
@@dabadcod4 Smith and Wesson, General Dynamics, basically every company Blackrock has more than a 4% share in.......
That lawyer is an actual hero. Very few people would be willing to do the amount of work required to discover the wrongdoing and hold them to account, and then go on to dedicate years of their life fighting them in court and having medical studies done to find evidence.
Yeah, he did an amazing job. Just imagine how long it would take to sift through 60,000 DOCUMENTS! lol
Why though, why would any one want this in the environment they live in
@@JLchevz
Keep in mind, documents. Not pages.
True
Hero to who ?
From 1999-2003 I worked for a furniture store and sprayed hundreds of furniture units per week with Scotchgard from 3M containing PFAS forever chemicals, some people also occasionally sprayed co-workers with the chemical as a joke I was sprayed dozens of times with the chemical. In 2002 we were told that our company was discontinuing use of scotchgard and switching to stainsafe brand spray, we were like - "wait this stuff isn't safe?!" In 2006 I was 27 years old and diagnosed with IGA nephopathy the doctors never could figure out why my kidney's were failing at such a young age. In 2007 I had to start dialysis and in 2009 I received a kidney transplant and I am doing good now. I wonder if PFAS caused my kidney failure. UPDATE: I'm shocked at how much attention this comment got! Just want to clarify a couple things. We were told the spray was "just like a glue mist" and safe if it got on us. we were given no PPE, and the spray area was not in a well ventilated area, also the pump sprayer would frequently clog and hoses would spring leaks which would spray us with the chemical- again management told us it was safe when we questioned it. We did question it from time to time and our employer did have a OSHA materials handling book, I cannot remember exactly what it said about the scotchgard chemical- being this was over 20 years ago. I myself never sprayed anyone with it, but because we were told it was safe beyond telling people to stop it I didn't think it was extremely dangerous - it was 1999. My old employer went out of business in 2015 so I don't think I would have any recourse there. I'm not really lookin for recourse at this point. I am going to talk to my doctor and have a toxicology work up done. I did some more research after watching this and found a 2022 National Institutes of Health study that found PFAS in blood plasma associated with higher rates of IgA nephropathy and other glomerular diseases. Being that I had no family history of autoimmune or kidney disease, and that I had heavy, unprotected exposure to Scotchgard chemicals containing PFOS/PFOA during a critical 3-4 year period, before the chemical was pulled from the market in 2002 due to toxicity concerns, I am leaning towards it being highly likely that this was the cause of my end-stage renal disease which was diagnosed within 3 years. I am looking forward to doing the toxicology blood work. At least I have an idea what most likely caused my kidney failure, for decades I did not know. Thanks Veritasium for putting this information out there.
Wow this actually made my jaw drop. I sure am glad you got a transplant
That's fucked, did you try to claim liability from your past employer or no?
I had shingles in my eye and it caused some nerve damage.
Olfactory senses changed.
I was spraying that stuff on furniture for a job and halfway thru the day my nerves were fried and I was I stopped doing it and went home.
Told the boss it's toxic and I couldn't handle it.
Unreal.
Does an adult really need someone to tell them that spraying any chemical on other people as a joke is a moronic idea? We live in Idiocracy.
100% associated dude
The fact that Dupont knew about C8 for all those decades, very early on, and only phased it out when they were forced to is so diabolical. All that money in revenue but they didnt even try to create a way to safely dispose of their waste responsibly. Great job on this video guys.
It is something we see time and time again with companies, make/sell thing that will inevitably poison people, only stop once it either become unprofitable or the government says they can't do that.
thats capitalism baby
@@RedShiftJellyFish Woah woah hey let's not get ahead of ourselves here
I'm not denying at all that capitalism does encourage and enable this type of behavior but it certainly doesn't cause it
Like you know how it's not valid to justify (understand or explain, sure, but not justify) Voldemort or Malfoy's actions throughout the books by "that's growing up in a rough household baby" because Harry also grew up in a rough household and chose differently? There are companies (okay, admittedly I actually can't name any but I'm sure there are) that exist within capitalism and still choose not to act like this. Capitalism doesn't cause bad behavior, greed does
@samstromberg5593 and by nature, those companies will always fall by the wayside because theres always going to be other companies that don't spend the resources buttoning everything up and being morally correct, theyll just spend resources pretending they do that.
Its a dog eat dog world out there and if you want to be on top (which every publicly traded company does) you're going to have to get your hands a little dirty. Survival of the fittest.
@@samstromberg5593 Steam is a pretty ethical service. The way to tell the difference is if a company is public or not. Private businesses are much more likely to be ethical because they don't have to keep earning more than last year for the shareholders- because there's no shareholders. The shareholders are the problem.
Sweet, a 1 hour Veritasium video!
*grabs popcorn*
halfway in:
*spits out popcorn*
Popcorn... you're poisoining yourself, dear!
@@alkante2962only if it's microwave popcorn. Regular popcorn exists.
Was the popcorn made in teflon or Microwave ? Ohhh Dear call 911
😂😂😂 under rated comment.
I immediately binned all my microwave popcorn, which I quite enjoyed, but I wish to live a bit longer so back to home made popcorn.
Andre Herring Art is cool
"Hey you know that time Dupont created a chemical that poisoned the entire earth and killed millions?"
"No not that time"
"No not that one either"
"Nope not that time also"
Is that supposed to be funny or do u have a warped sense of humor
@@shirleyandrews1152? How else can they casually say that they're notorious for that? What are you talking about
@@shirleyandrews1152You are asking the same question
@@shirleyandrews1152 It _is_ funny.
My accountant called, said profits lookin' grand, somethin' 'bout "waste disposal plan"
He winked and chuckled, patted on my back, said "Sometimes, you gotta cut a little slack!"
My lawyer smilin', lookin' awfully smug, said "Deny everything, just give a shrug!"
when a video starts off with "for legal reasons" you know its going to be a banger
It didn't start off with "for legal reasons" at all, it started off with "In 1929 in chicago" you tweakin
Nah more the actions of an utter coward.
@@CarmeloRagusa-w7twhat bro🤣🤣 you so fuckin tough😂😂
@@CarmeloRagusa-w7t whats cowardly about covering your ass?
Video gets deleted if that disclaimer isn't there.
I love how they rounded up the safe limit for it. I was always taught you round down when it comes to safety
"Rules for thee, but not for me!" 😮💨
Honestly. They really almost DOUBLED the limit
Not if you want to make money and avoid paying for the knowing harm you are causing while doing so.
As an environmental engineer currently designing and implementing systems to remove PFAS from our water sources, I truly thank you for bringing awareness to this issue. I have sent this to all my family and friends and suggest others do the same. If we cannot trust chemical corporations to manufacture their products responsibly, or trust our regulators to protect the nation's health, it falls to us, collectively, to demand change.
Thank you for all of the work you do ! You are truly making an impact in this world 😭❤️
Best of luck designing a PFAS removal system! This will be a critical technology in the near future.
Not all heroes wear capes
I have been singing this song since the movie Dark Waters came out in 2019.
Thank you for attacking the neutralization of the compound. We all know that filtration is not the answer and just contributes to the problem with a disposable medium.
The Unholy Trinity of Companies:
1. Nestlé
2. DuPont
3. Shell
Dole is also HORRIBLE
And two of three of these companies were located in Fulton, NY
What about shell tho ? What did they do
I have never heard of this company
@@angelicasysnila5476 Shell is an oil company. Oil industry practices are uh.. problematic
Pfizer
A 1 hour video about a chemical that keeps you engaged the whole time is a masterpiece in my eyes. Congrats to Derek and everyone else at Veritasium
Call Veritasium the anti-teflon the way they make you stick around
i did not even notice until you pointed it out!
There's also a movie about it, called Dark Waters. You'll enjoy it too
Osmosis Jones 😏
And how many ad breaks?
