Stop playing whac-a-mole with forever chemicals
Tribune News Service
The more you learn about PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — the worse it gets. Though improvements in monitoring and remediation techniques are welcome, what the world needs first and foremost is a universal ban on the chemicals. In fact, we needed it yesterday.
There are more than 10,000 PFAS, also known as 'forever chemicals,' and they're used almost everywhere, including in nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, smartphones, packets of microwave popcorn, hair conditioners, fire-fighting foam, pacemakers, pesticides and dental floss.
They don't readily degrade; they also don't stay where we put them. As a result, we can now find PFAS in places such as our blood, human breast milk, Antarctica, wild animals and tap water. In the Netherlands, people have been warned not to eat the eggs from their backyard chickens by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment due to high levels of the chemicals. Though it's not yet clear why home-produced eggs have higher amounts of PFAS than commercial ones, one theory is that earthworms now contain such chemicals, and hens like to eat the worms.
An analysis by environmental groups Wildlife and Countryside Link and the Rivers Trust found that nearly all rivers, lakes and ponds in England exceed proposed safety limits, with 85% containing levels at least five times higher. France has banned tap water in 16 communes due to PFAS contamination, while a piece of investigative journalism called the Forever Pollution Project located 23,000 contaminated sites across Europe and a further 21,500 sites of presumptive contamination. I expect we haven't seen the last of the tap water bans.
If the scale and extent of the pollution are hard to get your head around, the health implications are worse. PFAS have been linked to increased risk of various types of cancer, fertility problems, birth complications, delays to puberty and weakened immune systems. They've also been associated with increased cholesterol levels and kidney problems.
We're looking at an issue analogous to climate change — right down to lobbying and cover-ups by PFAS manufacturers. Internal documents from 3M Co., one of the original and largest producers, and chemical firm DuPont de Nemours Inc. revealed that the companies knew the substances were accumulating in people and showing signs of toxicity for decades without telling anyone.
While 3M still maintains that their PFAS-containing products are 'safe' for their intended uses in everyday life, in December 2022 the company announced it will discontinue the use of PFAS by the end of 2025. Together, the firms have had to pay billions in lawsuit settlements related to their pollution, with more possibly to come as injury cases hit the courts.
As with carbon dioxide, the longer we keep emitting PFAS into the environment, the worse the problem gets and the harder it is to clean up with remediation technologies. While the PFAS market globally is worth just over $28 billion, the cost of cleaning up all the related pollution in the UK and Europe could be €100 billion ($116 billion) a year if nothing is done to stem the chemicals' steady flow into the environment. And that doesn't factor in the health-care costs, which the Nordic Council of Ministers estimates is at least €52 billion annually.
Though some consumer brands such as outdoor gear retailer Patagonia Inc. and fast-food chain McDonald's Corp. have committed to phasing out PFAS from their products and packaging, others have been dragging their feet. A team of researchers, lawyers and journalists has also exposed a huge lobbying campaign against proposed restrictions in Europe, showing entrenched resistance to change.
So we need a ban, but so far, we've only seen piecemeal prohibitions targeting either a specific chemical or, in a couple of leading countries, sectors.
The import and sale of PFAS-treated clothing, shoes and waterproofing agents will be barred from July 2026 in Denmark, while the chemicals have been banned in paper and board food packaging since 2020. The country has also recently announced a ban on 23 pesticides that can form a very mobile form of PFAS called trifluoroacetic acid.
France, meanwhile, has banned PFAS in several consumer product groups, including textiles, cosmetics and ski wax. Cookware, however, has been excluded from the ban after a campaign led by the French maker of Tefal pans, Groupe SEB. Though it's a start, exempting a sector for which safe alternatives are readily available is, frankly, scandalous.
A universal ban may be on its way. In 2023, five European Union member states — Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway — submitted a proposal to the European Chemicals Agency, which two scientific committees are now examining. The ban covers both consumer and industrial applications, with time-limited exemptions expected for some uses where there are no alternatives, such as medical devices.
What's most significant about the restriction is that it takes a precautionary approach, regulating all 10,000-plus PFAS as a group rather than individually. According to CHEM Trust, a charity focused on harmful synthetic chemicals, under the current rate of regulation that analyses each chemical individually, it would take more than 40,000 years to get through them all.
