Science Friday - PFAS Lawsuit, Bat Disease. Nov 1, 2019, Part 1

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Eighteen years ago, a lawyer named Robert Bilott sent a letter to the EPA, the attorney general, and other regulators, warning them about a chemical called PFOA, short for perfluorooctanoic acid. Outside of the companies that made and used PFOA, most people had never heard of it. But E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, better known as DuPont, had been using PFOA to make Teflon since the early 1950s. In the course of a lawsuit against the chemical corporation, Bilott had uncovered a trove of internal company documents, showing DuPont had been quietly monitoring the chemical’s health risks for decades, studying laboratory animals and their own workers. Bilott called on regulators to investigate and take action. PFOA has since been linked to testicular and kidney cancer, among other diseases. It is part of a larger class of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which have now been detected in everything from polar bears in Svalbard to fish in South Carolina, and are estimated to be in the blood of over 98% of Americans. In the mid-2000s manufacturers started voluntarily phasing out PFOA and a related chemical, PFOS, but they substituted them with other PFAS chemicals, whose possible health effects are still being investigated and litigated. Nearly two decades after Bilott wrote the EPA, the agency has not regulated these chemicals, but it says it plans to begin the process by the end of this year. Bilott, who previously secured a $670 million settlement from DuPont, is now suing DuPont, Chemours, and others on behalf of everyone in the United States who has PFAS in their blood. This week, Robert Bilott tells Ira his story, now featured in his book, Exposure, and the movie, Dark Waters, out in theaters November 22. You can read an excerpt of Bilott’s book here. Sharon Lerner of The Intercept also joins to discuss what is known about these chemicals, and what is and isn’t being done to limit our exposure. Morgan Bengel stood about 35 feet underground, gesturing at the cold, rocky walls inside Old New-Gate Prison & Copper Mine. Late 18th-century descriptions of this subterranean penitentiary were bleak. “Some of the words are, hell, a dungeon, woeful mansion,” Bengel said. You’d think this would be the perfect place to find bats. It’s a dark damp cave. But during a bat survey here last winter scientists only found 10. That’s because of white-nose syndrome. A disease caused by a fungus, which flourishes in caves, just like this one. The fungus gets on the muzzle and wings of bats, waking them up from hibernation, and depleting the fat they need to survive the winter. It’s been more than a decade since the disease was first identified in North America. Since then, white-nose has killed off millions of bats across New England and other parts of the U.S. and Canada. “We have a site in western Connecticut that was over 3,300 bats that we documented during a winter hibernaculum survey in 2007,” said Kate Moran, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. “We returned there in 2009 and there were more like 300 bats. We returned there in 2010, and we counted fewer than a dozen bats. It was carnage, really.” White-nose was first documented in New York in the winter of 2006 to 2007. Since then, it’s spread to at least 33 states and 7 Canadian provinces, including all of New England. In Connecticut caves, DEEP biologist Brian Hess said it’s virtually everywhere. “To our knowledge, all of the caves in Connecticut have the fungal pathogen living in them,” Hess said. Across Connecticut, the numbers of cave-dwelling bats like the northern long-eared bat, little brown bat, and tri-colored bat all dropped dramatically between 2007 and 2010. Moran said they still haven’t recovered. “In New England bats were very common. The northern long-eared bat was probably the most common bat we had throughout New England. Now it is the least common bat we have in New England,” Moran said. And it’s listed as “threatened” under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Bats are beneficial to people. They eat moths and beetles that can pose dangers to crops. And they also consume mosquitoes, which can spread dangerous diseases like West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis.   Bats also live a long time. Moran said up to 30 years. And bats usually only produce one pup per year, which means any recovery will take a long time. But it’s not all bad news. Hess said that while white-nose syndrome is present in all of Connecticut’s caves, there are spots within those areas where the fungus doesn’t do as well. “There are little microclimates within caves that can help bats to survive that fungal load, because the fungus doesn’t grow quite as well if it’s warmer or cooler, or more or less humid than the fungus really, really likes,” Hess said. What the fungus also doesn’t like, is going outside. It doesn’t survive in UV light or in springtime temperatures, so if a bat can make it through the winter, it can still have a shot at recovery. That means hope for both the bats and the biologists working to conserve them. “They’re still here. They haven’t blinked out,” Hess said. “When you have these introductions of diseases or pests, things are dire. But the fact that we still have bats is an encouragement and a reason to keep trying to make sure they still hang around.” Hess said next year, the plan is to come back to New-Gate, to count bats and try to learn a little bit more about the handful of winter survivors who will awaken from an ecological nightmare.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Iroflato. A bit later in the hour, we'll be talking about a class of chemicals called P-FAS. Some chemicals in the P-FAS class have been linked to serious diseases, including cancer and testicular cancer, and kidney cancer. One man has been crusading for their control for decades, and he will join us. But first, there are obvious reasons that you don't want to catch the measles, right? But this week, researchers report another reason. that a measles infection can leave you vulnerable to other diseases, even after the measles infection is cured. Joining me now to talk about that and other selected short subjects and