This, along with recent microplastic studies, has me thinking that unnatural chemicals being invented is the answer to the Fermi Paradox. Every intelligent species accidentally poisons itself to extinction for the sake of convenience.
'Accidentally'
Wrong. Its not an accident. Its about greed and satanism.
Quite an interesting, and plausible, theory.
It's incredible how people are listing names of companies that have knowingly poisoned people and still tried to hide it, and they don't realize that it's an inherent part of the capitalist system. It seems now like the only system possible, but I doubt that every intelligent species would land at capitalism, I think having a system more like in Star Trek would be required to even call that species intelligent in the first place.
This was no accident.
This was intentional based on pure greed.
More proof capitalism is bad.
The general policy for everything new should be "contained until proven safe", not "dumped freely until proven unsafe".
The EU tries to do that and it's a success of the Greens.
The only chance we have to keep society in check is to use sortition. This would be true democracy.
You can never truly predict long term problems. But still when it does become known production should be stopped immediately, and not like this, ignored and covered up.
@@AndreasDelleske Yeah. Democracy would be nice for a change really😇😄
@@Flaggyt You can't predict them. But you can run test and find out something will cause long term problems. But our society is extremely shortsighted and very easily get lost in inmediate benefit, ignoring long term consecuenses.
Yeah, its called unbridled capitalism!!!
@@TheVexher
What is most crazy, is this has been known for decades....and Dupont, having poisoned the planet, is still happily in business.
That's capitalism and greed for ya
It's the case for most polluants and dangerous products. Cigarettes, leaded gasoline, flame retardants, plenty of processed foods, pesticides, etc... Every company manufacturing those knew they were harmful well before anyone else and continued they business as if they didn't know until they had legal obligations to do something.
Money buys power
@@troubl3gum they will realize when everyone is dieing of poison even their own family
@@RudeMcRude do you think the communists treated the environment any better? There's scummy people everywhere in the world, regardless of the political environment.
As a chemist it never ceases to amaze me at how we continually find new, more creative ways to slowly poison ourselves. And the kicker is that these companies defer responsibility onto the public and private research groups so now instead of being forced to solve the problem themselves, they have millions of dollars in federal spending being sent to groups that could spend their time focusing on other topics. It’s the same fiasco with recycling and it’s maddening
For real. Why aren't they required to prove that their chemical disposal is safe, even if it takes 5 decades to prove? This reminds of the quote, "Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence".
And it gets easier now for the companies to get away with the EPA being gutted.
@@fsnow55 Its so awful and all for the profit of the 1% wealthy and powerful that run these companies, and for their shareholders at the expense of the average person and consumer. Its beyond greed, its insane!!
I am not sure we can ask the company responsible to come up with a solution we could trust, if we dont already have any basis for trust..even if the company did make some solution the lack of trust would necessitate 3rd party validation anyway and as such the cost to the public is incurred anyway.
@@adrianantico3750 Back in the 50s/60s chemical manufacturing in Niagara Falls, NY shoveled their toxic waste into pits behind the plant. The only stopped when a new highway was built which overlooked them.
At that point, they just buried it at another location and then gave the land to the city to become a school.
Profit over all else.
Thanks for this comprehensive video!
I love that you got an interview with Robert himself! I don’t know of any other lawyer who has done something as important and impactful as he has. Without him bringing the toxicity of the chemicals to life who knows how high the world wide contamination levels would be right now.
@@JasonMayshack chromium
I highly recommend the movie Dark Waters (2019) with Mark Ruffalo as Robert.
Hero without cape.
@@NonZenze I just watched that movie about 2 weeks ago. Such a good movie.
Micro plastic is probably worse.
Zero accountability for corporate US.
They got congress in their pocket. Nothing will be done. That’s a guarantee.
Capitalism over Life.
Wait what???! You mean in every tv show, movie, book, the CEO is the bad guy and the Corporation is evil. Almost like we know but just don’t care. Because jobs and money! Merica! We need jobs!!!! That’s you that’s what you sound like when voting for people that could stop this.
What gave it away
Corporate US has always owned the US. No such thing as accountability when you own the ppl meant to hold ppl accountable. Nothing will change until the sheeple actually take a stand
*puts popcorn back into the pantry
Yooo wsp steven
Love your skits
bro is doing phd here
*_EMOTIONAL DAMAGE_*
Good mornin mr president of beijing corn
As a journalist and editor i must say that this is some of the best stories ive seen.... in years. Bravo
I know it's just a RUclips comment and, as an editor, I've been there myself, but you might want to check your grammar here.
there is an EU proposal for a ban of PFAS chemicals, but pressure from companies are strongly pushing for an incomplete prohibition which is frustrating! The timing of this was great. Did not feel like an hour
Yep Problem is that so much relys on these chemicals now that it's not easy to change.
There arent any good alternatives that are proofen to work as required - that will take another decade..
Well sometimes perfect is enemy of good.
Ban it from cooking and drinking water related stuff and make it expensive in most other stuff.
@@SorbusAucubaria All we have to do is ban it from being used in food containers, but teflon cookware is still fine. Also regulate the companies that dump their sewage into public water, this is the real issue, the dumping of wastewater and dumping of chemicals into landfill instead of responsibly disposing of them.
Wasn't it banned in 2021? with only products containing them where they are irreplaceable
Ban PFAS , but let the migrants pour in! You have to watch out for the "trucks of peace" plowing through streets, but hey, at least there's no non-stick pans anymore...
14:08 "Do you have a good attorney" is probably the last thing I'd ever want an expert in any field to ask me when I'm inquiring about something strange
Yeah, it always means the news is bad, and the solution is going to be painful, hard to make happen.
@@Targe0if the government or a large corporation involved it can take decades and swarms of lawyers if it happens at all. U gotta have evidence that also can't be interpreted in any one but one. Were getting slowly better about chemicals released but most of the worst stuff just released elsewhere, hopefully the environment adapts.
Insane
'Have you prepared your will?' would probably be worse.
@@XdivineExp That would legally constitute a "threat" xD
Hey, as a firefighter I want you to know that I really appreciate the work you put into this. We’ve recently discovered that we’ve been lied to or at least misled by chemical companies for decades about the PFAS in our protective gear. We are all fighting for regulations and research into protective clothing that does not contain PFAS but it’s been an incredible struggle.
As for foam, thankfully the foam used by most municipal fire departments does not contain PFAS and has not for years. The foam we use for house fires and other natural material fires (wood, vegetation, etc) is PFAS free and has been for many years. But the foam used by airports, fuel tank farms, industrial fire companies, etc is heavily PFAS based. Basically anything used for fighting large liquid fuel fires. Some places used to use PFAS foams for things like car fires, but my department and many, many others have stopped using this “Class B” foam simply due to the PFAS risk.
If anyone feels like helping please write your legislators and tell them that finding alternative materials to protect firefighters and alternative materials to make foam for large fuel fires is absolutely critical and should never be considered a partisan issue. It’s ridiculous to me that removing substances that have contaminated literally everything on earth can be a political issue, yet here we are.
Really appreciate you sharing this - hearing directly from firefighters adds so much weight to the conversation. The PFAS issue is disturbing, and it's wild that finding safer alternatives is still such an uphill battle. Thanks for speaking out and helping push this forward.
And we vote for people who want to continue to deregulate corporations.. You know, because money is more important than people, that's their philosophy
This comment should be pinned by the channel.
Public pressure is required when the system is in complete denial and that denial endangers everyone on the planet.
Veritasium, please pin this comment.
What about the foam used for electric car battery fires? Is that the same as the airport stuff?
What about the foam used in the Palisades fire?
One of the reasons they didn't choose to dispose it properly is because it wasn't cost effective...
Profit over Life...
Can we all agree that the CEOs and board members of DuPont that said “no economically satisfactory alternative can be found” should be forced to exclusively drink the wastewater from their facilities?