So the EU ban will be a huge step forward with positive impacts beyond its borders. But we'll be waiting a while for it to come into effect — if everything goes smoothly, we're likely looking at 2028 before sectors transition to new rules.
Meanwhile, progress elsewhere is pitiful. The UK government published an interim position on PFAS management in June, but this has been criticized by scientists for opting not to target all chemicals at once and instead creating their own groupings. Not only is this risky, failing to regulate compounds that lack toxicity data, but it lacks urgency. In the US, the Trump administration has pulled nearly $15 million in research into PFAS contamination of farmland, while the Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to rescind drinking water limits for four forever chemicals.
Of course, even banning the use of all PFAS tomorrow won't do anything for the substances already in our bodies and drinking water. But we know that restrictions help. Two chemicals — PFOS and PFOA — are already banned in Europe. A 2023 study showed that blood concentrations of the chemicals have declined substantially over time in Denmark.
It's time to stop playing Whac-a-Mole with chemicals that we know are bad for us and our environment. If we take action now, we might stand a chance at cleaning up the mess we've made.
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Gulf Today
21 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Stop playing whac-a-mole with forever chemicals
Lara Williams, Tribune News Service The more you learn about PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — the worse it gets. Though improvements in monitoring and remediation techniques are welcome, what the world needs first and foremost is a universal ban on the chemicals. In fact, we needed it yesterday. There are more than 10,000 PFAS, also known as 'forever chemicals,' and they're used almost everywhere, including in nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, smartphones, packets of microwave popcorn, hair conditioners, fire-fighting foam, pacemakers, pesticides and dental floss. They don't readily degrade; they also don't stay where we put them. As a result, we can now find PFAS in places such as our blood, human breast milk, Antarctica, wild animals and tap water. In the Netherlands, people have been warned not to eat the eggs from their backyard chickens by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment due to high levels of the chemicals. Though it's not yet clear why home-produced eggs have higher amounts of PFAS than commercial ones, one theory is that earthworms now contain such chemicals, and hens like to eat the worms. An analysis by environmental groups Wildlife and Countryside Link and the Rivers Trust found that nearly all rivers, lakes and ponds in England exceed proposed safety limits, with 85% containing levels at least five times higher. France has banned tap water in 16 communes due to PFAS contamination, while a piece of investigative journalism called the Forever Pollution Project located 23,000 contaminated sites across Europe and a further 21,500 sites of presumptive contamination. I expect we haven't seen the last of the tap water bans. If the scale and extent of the pollution are hard to get your head around, the health implications are worse. PFAS have been linked to increased risk of various types of cancer, fertility problems, birth complications, delays to puberty and weakened immune systems. They've also been associated with increased cholesterol levels and kidney problems. We're looking at an issue analogous to climate change — right down to lobbying and cover-ups by PFAS manufacturers. Internal documents from 3M Co., one of the original and largest producers, and chemical firm DuPont de Nemours Inc. revealed that the companies knew the substances were accumulating in people and showing signs of toxicity for decades without telling anyone. While 3M still maintains that their PFAS-containing products are 'safe' for their intended uses in everyday life, in December 2022 the company announced it will discontinue the use of PFAS by the end of 2025. Together, the firms have had to pay billions in lawsuit settlements related to their pollution, with more possibly to come as injury cases hit the courts. As with carbon dioxide, the longer we keep emitting PFAS into the environment, the worse the problem gets and the harder it is to clean up with remediation technologies. While the PFAS market globally is worth just over $28 billion, the cost of cleaning up all the related pollution in the UK and Europe could be €100 billion ($116 billion) a year if nothing is done to stem the chemicals' steady flow into the environment. And that doesn't factor in the health-care costs, which the Nordic Council of Ministers estimates is at least €52 billion annually. Though some consumer brands such as outdoor gear retailer Patagonia Inc. and fast-food chain McDonald's Corp. have committed to phasing out PFAS from their products and packaging, others have been dragging their feet. A team of researchers, lawyers and journalists has also exposed a huge lobbying campaign against proposed restrictions in Europe, showing entrenched resistance to change. So we need a ban, but so far, we've only seen piecemeal prohibitions targeting either a specific chemical or, in a couple of leading countries, sectors. The import and sale of PFAS-treated clothing, shoes