PFAS are everywhere. Your laundry detergent, your furniture, and your food are loaded with these toxic chemicals and they are wreaking havoc on your immune system! "What the heck is a PFAS?" you might say. I thought you'd never ask. Let's peel back this wrapper and see what's inside.
With all the toxins out there these days, it may seem daunting to learn about yet another new one. However, the chemicals known as “PFAS” have actually been around for over fifty years.
They are substances that are included in hundreds of products and in everything from non-stick pans to outdoor ware. This makes them chemical additives that you need to know about. Luckily, there are ways to avoid PFAS as well as detox them out of your system with the proven methods listed below.
What Are PFAS?
PFAS stands for “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.” They are chemicals made up of carbon and fluorine atoms. The fluorine-carbon bonds are what make PFAS useful for so many products, especially those that claim to be “stain-resistant,” water repellent, or “non-stick” (such as non-stick kitchenware). The most common kinds of PFAS are:
- PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid)
- PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic acid)
- PFBS (perfluorobutane sulfonic acid)
- PFHxS (perfluorohexane sulfonic acid)
- PFNA (perfluorononanoic acid)
There is a downside to all the convenience that PFAS provides, however. The same bonds that make them so attractive for so many products have also been shown to be extremely hazardous to human health and the environment.
To make the situation worse, PFAS do not break down readily over time. This is why many experts now call PFAS chemicals “forever chemicals.”
Where Are PFAS Found?
Products that are made to be stain-resistant, water-repellent, non-stick, oil-resistant, or flame-retardant will more than likely contain some amount of PFAS chemicals. Items that may contain PFAS include:
- Outdoor gear
- Carpets and carpet cleaning products
- Clothing
- Cosmetics
- Sealants, adhesives, and glues
- Furniture
- Car seats
- Mattresses (including crib mattresses)
- Cookware (non-stick especially)
- Food packaging
- Drinking water
- The soil (1)
As you can see, the list above represents literally hundreds (maybe even thousands) of individual items, many of which you probably use every day.
Of particular concern are PFAS found in food packaging. PFAS is used in most plastic wrappers and boxes, paperboard, paper cups, and microwave popcorn bags. This means that the majority of fast food and pre-packaged items you get at either the grocery store or a fast-food restaurant will contain some amount of PFAS.
The consumer organization Consumer Reports recently found PFAS in over 100 food packaging items obtained from restaurants across the U.S. They found them in paper bags, “molded fiber” bowls used for salads, hamburger wrappers, french fry containers, and one-time-use paper plates (2).
The Wilbur Tennant Lawsuit: Making the Case for PFAS in Water and Soil
So, what exactly is the harm of PFAS? The truth is that industry leaders and scientists have known about the risks for years. Studies in the 1950s and 1960s showed the build-up of PFAS in the blood of factory workers as well as among certain cigarette smokers.
(3) Sadly, it wasn’t until almost fifty years later that concrete evidence would surface to prove the dangers of even low-level exposure.
Wilbur Tennant was a farmer near Parkersburg, West Virginia. In 1998, he watched as his herd of over 200 head of cattle began to die of a mysterious illness. Tennant’s property butted up against a new landfill that belonged to DuPont for their nearby mega-factory.
Tennant suspected that whatever was in the landfill was to blame since a waterway named Dry Run Creek flowed through the landfill and into a pasture where Tennant’s cattle grazed. Right after DuPont put the landfill in, Tennant noticed that the cows’ behavior began to change. Eventually, Tennant and his family became physically ill as well.
Tennant’s case was settled in 2001, and his complaints would eventually morph into other class-action lawsuits representing nearly 70,000 individuals in the region. The lawsuits provided proof that PFAS in water and soil caused significant human harm.
For example, Leach v. DuPont proved that a type of PFAS called PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid or “C-8”) had the ability to trigger latent diseases, including cancer. PFOA was used by DuPont to make Teflon coating for products manufactured in their Parkersburg factory (4).
Harmful Effects of PFAS
The settlements also became the catalyst for the creation of the “C8 Science Panel” (5). From C8 studies and others, we now know that pretty much all of the most common types of PFAS (mentioned above) can be seen in water supplies and in the soil (6).
According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, nearly the entire global population has some type of PFAS in their body (7).
For almost ten years between 2005 and 2013, the panel also investigated links between PFAS and a number of conditions, including:
- High cholesterol levels
- Ulcerative colitis
- Thyroid disease
- Kidney disease
- Testicular cancer
- Liver damage
- Cancer
- Pregnancy-induced hypertension (8)
The links between PFAS and such a wide range of ailments have to do with the effect PFAS chemicals have on the immune system. In a series of investigations conducted at the University of Milan, Italian investigators found that PFOA and other PFAS chemicals suppress a number of crucial immune system mechanisms, including Natural Killer (NK) cell production. On the other hand, they also found that PFAS have the ability to increase the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, causing a higher risk for disease (9).
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