scientists. Eleanor Cummins, she's a science writer based here in New York. Welcome back. Thanks for having me. Let's get right into it, this measles research. What did the scientists find? Right. So clinicians have been reporting for a while, you know, that they'll see patients that seem to have this suppressed immune response after they've been exposed to measles. But the scientists actually wanted to look into that. So in a new study in the journal science and another one in science immunology, they actually tried to look at the immune systems of children who have been exposed to the virus. And what they found is this phenomenon that's called immune amnesia, where your immune system seems to be completely compromised by a measles such that you can get

all different kinds of diseases besides measles just because you've been infected. So this is one reason to get your kids vaccinated. Absolutely. Yeah, it's another great reason. Because so, you know, you have the primary symptoms of measles, right? Like you will get a terrible rash and it can kill kids. But now they're saying that this immune amnesia can last for months or in some cases years after the fact. Do they have any idea of how this happens with the mechanism that's going on? Yeah.

So these researchers were able to look at a population of 77 unvaccinated kids in the Netherlands. And so it was a sort of perfect natural experiment where they were monitoring them. And then as they became exposed to measles, they watched how that changed their immune system. And what they found was that the immune cells that you have in your body, these antibodies that have been trained to fight off disease, are compromised by the measles, which sort of infiltrates that system. So you basically will have, you know, over the course of your life, you are exposed to pathogens in your body and, you know, learns to fight them off. But after you have measles, it's like your clocks have been totally cleaned. And you're kind of

starting over with a lot of these pathogens. Wow. Wow. That's interesting. Let's go on to other immunology news, and there's a new experimental evidence, or there's a vaccine for tuberculosis. Yes. It's really exciting. It's a big, yeah, a big leap forward. So what scientists have been working on is a vaccine that can fight off tuberculosis. Right now, if you know you're exposed to DB, you go on a really severe round of antibiotics for a long time, and they were like, what if we can just develop a vaccine? So the final data from the first trial is out, and it's really promising. What they found is that it appears to reduce the risk of someone who has latent tuberculosis, no symptoms, developing full-blown tuberculosis by about 50%.

Wow, that's pretty good. Moving on, there was a study that said it was tracing us back to our birth humanity? Where was that? Yeah, so what you have to know is that there's this thing called mitochondrial genome, and so it's in our DNA, and it's this little snippet that we only inherit from our mothers. And that's really exciting genetically because it means you can trace it really far back, theoretically to some of the first moms of humanity. And so what these geneticists did was they looked at an understudied group in Southern Africa

that has the L-Zero mitogenome, and it's one of the oldest out there. It's actually the oldest. And so they wanted to trace it back, and they found that it originated about 200,000 years ago in the region that's now the Kalahari Desert, which was at the time a beautiful wetland. And so then the question became, right, that they're trying to extrapolate this to modern humans. and tell our origin story. And some pushback on that, I'm sure. Oh, yes, a lot of pushback.

So other geneticists, you know, they said, well, first of all, you can't necessarily just take one group of living humans and say that they represent other living humans or especially humans of the past. So they got some pushback there. And then other people have pointed out that it doesn't really take into account any other evidence besides this DNA.

So, you know, we have incredible remains from Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago in, you know, Morocco. which is really far northeast of where this proposed homeland is. So it kind of complicates things. Speaking of remains, you have a story about exhumation. It's not a Halloween story, right? No, it's a news story. So there have been a bunch of cases in the news of very high-profile people being exhumed.

So recently the Spanish government exhumed the former dictator Francisco Franco. There's also a case right now where John Dillinger, the gangster, some of his relatives, are trying to dig him up because they think an imposter is in his grave, and they want to prove that. So they're trying to disinter him. So they haven't got the opinion yet to do that. So the state of Illinois approved their license to do this, but the cemetery is fighting back because the cemetery doesn't want to go digging up everybody every time a distant relative has some kind of question they want to answer. So they have not been fully approved. Isn't it right? Even though you try to dig up a body, there may not be one there?