and waterproofing agents will be barred from July 2026 in Denmark, while the chemicals have been banned in paper and board food packaging since 2020. The country has also recently announced a ban on 23 pesticides that can form a very mobile form of PFAS called trifluoroacetic acid. France, meanwhile, has banned PFAS in several consumer product groups, including textiles, cosmetics and ski wax. Cookware, however, has been excluded from the ban after a campaign led by the French maker of Tefal pans, Groupe SEB. Though it's a start, exempting a sector for which safe alternatives are readily available is, frankly, scandalous. A universal ban may be on its way. In 2023, five European Union member states — Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway — submitted a proposal to the European Chemicals Agency, which two scientific committees are now examining. The ban covers both consumer and industrial applications, with time-limited exemptions expected for some uses where there are no alternatives, such as medical devices. What's most significant about the restriction is that it takes a precautionary approach, regulating all 10,000-plus PFAS as a group rather than individually. According to CHEM Trust, a charity focused on harmful synthetic chemicals, under the current rate of regulation that analyses each chemical individually, it would take more than 40,000 years to get through them all. So the EU ban will be a huge step forward with positive impacts beyond its borders. But we'll be waiting a while for it to come into effect — if everything goes smoothly, we're likely looking at 2028 before sectors transition to new rules. Meanwhile, progress elsewhere is pitiful. The UK government published an interim position on PFAS management in June, but this has been criticized by scientists for opting not to target all chemicals at once and instead creating their own groupings. Not only is this risky, failing to regulate compounds that lack toxicity data, but it lacks urgency. In the US, the Trump administration has pulled nearly $15 million in research into PFAS contamination of farmland, while the Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to rescind drinking water limits for four forever chemicals. Of course, even banning the use of all PFAS tomorrow won't do anything for the substances already in our bodies and drinking water. But we know that restrictions help. Two chemicals — PFOS and PFOA — are already banned in Europe. A 2023 study showed that blood concentrations of the chemicals have declined substantially over time in Denmark. It's time to stop playing Whac-a-Mole with chemicals that we know are bad for us and our environment. If we take action now, we might stand a chance at cleaning up the mess we've made.
Gulf Today
4 days ago
- Gulf Today
Miller says Americans will live better lives without immigrants
Michael Hiltzik, Tribune News Service Stephen Miller, the front man for President Donald Trump's deportation campaign against immigrants, took to the airwaves the other day to explain why native-born Americans will just love living in a world cleansed of undocumented workers. "What would Los Angeles look like without illegal aliens?" he asked on Fox News. "Here's what it would look like: You would be able to see a doctor in the emergency room right away, no wait time, no problems. Your kids would go to a public school that had more money than they know what to do with. Classrooms would be half the size. Students who have special needs would get all the attention that they needed. ... There would be no fentanyl, there would be no drug deaths." Etc., etc. No one can dispute that the world Miller described on Fox would be a paradise on Earth. No waiting at the ER? School districts flush with cash? No drug deaths? But that doesn't obscure that pretty much every word Miller uttered was fiction. The gist of Miller's spiel — in fact, the worldview that he has been espousing for years — is that "illegal aliens" are responsible for all those ills, and exclusively responsible. It's nothing but a Trumpian fantasy. Let's take a look, starting with overcrowding at the ER. The issue has been the focus of numerous studies and surveys. Overwhelmingly, they conclude that undocumented immigration is irrelevant to ER overcrowding. In fact, immigrants generally and undocumented immigrants in particular are less likely to get their healthcare at the emergency room than native-born Americans. In California, according to a 2014 study from UCLA, "one in five US-born adults visits the ER annually, compared with roughly one in 10 undocumented adults — approximately half the rate of US-born residents." Among the reasons, explained Nadereh Pourat, the study's lead author and director of research at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, was fear of being asked to provide documents. The result is that undocumented individuals avoid seeking any healthcare until they become critically ill. The UCLA study found that undocumented immigrants' average number of doctor visits per year was lower than for other cohorts: 2.3 for children and 1.7 for adults, compared with 2.8 doctor visits for US-born children and 3.2 for adults. ER overcrowding is an issue of long standing in the US, but it's not the result of an influx of undocumented immigrants. It's due to a confluence of other factors, including the tendency of even insured patients to use the ER as a primary care center, presenting