Actually I think as a general rule, all CEO and board members of every company should be required to drink a gallon of wastewater from their dirtiest facility every month. I think you’d be stunned just how clean that water will get! 😂
Everybody is guilty because we waste too much ! The problem is knownnsince the sixties. Marketing !
@@jpcaretta8847 The factories and coal-burning plants. These produce orders of magnitude more waste and pollution than any one person could on their own. A person wearing a PFAS jacket can contaminate each body of water they visit, but a factory producing PFAS can contaminate every body of water before it is even discovered by hikers.
That's not good enough. People dying because of your product is Gross Incompetence and Manslaughter.
@@daviddavis4885 I'd be the first to volunteer. My plant's effluent is far cleaner than our mains water and we track both 24/7. Any other practice rightly invites suspicion.
The only problem is that if the antidote or treatment for the poison costs $1,000,000, it's still in the CEOs financial best interest to pollute the water, drink from it, and get treated afterward. Actually, I'm sure the company would pay for the medical treatment no matter the cost to make the water appear safe.
It’s terrifying how long this was covered up. Generations exposed, ecosystems poisoned, and all for profit. Massive respect to those who fought to uncover the truth. 🌍
80 billion $ yearly
Money silences everything
@@CEOofSEGG that's just 1 company. You need to add revenue from other companies like 3M.
@@shivam-aggarwal Damn...
What do you expect from capitalism? Most capitalists are stupid, narcissistic idiots who don't care about anything but money.
just wait until you find out about the herbicide Atrazine, and what the chemical company Syngenta did to threaten Dr. Tyrone Hayes. You know the alex jones gay frog meme? well it's real, and alex jones was referring to Hayes' research. The stuff is basically rampant in our ground water, and is a known endocrine disruptor. Syngenta hired Hayes to find out whether it was unsafe to be in the ground water, and when they didn't like the results, basically tried to destroy his career. And ever since they've done a good job of covering it all up. But the chemical is still there, in our water, leeching from farms...
I worked at a federal government agricultural research station for 7 years. It was my job to spray pesticides on plants. My boss Dr. Gill once got some of this chemical (TEPP) on his finger and showed me to wash it off immediately if it ever happened to me. It turns out that this stuff was an Organo Phosphate that was actually used as a Nerve Gas in WW2. I started using every protection when I sprayed this stuff twice a week. My co-worker was not as careful. We had to go for Colonestry (spelling) tests every three months. This co-worker had his result come back as Colonestry down to 30. The doctor said he should be dead. He got transferred to a different department, so I had to do all of his spraying. After one more year of this I lost my nerve and quit. I came back a few years later, and they told me that Dr. Gill had died from some kind of nerve disorder. But it wasn't from spraying TEPP. Ya right...
Never is never is... It's always someone else fault
& too many chemicals are still used...like weed/ garden sprays. Fish kills (red tide).😳😷🤑 it feels as if a helpless situation, in which Life has little value. C'est la Vie.👽
Wow that's a story 😦
This why we need to Rise Up
I'm so sorry for what you've endured (been exposed to) and hope this finds you in good health. FYI: there is a group called EWG
(Environmental Working Group) who routinely tests foods, cleaning products and cosmetics for side effects and toxins.. Check them out! Best wishes & Stay Strong. Thanks for the share! -Cheers.
Absolutely incredible how far Veritasium has come. This was a full hour documentary and I was absorbed the entire time. You rock, Derek!
My dad is an environmental engineer and has warned his clients about PFAS for years. He's always been surprised by how few people know about PFAS, so I'm glad that this video is gonna raise awareness about it.
Your dad will be joining inn the stories to shed more light on wellbeing ... Comment boxes should never be switched off
Luigi was right
Yeah there were people warning about this stuff, refusing to use coated pans and such like even 3 or 4 decades ago.
Now he has a great explanation video!
@@imquantum8009Not to go to the point he did is not acceptable. It makes him know better. 🥴
I live in Dordrecht, The Netherlands next to the DuPont factory, it is now rebranded to Chemours to make it harder for lawsuits to stick. A few years ago we got told it isnt safe to swim in the water in our city, which everybody has been doing for over 60 years! DuPont has known this wasn't safe for decades. The higher ups in these companies are the biggest criminals in the world!
CHEMOURS, JE KANKERMOEDER❤
How do you say “Luigi” in Dutch? 🤔
@@RC-qf3mpPretty sure it would just be “Luigi” but I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down…
It's not just rebranded to Chemours, that's the shell corporation to dodge liability.
As someone who had a kanker moeder, likely because of Chemours, this is the only acceptable use of the term
Chemours de moeder van kanker
Videos addressing public health are necessary especially now. Thanks for making it.
"Especially now." Exactly. People complain about the EPA and government regulations but those are the only things stopping commerce from poisoning all of us. Corporations can never be trusted to do the right thing if it adversely affects their bottom line and it nearly always does.
@@jameshisself9324 That is capitalism for you. Everything for the shareholders. The shareholders don't know the details and the ones that know the details don't make the decisions.
Sad you only care when your TDS is activated.
@@jameshisself9324 Americans DO NOT CARE...we are a nation of gullible fools
@@jameshisself9324it blows my mind how many people are so deeply averse to regulations and watchdog government agencies. They are accountable to the public, have to be transparent and make their information publicly available, and are massively underfunded. I suppose it’s the decades of intense propaganda and lobbying by these companies, but the fact that people actually trust private companies that are only accountable to their shareholders no matter how many people are harmed, over public service employees is insane
I like how it covers all aspects. painted whole picture, about being aware but not spreading panic.
This video has really humbled me. I have a colleague at our lab, who is very excited about investigating the routes to remove/eliminate PFAS, PFOS and the sister groups. During his initial days he had made compelling arguments and data driven statements on the need to study pathways for the destruction of these chemicals. It was my lack of insight and a failure as a researcher to properly understand the gravity of the situation and the urgency of the work. He is one the most gifted researchers I've ever come across when it comes to wet lab operations and is still hard at work on this challenge. I'll try my best to help him with his work and try to be more accommodating and put more effort and scientific rigor to understand the motivation behind the work of the other researchers.
Thank You so much Veritasium. Truly a wonderful and humbling video.
I hope your colleagues can successfully figure it out! 🤞🏼
Best of Luck 🤞 to you and your colleague and the rest of us!
Keep it going, man! We’re rooting for y’all! We need more people like y’all.
This is why science is important. People like your colleague are the actual heroes of the world.
For people with high levels, has dialysis been tried as a treatment instead of just "bloodletting" and passing the chemicals on to ill people who need the blood but don't need the extra chemical load from the donated blood?
" Dark Waters" is the massive movie with mark ruffalo that was released from the perspective of the lawyer who went after DuPont. Amazing watch
A very good movie indeed. Mark Ruffalo shines!
Wow! Thank you! 👍
I can’t cook a meal without anxiety thanks to that movie all the pots and pans in eu are covered with teflon that they claim is a new kind that is healthy, also I could spend hundreds to buy real pots and pans but then when you go to a restaurant it’s the same conundrum that movie made me extremely paranoid about our society 😂
I liked the old cartoons pirates of dark water, but I don't really see how the grufallo would fit in I am totally watching this!
@@AmirArmada It just being on pots and pans is relatively fine unless every pan youre eating off of every day is majorly scratched up. Probably get indigestion or something.
In the case of Dupont and 3M, they were letting factory runoff get dumped straight into the surrounding environment, incouding the water supply. Honestly, even a food manufacturing company could prompt that sort of disaster if theyre regularly dumping toxic machine oils and etc. off straight to drinking pipes.
Companies that fail at envirnmental standards with these stunts can still have relatively safe consumer grade priducts, its just deadly for anyone living near or downstream the factory.
