Global brands lied about toxic ‘forever chemicals,’ new study claims
Companies making so-called “forever chemicals” knew they were toxic decades before health officials, but kept that information hidden from the public, according to a peer-reviewed study of previously secret industry documents.
The new study in the Annals of Global Health concluded that 3M and DuPont, the largest makers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, actively suppressed evidence that the chemicals were hazardous since the 1960s, long before public health research caught up.
“The chemical industry took a page out of the tobacco playbook when they discovered and suppressed their knowledge of health harms caused by exposure to PFAS,” researchers claimed in a statement.
“These documents reveal clear evidence that the chemical industry knew about the dangers of PFAS and failed to let the public, regulators and even their own employees know the risks,” the paper’s senior author, Tracey Woodruff, said in a statement. [Continue reading…]