with complicated or chronic ailments for which ER medicine is not well-suited. While caseloads at emergency departments have surged, their capacities are shrinking. According to a 2007 report by the National Academy of Sciences, from 1993 to 2003 the US population grew by 12%, hospital admissions by 13% and ER visits by 26%. "Not only is (emergency department) volume increasing, but patients coming to the ED are older and sicker and require more complex and time-consuming workups and treatments," the report observed. "During this same period, the United States experienced a net loss of 703 hospitals, 198,000 hospital beds, and 425 hospital EDs, mainly in response to cost-cutting measures." Trump's immigration policies during his first term suppressed the use of public healthcare facilities by undocumented immigrants and their families. The key policy was the administration's tightening of the "public charge" rule, which applies to those seeking admission to the United States or hoping to upgrade their immigration status. The rule, which has been part of US immigration policy for more than a century, allowed immigration authorities to deny entry — or deny citizenship applications of green card holders — to anyone judged to become a recipient of public assistance such as welfare (today known chiefly as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF) or other cash assistance programs. Until Trump, healthcare programs such as Medicaid, nutrition programs such as food stamps, and subsidized housing programs weren't part of the public charge test. Even before Trump implemented the change but after a draft version leaked out, clinics serving immigrant communities across California and nationwide detected a marked drop off in patients. A clinic on the edge of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles that had been serving 12,000 patients, I reported in 2018, saw monthly patient enrollments fall by about one-third after Trump's 2016 election, and an additional 25% after the leak. President Joe Biden rescinded the Trump rule within weeks of taking office. Undocumented immigrants are sure to be less likely to access public healthcare services, such as those available at emergency rooms, as a result of Trump's rescinding "sensitive location" restrictions on immigration agents that had been in effect at least since 2011. That policy barred almost all immigration enforcement actions at schools, places of worship, funerals and weddings, public marches or rallies, and hospitals. Trump rescinded the policy on inauguration day in January. The goal was for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents "to make substantial efforts to avoid unnecessarily alarming local communities," agency officials stated. Today, as public shows of force and public raids by ICE have demonstrated, instilling alarm in local communities appears to be the goal. The change in the sensitive locations policy has prompted hospital and ER managers to establish formal procedures for staff confronted with the arrival of immigration agents.
Gulf Today
11-07-2025
- Gulf Today
Los Angeles tries leniency in a time of hostility
Angela Hart, Tribune News Service Inside a bright new building in the heart of Skid Row, homeless people hung out in a canopy-covered courtyard — some waiting to take a shower, do laundry, or get medication for addiction treatment. Others relaxed on shaded grass and charged their phones as an intake line for housing grew more crowded. The Skid Row Care Campus officially opened this spring with ample offerings for people living on the streets of this historically downtrodden neighbourhood. Pop-up fruit stands and tent encampments lined the sidewalks, as well as dealers peddling meth and fentanyl in open-air drug markets. Some people, sick or strung out, were passed out on sidewalks as pedestrians strolled by on a recent afternoon. For those working toward sobriety, clinicians are on site to offer mental health and addiction treatment. Skid Row's first methadone clinic is set to open here this year. For those not ready to quit drugs or alcohol, the campus provides clean syringes to more safely shoot up, glass pipes for smoking drugs, naloxone to prevent overdoses, and drug test strips to detect fentanyl contamination, among other supplies. As many Americans have grown increasingly intolerant of street homelessness, cities and states have returned to tough-on-crime approaches that penalize people for living outside and for substance use disorders. But the Skid Row facility shows Los Angeles County leaders' embrace of the principle of harm reduction, a range of more lenient strategies that can include helping people more safely use drugs, as they contend with a homeless population estimated around 75,000 — among the largest of any county in the nation. Evidence shows the approach can help individuals enter treatment, gain sobriety, and end their homelessness, while addiction experts and county health officials note it has the added benefit of improving public health. 'We get a really bad rap for this, but this is the safest way to use drugs,' said Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction on the new Skid Row Care Campus. 