*video mentions relatively safety in consumer products near the end. Teflon itself is pretty safe, PFAS stuff on the other hand, you ideally dont want to eat those. So raincoats are pretty safe since you dont eat them, but you probably shouldnt be leaving food directly in them and warming it. We'd need pretty serious water purification plants to fix the water issue though.
I love that you show the old advertisement for methyl chloride refrigerators which say "harmless"! "Safe for your home"! Industry has never NOT lied to people about the actual safety of their products, yet our governments continue to let them continue to cause horrific harm.
hey mr krabs can sell that toxic krabby patty as long as he pays his taxes at the end of the day
So you are saying the government is honest? You really want to go down that route?
A decade from now people will be saying the same thing about covid vaccines
capitalism is the true king of America
capitalism working as intended
Chemistry is so fascinating. I took a year of it at college and then snuck into a mid level organic chemistry class( I was an accounting major). That was the outer limits of my ability. Much respect to those who have conquered it.
I don’t usually like or donate on videos but the stuff you cover is incredibly important.
@@ZelenoJabko It might have been a sizable amount to them. What an ignorant and ill spirited comment, yuck.
@@ZelenoJabkosmall amounts add up.. but yor words just contribute to negativity
Let's see your donation 😂... Weren't you ever taught about being thankful? @@ZelenoJabko
@@ZelenoJabko
Rude!
@@ZelenoJabkowhere is your donation ??
the fact that this started being used around the 40s/50s and its JUST NOW getting the attention for being toxic is so alarming. these companies really just get away with whatever, huh?
not whatever: forever
Many of us knew about fluoride and avoided it like the plague that it is. When so many people stopped thinking and researching for themselves, and settled for being spoonfed by money loving corporations, governments, media moguls, and other world leaders through "tell a vision" society started picking up speed toward annihilation.
I agree with you that these companies can get away with anything but this has been news since like the early 2000’s…
@@markzepp481so you never heard about the lady who killed all her pet birds in the 70s from Teflon in the cooking pans?
Makes you wonder whalt else is out there that we currently dont know about and is slowly killing/poisoning us
Imagine spending your entire life dedicated to saving your cows and there’s just some big billionaire trying to hide that it’s their fault not only poisoning cows but everyone else. Wow my trust is non existent now
You had trust in this government?
@@ST1TCHM0UTH😬
why do you think the gov sent all our factories to china? they dont have any environmental protections at all. and they then give massive kickbacks to the politicians to keep it all legal. china now is contaminating the entire world and oceans with more toxic chemicals than the US ever did.
Companies routinely do shitty things and only stop when either people or the government step in to fight them. So I was 0% surprised that it took this long.
Fr
SCOTLANDDDDDDDDD The graph at 44:00 makes me happy to live in one of the fewer touched places and gives me growing concerns for those here that don't look after our natural beauty
I work in the field of refrigeration and let me tell you this: The PFAS problem will only become worse. The chemical industry is pushing synthetic refrigerants and trying its best to delay any regulatory legislation or the mass adoption of environmentally save, natural refrigerants like CO2. Virtually every car build for the European market since 2015 is using R1234yf - a synthetic refrigerant which eventually degrades into TFA (trifluoroacetic acid), once it leaks into the atmosphere (no A/C system is 100% leak tight!). When TFA is washed out of the atmosphere by rain and mixes with groundwater, no natural process will ever get it out again and it will slowly accumulate in the food-chain. In first studies, TFA has shown to have harmful impacts on human and mammal health (damagin fertility, liver-toxicity, harmful impact on embryos) European public health will see the effects first and they will be *non-reversible*. In the end, thousands of people will get sick or even die from this... silently, without public outrage, because it will be burried in statistics.
The US still has a small chance to steer the boat in the right direction. Most American cars use the refrigerant R134a. It is nowhere near as bad as R1234yf in terms of TFA. But being a strong greenhouse gas (1400 times worse than CO2), it will most likely be replaced at some point - hopefully with a natural refrigerant. But frankly, I doubt it... most people neither know, nor care what type of refrigerant is in their car's or home's A/C. And if I have learned one thing, following this topic for almost 20 years... the immorality and corporate greed of the chemical industry knows no bounds. Same goes for politicians... saving a few thousand jobs in the chemical industry within their term carries a greater weight than protecting the health of future generations.
yiekes!
Thats shocking, what about cars before 2015. Are they dangerous to use AC?
@@leeross8648 No, at least not as dangerous in terms of the above described TFA problem. Cars homologated in EU before 2015 mostly use R134a, a hydrofluorocarbon, which is still the most common refrigerant in vehicles worldwide. It was replaced when EU legislation limited how much global warming potential (GWP) a refrigerant was allowed to have. While it was, from an enviromental point of view, the right call to replace it, they replaced it with a class of refrigerant that (as we now know) slowly and steadily poisons the planet forever. If you know the history of refrigerants, this is isn't the first time something like this happens. But unlike the hole in the ozone layer, TFA in our water won't magically go away.
@@kqsqI just don’t understand the logic behind how the EU bans something, the replacement is worse and the EU says “eh you tried!” and just shrugs?
If this stuff is horrifying, EU should be up and arms about it too no?
Thank you for covering important topics that impact billions of people. The public should be more informed on the shady business these big corporations are doing.
No reply, lemme fix that , also i agree
Only 1 reply, lemme fix that
🎉❤ this comment
Thank you for your support, glad you enjoyed the video.
JFK Jr. is trying to dig this hole, but who wants to notice that?
So basically, it boils down to:
1) invent a chemical you know is poisonous
2) drop it everywhere
3) pretend it’s not toxic/you don’t know/I don’t know/whatever excuses
4) let it cook and be studied by the general public
5) have the same conclusion that it’s poisonous
6) tweak and repeat.
Oh, and make a profit from that fraud, ofc.
Edit: +wonder why general public doesn’t trust corporate science anymore.
Its worth pointing out that it is not clear that PFAS chemicals are specifically harmful. Even in this video there is a lot of talk about how they are everywhere but nothing about millions of people getting sick from them.
capitalism
@@jeffh8803 It was clearly said. What are you talking about?
@@jeffh8803 base on what i see, and the video show... it is clear that they are harmful, just not how much.
@@jeffh8803 bro missed out on the bit where its caused health problems and increased risks of cancer 💀
oh i forgot you're one of the science guys who doesnt stop every two seconds to repeat something we were supposed to have learned in second grade, huge W
Alien archeologists 50 milion years from now:
"What's this weird layer of chemicals in the rocks?"
"Ancient aliens"
“Earth was infected for a brief period of time by a species called human.”
It's more like "stupid aliens."
There's already a detectable layer in the ground from all those cool firecrackers we set off in the 50s and 60s.
Good. Right? If the future archeologists are also a species born in this planet, that "should" help them avoiding our own mistakes.
If we over anthropologize things: perhaps geology is a way every gravitational well that can sustain life has to allow the complex life they produce to endure the errors caused by their earlier "attempts" at complexity...
And wtf is this? a story of how PFAS has finally propagated beyond our galaxy?
grandparents being filled with asbestos, parents filled with lead, me filled with microplastics. all filled with c8
boy do I love the industrial society traditions!
Let's turn the clock back 200 years. We existed for millennia without all this tech crap.
Whats next what will our kids be filled with
@@Space.Ghost. No thanks, I like my tech and my human rights
@@spinach-dip00 did I F'n say anything about policy? 🤡 I like my genetics undegraded and my everything to not contain toxic chemicals.
What is most bizarre is that this has been known for decades, and Dupont, despite poisoning the planet, is still in business.
There are no alternatives that are economically feasible. That's why they are still in business.
People take low cost of products for granted nowadays but never question where it all comes from.
Hahahaa let’s just call it development and first world brilliance . Maybe humans will learn someday. But I think it’s too late .
Oil companies are still in business as well because people care more about profit than the environment or health
@@thecolorgreen9022but also like Derek said, in some.situations.especially in the medical field, there are simply no other options available currently.
@moisavictoria this is also an oversimplification. Oil is needed for so many of our industrial machines, cars, etc..sure in a world with infinite money or no need for money we could just take years to replace everyone's cars for free, replace all manufacturing and use natural oil alternatives. But that's not the world and grinding to a halt is not a realistic option.
Does greed play a part? Absolutely.
But that's a small world to live in and doesn't actually factor in how our society currently functions.
Never thought i would set down and watch a documentry, let alone about Teflon. This documentry is very well made and keeps everyting interesting and attention grapping. Well done Gregor.
Being a polymer engineer I can tell you guys the stuff you call plastic are way more dangerous then you think. Although the plastics themselves are harmless i.e. PP, PE, PET etc. It’s the fillers, plasticisers, dyes and other additives which have potential for actual harm to living beings. C8/ PTFE are just tip of an iceberg. PVC is another very dangerous one.
We are tirelessly working in research to find alternatives hopefully we will sort it all out in the next 50 years.
So we literally bath chemical water 😮
Thank you for your hard work 🙏🏻❤
When we're all extinct nice
PVC. The stuff our houses are plumbed with. 🛀🚰🫖😦
Any example chemical names of these? great
1:44 The fact that courts would sooner prosecute Veritasium for "defamation" than prosecute these companies proves that we shouldn't be asking for justice. We should be forcing it. Jail time would be too lenient.
The thing is that police and the justice system is there to protect the 0,1% hyper rich criminal parasite class FROM USS !!!
Exactly 💯
The solution, Angry Person, is to fix the broken and corrupt justice system.
Unfortunately, the US doesn’t jail executives they only fine the company.
Defamation is civil matter and it is Dupont that would file suit against him, not the government.
Unless you live in clown world like New York, where the AG sues political enemies for civil torts where the alleged victim says they are not a victim.
I have recurrent metastatic testicular cancer that came back after 20 years from PFAS exposure as a baby from living in a small town along the Mississippi River in Iowa that got their tap water from the river. The source of the PFAS was the 3M plant in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. My late wife died from Pleural Mesothelioma which was caused by talc baby powder that had talc contaminated with asbestos. Neither one of us had occupational exposure. After 25k lawsuits the baby powder and jock itch spray manufacturers eliminated talc and switched to corn starch. She was an IT consultant, and I was a corporate engineering director.
I’m sorry for all you have had to endure, and to have lost your wife as well seems to be completely unbearable.
I’m sorry for your loss and medical struggles, Clint
It blows my mind that people can justify having children in such a poisoned and evil world. Unbelievable...
@@A.C-g8e yes. Extinction if the human species is clearly preferable to discovering and solving problems.
I'm in Iowa. Always worried about that Mississippi river. Never drink from it. Or from anything that sources it.
Hell has a special place for those executives who just didnt give a crap about the dangers they were exposing everyone to
I'm a certified water treatment operator, and we're dealing with the new EPA regulations on PFAS and PFOS, and a handful of similar compounds. The biggest issue is if you do have a contaminated water source, there's not really a cost effective way to treat it. The only way to remove some of the shorter chain PFAS-type contaminants is reverse osmosis or similar, which doesn't really solve the issue just kicks it down the road. See, an R/O system essentially concentrates the containments on one side of a filter and pulls clean water from the other, which leaves you with a extra-concentrated wastewater, usually at a 2:1 ratio of waste to clean. As in there's two gallons of wastewater to one gallon of clean. Not very efficient, and we still have to deal with the concentrated waste.
So now what do we do? We can't just flush it down the drain, if we do then the sewer department has to deal with it in THEIR treatment plant, because they can't just dump it back into the environment to recontaminate the water sources!
We're all waiting for a better solution, but if not, we're looking at a massive increase in cost to water that has even 5 parts per TRILLION of PFAS/PFOS
Sell it as Exclusive Ultra Expensive Luxury Drink. If it passes through the FDA, you'll be passing the problem over to those who can afford the industry change.
The company that caused this mess should pay for the water treatment to fix it.
RFK & trump will do away with any regs & your job will be easy and/or you’ll be fired. Both options are terrible for everyone
@@Jonathan_Doe_ Wouldn't it be wonderful if the world worked that way
I'm a wastewater plant operator. It'll take billions and billions to retrofit all of the plants to be able to filter it out successfully. Good luck getting the small towns/municipalities to go along with it when a lot of the plants are severely underfunded and running of tech from the 70s. Short of genetically engineering the biology to metabolize it to something safer, there's not a good solution for us either. The solids we filter out either go to the landfill or are burned. And our treated effluent is injected back into the aquifer. We don't have a good way to stop the cycle of keeping these chemicals in the water supply. The days of cheap water bills will be over within our lifetime.
As a lawyer, I can confirm there’s no way that WV farmer paid that attorney enough to read 60,000 documents. That attorney is a hero.
Pretty sure he got paid well enough after they won the case lol
That lawyer probably did the Mr. Incredible deep dive meme.
Hmmph.-- a Legal Couselor w/ a conscience.
That’s where pro-bono work comes in.
The farmer gave him a mission and he chased that pot of gold and got it!
I'm an environmental toxicology graduate researcher that is helping to test water filter technology to address PFOA. I've specifically been avoiding this episode because I'm beyond exhausted with the new policies we have to deal with. Thank you for addressing that. This was very well done.
Expecting the government to fix this is not "exhausting" its naive and foolish. Unless the culture changes and people start using alternative sources nothing will change, you will simply shift supply chains to communist pollution factories like China. Nobody is going to save you, you have to do things like use a home water distiller with VOC venting, watch what foods you are eating, and what products you use at home.
Keep the faith. Our town is spending millions to remove PFAS from our well water supplies--- and what do you do with the filters once they've done their job??
Thank you for your service.
A genuine thank you to you.
Save us pls.
Didn’t know a veritasium video could further radicalize me, but here we are.
FYI: These practices are still done as we speak. In Belgium the government covered up PFAS waste. They knew about it in 2017 but didn't take action. They waited until the media gave it some attention and started taking measures 4 years later (2021). Court ruled that the government was negligent in their duties, resulting in ... nothing but a symbolic compensation. The company that caused it was 3M btw
Love it when the punishment for crime is a fine far lower than what was earned while committing said crime.
Imagine stealing 10000 bucks and getting a 50 buck fine as "punishment", while keeping what you've earned through crime.
@@MatthiasDrinksH20Exactly, it encourages evil.
Your government also works for 3M
also its worth nothing that pfas is still present in some of the every day products we use. For example dental floss that isnt specifically mentioned as pfas free lol (ps, there are safer opinnions, they just arent as cheap)
As a Polymer Scientist, I am so happy that you made this video on Fluorocarbons like PTFE and PFAS. These forever chemicals have a huge impact on environment as well as humankind. I worked in a chemical factory that manufactured polymers and I have used PTFE so many times as a lubricant. It generally leaches out when exposed to high heat. Thank you for making a 1 hour video on this topic. Love from India
Could you tell me why those factories let those toxic chemicals get into Rivers, couldn't they put into one land where general public is unreachable? Do they still do the same? Also, can you suggest me a book that can cover everything this video talked about and related to your field maybe something foundational?
people like you are the problem
but dont worry you have a diploma on a wall
@@vimal-cliobconsulting Money.
Your firsthand experience in polymer science adds a valuable perspective to this discussion. It's alarming how PTFE and PFAS leach under heat, yet their risks were downplayed for so long. The video really highlights the gap between industrial use and public awareness. Great to see experts like you engaging with this issue.
27:30 Thank you for pointing out the comparison of $600M payout to $80B revenue in ONE YEAR.