'It's an overdose prevention strategy, and it prevents the spread of infectious disease.' Despite a decline in overdose deaths, drug and alcohol use continues to be the leading cause of death among homeless people in the county. Living on the streets or in sordid encampments, homeless people saddle the health care system with high costs from uncompensated care, emergency room trips, inpatient hospitalisations, and, for many of them, their deaths. Harm reduction, its advocates say, allows homeless people the opportunity to obtain jobs, taxpayer-subsidised housing, health care, and other social services without being forced to give up drugs. Yet it's hotly debated. Politicians around the country, including Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, are reluctant to adopt harm reduction techniques, such as needle exchanges or supervised places to use drugs, in part because they can be seen by the public as condoning illicit behaviour. Although Democrats are more supportive than Republicans, a national poll this year found lukewarm support across the political spectrum for such interventions. Los Angeles is defying President Donald Trump's agenda as he advocates for forced mental health and addiction treatment for homeless people — and locking up those who refuse. The city has also been the scene of large protests against Trump's immigration crackdown, which the president has fought by deploying National Guard troops and Marines. Trump's most detailed remarks on homelessness and substance use disorder came during his campaign, when he attacked people who use drugs as criminals and said that homeless people 'have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat and do drugs.' Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reinforced Trump's focus on treatment. 'Secretary Kennedy stands with President Trump in prioritising recovery-focused solutions to address addiction and homelessness,' said agency spokesperson Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano. 'HHS remains focused on helping individuals recover, communities heal, and help make our cities clean, safe, and healthy once again.' A comprehensive report led by Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, this year found that nearly half of California's homeless population had a complex behavioral health need, defined as regular drug use, heavy drinking, hallucinations, or a recent psychiatric hospitalisation. The chaos of living outside, she said — marked by violence, sexual assault, sleeplessness, and lack of housing and health care — can make it nearly impossible to get sober. Skid Row Care Campus: The new care campus is funded by about $26 million a year in local, state, and federal homelessness and health care money, and initial construction was completed by a Skid Row landlord, Matt Lee, who made site improvements on his own, according to Anna Gorman, chief operating officer for community programs at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Operators say the campus should be able to withstand potential federal spending cuts because it is funded through a variety of sources. Glass front doors lead to an atrium inside the yellow-and-orange complex. It was designed with input from homeless people, who advised the county not just on the layout but also on the services offered on-site. There are 22 recovery beds and 48 additional beds for mostly older homeless people, arts and wellness programs, a food pantry, and pet care. Even bunnies and snakes are allowed. John Wright, 65, who goes by the nickname Slim, mingled with homeless visitors one afternoon in May, asking them what they needed to be safe and comfortable. 'Everyone thinks we're criminals, like we're out robbing everyone, but we aren't,' said Wright, who is employed as a harm reduction specialist on the campus and is trying, at his own pace, to stop using fentanyl. 'I'm homeless and I'm a drug addict, but I'm on methadone now so I'm working on it,' he said. Nearby on Skid Row, Anthony Willis rested in his wheelchair while taking a toke from a crack pipe. He'd just learned about the new care campus, he said, explaining that he was homeless for roughly 20 years before getting into a taxpayer-subsidized apartment on Skid Row. He spends most of his days and nights on the streets, using drugs and alcohol. The drugs, he said, help him stay awake so he can provide companionship and sometimes physical protection for homeless friends who don't have housing. 'It's tough sometimes living down here; it's pretty much why I keep relapsing,' said Willis, who at age 62 has asthma and arthritic knees. 'But it's also my community.' Willis said the care campus could be a place to help him kick drugs, but he wasn't sure he was ready. Research shows harm reduction helps prevent death and can build long-term recovery for people who use substances, said Brian Hurley, an addiction psychiatrist and the medical director for the Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention and Control at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The techniques allow health care providers and social service workers to meet people when they're ready to stop using drugs or enter treatment. 'Recovery is a learning activity, and the reality is relapse is part of recovery,' he said. 'People go back and forth and sometimes get triggered or haven't figured out how to cope with a stressor.' Swaying Public Opinion: Under harm reduction principles, officials acknowledge that people will use drugs. Funded by taxpayers, the government provides services to use safely, rather than forcing people to quit or requiring abstinence in exchange for government-subsidised housing and treatment programmes.