It's 80billion in sales. Not revenue. Massive difference
Still pocket change
Yeah it's less than 1% of a year's revenue. The judge should have made it 1% of a year's revenue for *each* year that the company had been dumping the chemicals into the environment, but then that would actually hurt the company and we can't have that.
@@itszain6317 Hi Zain, FYI Sales and Revenue are the same thing.
Reading the book "Weapons of Doubt" right now, and there are a few notable companies and hired scientists who have consistently and deliberately lied and spread misinformation to protect profits even as the near unanimous scientific consensus was against them. This was the case for smoking risks, CFCs effect on the ozone layer, acid rain, global warming/climate change, lead in gasoline, and now PFAs. Government regulation of corporations is a GOOD thing!
As a chemistry teacher, your chemistry explanation was beautiful. Ill be playing this in class
As a chemistry student, I loved the explanation 😎
A chemistry teacher? I can't imagine what you've seen. I love hearing/reading about chemistry. Chemical engineers fascinate me the most.
Oh, boy, the kids and theyre familys gonna have noghtmares untill they die... But atleast, they will be a bit healthyer
Chem teach, question from a sack of hammers. Has there been any strides in getting rid of this stuff? Teflon I mean.
Donating blood, especially hemoglobin reduces pfas by 30-60% (as summarised by AI) if you keep donating for a year
So I guess save a life and improve your health.
"it's in my blood." is genuinely one of the most unironically terrifying sentences I've ever heard
playboi carti reference
How much do we not even know about. Who is guilty of "culling the herd". This cannot all be accidental. 🤔
It's in all of our blood...
PEE. IT’S IN MY BLOOD
so much lead too
Wanted to donate for a long time and what better video than this! When you make someone watch science and health for an hour straight and they don't even realise it? You guys are doing something incredible. My first donation, but definitely won't be my last. Cheers!
Did you not notice that you're watching the video?
Im not serious
King move right here 🫡
Nothing but respect
Thank you so much! Glad to hear you enjoyed the video and found it useful!
the quality on this channel keeps increasing every time, amazing work derek and team!
I worked for an environmental consulting company for a little while and we started testing for PFAS a few years back in water treatment plants. The glassware we used to test had to be new and used for nothing else, rinsed 16 times with de-ionized water and 4 different chemicals, and still there was no way to get perfectly clean PFAS free equipment BEFORE the tests even started. PFAS is already everywhere, down to the very water you drink. Absolutely terrifying if you think about it.
😰😰😰
Now those are some pretty sensitive equipment...
Yeah, I helped with some PFAS research and I felt a little hopeless sometimes! It’s everywhere!
Dang, this sucks. So basically the only way you can avoid PFAS in your diet is to live underground and use deep drilled ice cap for water. Awesome, thanks Petro companies for killing us all slowly.
The level of contamination is staggering when even the testing equipment can't escape PFAS. It really drives home how pervasive these chemicals are, down to the most controlled environments. Makes you wonder what long-term solutions could even look like at this point.
This lawyer is a hero. He takes his job very seriously but also uses it for other’s safety!
I wonder how long it took him to sift through all of those documents. Surely he had help?
This attorney is a hero. He takes his job seriously, but he also uses it to keep others safe!
Yes, and what he does is great but it will not stop these huge companies to produce it; to believe that is extremely naive and idealistic. He doesn't accept reality because he doesn't understand reality. The ONLY thing to change their behaviour would be informing us, all of us, about the danger; exactly like this youtuber is doing so excellently; therefor we must; 1) understand this so we are able to speak about it and this way share what we now know, 2) we must stop using these products (which will never happen either) or at least use less of it and avoid these products completely. In my country we spoke about this so so so much in the late 70's and all through the 80's; did you listen? The only real solution would be to get beyond conventional solutions, break the law and get close to these responsible few; but of course no one will do that and I am not saying they should. But what use is Green peace if they play at "their" rules? Maybe Trump - who is intelligent and has the power - when he hears of this; will find a solution. I fail to see other solutions.
There’s an excellent movie about him and his work against forever chemicals called “Dark Waters”. He’s portrayed by Mark Ruffalo. Anne Hathaway plays his wife.
@@presentnotperfectOr just make teflon without this chamicals, yes they exist and in the EU they can't be used in sertain things and in steps (they do it in steps, so that the companies have time to change their production and find alternatives) it will be allowed in fewer things until they aren't allowed in anythings.
No @cary9479… They are not being made without these chemicals… There are over 14,000 sister chemicals in this family. They are lying to you… All the non stick today is forever chemicals, even if it claims it is feee from a couple of the well known forever chemicals like PFOA and PFAS… We still have massive exposure through everything nonstick, all the paper coatings for paper plates, food wrappers, the linings for all canned drinks, all canned goods, rice cookers, air fryers, waffle makers, etc. etc. etc. This is all that whack a mole game mentioned in the video. The best thing you can do is avoid all of these things like the plague and use yer brain. If you do ALL of that and happen to live in an area with decent water, you might have not end up with average levels in yer blood. A lot of forever chemicals are used in pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. There is PFAS in Roundup aka Glyphosate, Atrazine, 2-4-D, etc. etc. There has never been a better time to eat all organic, avoid all plastics, and buy the best reverse osmosis filter you can find. Never ever believe any health and safety claims made by the people selling any product.
Bot….
Even though this is the longest episode ever, I have been following you and watching your content for at least 14 years.. you are a gem on this planet.
Thank you for covering this, what can we do as consumers to avoid or even hold these companies accountable?
You will probably have more bang for your buck by getting the government to regulate this stuff out of existence.
Filtration of the drinking water in highly contaminated areas, avoid food and healthcare products with PFAS in them or in their packaging and frequent blood donation has the POTENTIAL to decrease already accumulated levels.
@@botondlengyel2877 So, passing off contaminated blood to somebody else? Are you insane? That's one of your solutions? My god people on the internet are stupid.
@@OceanusHelios They test your blood and toss it if it's toxic lol
@@OceanusHeliosAre you dumb? Everybody is contaminated, that's the point. Also, they clean the blood before actually giving it to someone else. This allows you to create new blood that will be less contaminated, and the person that gets your blood will get a cleaned version of it.
Teflon is an interesting case. I use it for 3D printing, and components made from teflon intended for mechanical uses all come with a disclaimer stating "Do not heat above 260°C. If heated above the listed temperature, vacate the area" with some warnings even specifying that the reason you must vacate is that "When heated, this material releases neurotoxic agents and harmful fumes". It's amazing that if you take one step away from mechanical applications and into cookware, you get no such warning, despite many recipes calling for DANGEROUSLY close temps.
The following cooking techniques would actually EXCEED this threshold: Broiling/grilling, dry searing, any application within a pizza oven, stir frying and caramelization of sugars. These cooking methods, if done in a teflon coated pan, would release the neurotoxic effects listed in the warning labels. I think its crazy that they don't even feel the need to mention this to customers...
260°C is 500°F. Why would broiling, dry searing, stir frying, or caramelization of sugar ever exceed this threshold? All of those take place around 180°C/360°F. Exceeding that threshold by even 10% or 20% entirely ruins the food. Same with deep frying. Paper famously burns at 451°F. This does not seem reconcilable with your statements of risk regarding food safety.
If you set your oven to broil it will set it to 500F. That one is definitely easy to hit.
Those fumes will also almost instantly kill any birds if you have them.
@@skyfiter99 Most countries legally require a 1.5x or higher safety factor for buildings - even things like elevator cables can go up to 10x.
But when it comes to something you literally put in your mouth, like Teflon, it doesn’t even meet the bare minimum.
A slight slip in usage - like preheating a pan too long - and you're past 260°C, entering toxic fume territory. That wouldn’t fly in structural engineering, but apparently it’s fine in cookware.
Also worth noting: you’re confusing food temperature with pan surface temperature. Just because food burns at 200°C doesn’t mean the pan stops there. Teflon doesn’t care if your steak is medium-rare - it breaks down when the pan surface crosses 260°C.
@@skyfiter99 dry searing is also commonly done closer to 450 or even just shy of 500 for rare dishes
Derek just casually dropping a horror movie
Except the horror doesn't stop when the video ends
And we're all living in it with no hope of escape.@@gonun69
There’s actually a really good movie made about this particular subject that feels like horror movie called Dark Waters
The love story between corporate chemical companies and the US gov shielding their criminal behaviors runs deeper than this. The EPA largely exists to protect these companies from endless law suits.
Ok, let's don't speak about dioxins or acetone
Just... wow. Thank you guys for this!
This is the golden standard of how science should be presented and communicated. Not too much unnecessary numbers but also not dumbed out to be just the headline and a story.
We all knew that PFAS were bad and that everything was contaminated with forever chemicals but never understood why exactly and how inescapable they were. Good to know that solutions are being worked on and it's not all doom and gloom.
Hopefully more scientific research videos follow Veritasium's caliber of quality!
I agree with you completely, but I for one, had never heard about pfas before and would be shocked if I were the only one. Great video for sure, always look forward to Ve uploads.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed and found value in the video!
@@veritasium Really, everyone who worked on this video should be proud. I'll be sharing this information to all my loved ones.
Yes this was entertaining. We as consumers have to be critical in what we are being fed. Critical thinking is key.
It is true they are everywhere but the conclusion that they are poisoning us and we are all going to get cancer is just unsupported by evidence, and indeed the actual harm they cause only takes up about a minute of this one hour video. This is a pretty big excercise in begging the question that everyone does when talking about PFAS chemicals.
23:30 "From a business standpoint, the other options are not *economically attractive*". Neither is poisoning the public on a mass scale yo
These people just "need" money😒😒😒
Well, yeah, it is. When people fall ill, they need medication for their diseases. And now have a guess which business nearly every company of the chemical industry is involved in : yes, pharmaceutical products.
@@cymbala6208 pharmaceutical companies we know better. They just want money so people can come purchase a lot of medications to resolve their sickness. I believe that there are pharmaceutical companies that have cure for some disease, but won't commercial distribute them
yes it is, that company made billions of dollars in profits and are still a massive part of the markets they are in
poisoning the public is bad for the public, not for capital
@@OratileTrusts well in a sense in a capitalist system you don't even need greed to explain it, if someone doesn't want as money that much and demands things be more safe they're just going to have less power than those who do want more money, so we can't even just replace the people if we don't change the system
I’m disgusted by the revelation, but grateful you guys have researched and revealed it. THIS is journalism that matters, and changes lives.
💯 👏
I feel Veritasium is being a bit disingenuous They really went to hammer home that the doctors couldn't be involved in this problem since it was the company that covered up the info. Meanwhile it has been in the news this whole time. It just seems that is the light they want to see it in, or they want to make sure doctors are guilt free because somehow if money doesn't flow into their coffers like water out of a dam, then the quality of work that they do as individuals will suffer. There are doctors that are scientists but most of them push medical dogma, not education.
This has been known for years. It's not a revelation -- it's simply another example of someone, or an organization, that was either ignorant, uncaring or willfully withholding the truth, and for whatever reason has decided to finally tell others about it.
@@hikari8858 except that it was revealed in the 70's and is being used by youtubers to pedal the idea that someone needs funding to prevent it from 'going unchecked' for a long time again...bs
@@hikari8858 Did you hear when they explained that Plunkett was applying teflon to his fishing rod wire 🎣 in his home one night? He was “fishing” for a way to get rich quick using practical magic. The answer came in the form of his wife walking in the room and saying, “Nobody’s gonna buy that. Here, spray it on our cooking pans.” In other words, feed your chemical invention to people because people always need to eat. Did she question its safety? No. She was only thinking about money, just like he was.
That’s how these problems get out of control. Because people see something that’s convenient and just assume that corporate and scientific authority figures have their best interests in mind and are telling them the truth. Because grown adults are stuck in this childlike trusting state, as if the people delivering their products to them, running their governments, educating them, employing them, and providing their medical care etc. are like their parents who want the best for them. In that way, it’s actually a benefit in a deranged society like ours to have untrustworthy parents, because then you learn to question everything and do your own research instead of just accepting what you’re told.
41:20 popcorn was NOT a good choice of snack for this video...😂
As a computational chemist seeking to devise novel and environmentally friendly ways to remove these forever chemicals from ourselves and our enviroment I am very happy to see this video has 10,000,000 views already!
I wish you success. I’ve worried about these chemicals for years. This is what needs to be addressed, not climate change.
@@cherylreaves253 uhh I’m pretty sure they both need to be addressed 😭
@@cherylreaves253 Climate change also needs to be addressed
Thank you for your labour!
Thank you 🙏
3:51, I don't have to be a chemist to recognise this was the moment it became chemically problematic...
10:07 And I immediately recognized that this was biochemically problematic. Our cell membranes are made from phospholipids that form bilayers or micelles, just like PFOA. Effectively, all living organisms are now poisoned and bioaccumulating these toxins that are incredibly inert and stable.
When I read the title, the first thing I said was “bet it’s DuPont”. This is why regulating these corporations is so very important.
Yeah, but profits though! 🤑 💰 💵 💲
That’s why Trump likes to cancel them
@@rareraven Yeah, remember the soviet union? Never did anything to hurt people or the environement, because there were no profits to be made. Right? RIGHT?
Oh they had profits.
Only for the communist commissariat though, aka rich politicians/people who were entangled with them.
Communism and Capitalism both share that problem. Corruption isn't exclusive to one side of the political/ideological spectrum.
@@MatthiasDrinksH20then why is it, our corruption is financial, and their corruption usually involves murder and espionage?
3:28 I love the visual of him doing all the tests right there on the wooden table, no gear, no nothing lol
My first time donating here. Appreciate the effort you guys put into this and sharp job pulling it all together so well! 👏
Thank you for your kind words and support! Glad to hear you enjoyed the video!
Beep, bop... I'm the Philosophy Bot. Here, have a quote:
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."
~ Albert Camus
I live in a city with a MASSIVE PFAS issue. We had a local company illegally dump a HUGE amount of PFAS into the environment right next to a river. The river and the land they were on is heavily contaminated, and the land has been blocked off to be “cleaned” for over 10 years, and they aren’t doing much of anything to fix it.
DuPont was also notorious for dumping known toxic chemicals into waterways next to their plants illegally. They have killed so many people knowingly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew this was toxic and used it anyways.
"I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew this was toxic and used it anyways." 🎯
"I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew this was toxic and used it anyways."
They did, that's what the video is about. Have you watched it?
And what is worse, the new administration in the USA is rolling back the weak projections that were there, and making the issue even WORSE.
Of course they knew
I watched a 60 minutes program that talked about PFAS dumped in the Hudson River. its in the fish there now.
Man the guys behind Veritasium really know how to pass knowledge no matter the topic. Thank you all for your efforts
It may be the longest veritasium episode but every since second was needed. Love these videos.
Dark Waters is the scariest non-horror movie I’ve ever seen, based on these investigations. Super underrated movie.
Yes, I agree it’s a great movie. Derek’s video is great, but I must say that I’m surprised there’s no mention of the movie.
rare veritasium video I understood
@nikola.georgijevic you can't find that series. They tried to completely wipe it out..dark web and
I've seen numerous PFAS articles from reputable local news sources over the past years, one highly scientific backed one analysing PFAS consumed through private owned hen laid eggs.
But this video really captures the PFAS story to the origins and explains both the science, economic and ethic sides of the story at a much better rounded out level and quality in RUclips than the "professional" media in my (EU) country does.
Thank you Veritasium team for these insightful lessons.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video and found it useful!
"at a much better rounded out level and quality in RUclips than the "professional" media in my (EU) country does"
With all respect for Derek and the team, which have done a great job here, it simply impossible for written journalism to capture an audience like a youtube video can. The video's script, in longread article form, just wouldn't have the same impact. At the same time, established EU media such as DW (Deutsche Welle) have certainly put out similar high quality video essay content on this topic (hitting pretty much all the same notes) albeit not necessarily in a 1 hour documentary format, which is probably pushing the limits for Veritasium as well (I must admit I'm curious about the viewer engagement metrics on their end).
So I think you're underestimating traditional media. I assume Derek and the team came across plenty of high quality content over the course of production.
You should get a reverse osmotic filtration system, like waterdrop g3p600. Which gets 98% of PFAS out of the water.. and start flushing your system with clean water... By drinking a little over 2 liters a day, the coming year.. and then measure again.... Because I bet you anything.. that will get those levels down.. not an affiliate.. just like your videos.. @@veritasium
@@rongeurtsvankessel1908a form of conveying information that keeps the viewers attention, and is more accessible from an understanding standpoint for more people, adds to he value.
Thank you. This was important information.
Thank you!
Car crash videos give me less anxiety then this did.
Thank you for the work you do
After lead in gasoline, asbestos and PFAS we also need a video about microplastics!
This. And humans should learn to stop sweeping this kind of damage under the rug for the next generation to deal with.
We know even less about microplastics, it's an extremely broad topic (all plastics are wildly different) and to my knowledge no studies have yet succeeded in linking them to specific harms (not to say there aren't any!). It's extremely hard to say anything concrete about them, and they're even more unavoidable than PFAS since they're not a chemical group that has a few specific sources, plastics are unavoidably in EVERYTHING and all of that sheds microplastics. It's more feasible to at least on a small scale filter out PFAS and then avoid products that contain PFAS than to avoid everything that contains and sheds microplastics.
@@GarnetReign Humans tend to solve a small problem by creating what later turns out to be a bigger problem. We never learn.
@@GarnetReign Ha, never going to happen. And this planet is the lifeboat for Mars. Enjoy it while it lasts. I give it about a thousand years tops.
@@landsgevaer In sight of greed, future problems tend to be ignored.
It's not that we do not know how to test a chemical before it is safe before we release mass quantities into the environment. We know how to do it before it gets a problem. The problem is, and is usually in these cases. A product gets launched quickly due to high demand without doing nessessary checks to make sure it is safe or not producing harmful waste products, initial research on the product shows that it is dangerous and the problem gets kicked down the road till other people start noticing and fight back.
Thank you to the whole team and contributors for all the time, effort, and research into this video. I hope it reaches as many people as possible.
Beep, bop... I'm the Philosophy Bot. Here, have a quote:
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
~ Albert Camus
Retired environmental chemist here.
The best chemistry lesson I have ever seen in my life!
The best toxicology lesson I have seen in my life!
The best statistics lesson have seen in my life!
They all fall short.
As a fellow scientist, please know that I was enraptured!
So well done!
This is what the Intertubes are for!
✊
Keep it up!
I thought the tetraethyl lead one was pretty good.
do you live in dread of whats to come for the futur, like how fucked are we 20's somethings health wise with all this garbage in the water/air.?
great job big v
As someone from Parkersburg that ended up with ulcerative colitis, I am glad to see this get more coverage
My dad worked for DuPont in the 1980s and 90s, and we actually lived in the part of West Virginia affected by this stuff at the time. I had no idea about any of it, I was a tiny child, but he never let us drink the water there and later in life he told me about meetings where executives were warned about this stuff.
They basically slept through all the health and safety briefings and the lawyers' presentations until they heard the words "And this is the part where individual members of the board may face incarceration" which was the only consequence any of them were concerned about. Everything else was just fines they'd pay with other peoples' money to compesnate other peoples' suffering, so it wasn't even *interesting* to them, much less something to worry about.
Thanks for telling us. I grew up in oil industry, so eat from that money. More family in Conoco. Think the pollution's causing an autoimmune response.
when your a rich and powerful corporation why care what the peasants think? no one does anything anyways
What is it with Americans letting these things happen? The population knew about the farmer and instead of standing up for their own and their children's health chose to exclude him, for money over health (since they worked at DuPont). Then there was the lawsuit from the population. But no such thing as public protests, or crowds stepping up, employees stepping up. There seems to me, as an outsider, a real lack of protest from the public in America. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
no one protesting against that comment either
Regulations and harsh consequences are the only things that will prevent CEOs from killing people through their decisions. Friedrich Engel called this "social murder" - a way how bosses kill their workers and communities in a way that is socially acceptable.
Nothing should ever be dumped in a river. Nothing. We don't care about your company, your product, or your profits.
I’ve taken a few dumps in the river. Never hurt anything
"We don;t care for your product", speak for yourself there. Teflon is one of the most vital materials in modern civilization. If you don't want to use it you are free to live like they did in the middle ages (because most infrastructure like sewage systems and water lines now use Teflon they gets disqualified), but than you have to remember how sewage was dealt with back then.
This!
Just because we can use Teflon everywhere doesn’t mean we should. People might miss their nonstick pans, Teflon tape, and Gore-Tex, but it won’t set civilization back to require non-toxic alternatives.
@@QuixoticCowboysybau
It is absolutely Insane that the company has not been shut down for this and people don't get locked up behind bars for this. they knew from the start how dangerous it is.
Devils don't arrest devils
There was a story out last year about how much they knew and how hard they worked to cover it up.
The love of $
Extremely well explained! Never thought i'd be so invested in a documentary about a chemical. Very interesting stuff!
This video absolutely needs to be translated and shared to everyone - This is mind blowing, I knew about PFAS in Europe but I never measured how much of an impact it had. We normalize bad stuff so much it becomes normal when in reality those companies and our governments should be sued by all of us.
there's even a movie "Dark waters" talking about the lawyer that fought dupont
If only our precious planet could sue,it would have been cleared up years ago.
Back in the mid 90's I had a cute little website, on that site I had a page about caring for parrots, and in that was a very intense warning about having birds anywhere near teflon cookware, and I also noted that if it killed birds, maybe rethink using it around your family and kids. Someone emailed me once warning that the makers of teflon were contacting site owners like me and threatening them with lawsuits if they didn't remove the info. I kept the info up and even expanded it a bit. I never did get any threats but probably because my site was so small.
It's very similar to the canary in the coal mine. Birds are very sensitive.
yea they die faster teyh were used for coal mines
Scary
To that, i heard about cases in which parrots died bc of lung intoxication after the owner put on the pyrolysis cleaning function on their new oven...
It might be that they started the rumors to get people to remove the info without ever spending any money.
I'm glad this video went viral so now it's harder to take it down
How have you determined that it has gone viral? Viral would mean that it would reach practically everybody at least everybody that has contact with the Internet, which is not everybody by a longshot! It came to my list of RUclips videos, the last few days and I am into watching this kind of thing; I subscribe to Veritasium (ha ha, it wants to write “very potassium“) as well as many other science channels; I really doubt that it as yet has gone viral. It would be great if and when it does! But that it’s out there is hopeful that pressure would rise two levels. We can’t ignore to do something about this, except for the fact that we have a very ignorant, new administration!
Donating blood, especially hemoglobin reduces pfas by 30-60% (as summarised by AI) .
So I guess save a life and improve your health.
Dont you give it to another person than? @@shadow-_-king444
@@shadow-_-king444 Same words and my comment disappears. There is much more to this world to be changed
@@shadow-_-king444 Donating blood, especially hemoglobin reduces pfas by 30-60% (as summarised by AI) .
So I guess save a life and improve your health.