So the thing that was amazing was when I was talking to, you know, people who do this all the time, they're experts in exhumation. They're like, we have no idea what we'll find. Anytime we open a grave, it's going to be a totally different experience based off of, you know, the way that the person was buried and the way their body was prepared.

Are you working on this story? Yeah, yeah. It was in Fox, and it was so exciting to just sort of hear like how surprised they are every time they do their job. Yeah, and there have been some very famous exhumation.

as you say? Yeah. One is Eva Perron, the Argentinian First Lady. She was famously exhumed and she was almost perfectly preserved. She had been embalmed and it really lasted. But there, you know, are more likely you're going to sort of disintegrate over time such that sometimes you'll dig it up and there will only be soil there. There won't be any evidence that there was ever a burial. That's interesting.

It's not like it happens in the movies. No, not at all. Thank you very much for taking them to be with us today. Thanks, Ira. Eleanor Cummins is a freelance science writer based in New York. And now it's time to check in on the state of science. This is KERNO. For W.WIS Public Radio News.

Iowa Public Radio News. Local science stories of national significance. Over a decade ago, bat populations in the Northeast began to dramatically plummet because of white nose syndrome. That disease is caused by a. a flesh-eating fungus that targets bats while they hibernate. To date, almost 7 million, 7 million bats have died from white-nose syndrome. And while government agencies have been working to contain the spread of the fungus,

the bats continue to die out. And there is new reporting now about how hard the bats have been hit in the state of Connecticut. Joining me to talk about it and about the state and the bat population is Patrick Scahill, a science and environment reporter from WNPR in Hartford. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks for having me. Let's talk about it. What is White Nose syndrome?

How does the disease kill the bats? Yeah, so White Nose is a fungal disease that's really been a dreadful thing for cave dwelling bats in particular, because this is a fungus that does really well in cold, damp places like caves. And as you were saying, Ira, the fungus can get on the wings, the muzzles of the bats. And what it basically does is it wakes them up during hibernation during their overwintering period, which can deplete their winter energy reserves. They're kind of, you know, dipping into their gas reserve tank. And if they wake up too many times, they can completely lose those reserves,

and that can essentially kill the bat. And you recently went to a site where bats hibernate in Northern Connecticut. What did you see there? Yeah, so I went to an interesting historical site in Connecticut, actually, Old Newgate Prison and Copper Mine. This was a copper mine that was an operation from 1700. roughly through the 1750s. It didn't really do that great. The oar there was kind of bad.

So then they said, well, let's turn it into a prison because, you know, it's Connecticut. And that's how things were from 1773 until 1827. Now it's a tourist attraction. And there are a few bats that live there, but not very many. During the last count, there was only 10. 10? It's starting out with what, thousands? 10.

So at this site, there was probably a few dozen, but other sites in Connecticut have had thousands. I talked to a biologist, and she had mentioned that there was a site in Western Connecticut where they had documented over 3,300 bats during a winter survey in 2007. Again, this is around the time White Nose was emerging. They returned there in 2009. The accounts were down to about 300. And when they went back there in 2010, they saw fewer than a dozen bats. And she said this was carnage, essentially.

Is there anything anybody can do to prevent this? So right now there is no known cure. for White Nose Syndrome. A lot of scientists are thinking about this. Just this week, actually, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a $100,000 challenge offering money for two researchers who can potentially identify ways to fight the disease. But right now, unfortunately, there is no known cure for this. And what I found interesting about this, and I know you know about this, is how it can spread without the bats moving. Right. So this is actually an interesting point. of research for scientists now. So scientists within, so this fungus can spread from bat to bat

while they are hibernating. But there are certain areas of the cave where the fungus, you know, the humidity or the temperature isn't really friendly to the fungus and the fungus doesn't do as well. So researchers now are studying those microclimates in the caves to try to determine are there areas where bats can go to maybe fight this disease or avoid this disease. Why haven't the populations bounced back at all? And once, you know, the vulnerabilities are You know, we don't really know. One of the things I like to say, so in Connecticut, we've seen sharp declines for many bat species, the little brown bats, tricolored bats, the northern long-eared bat used to

actually be New England's most common bat. Now it's the least common bat in New England, and it's actually listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. You know, one of the things scientists are looking at now is bats haven't entirely gone away, right? There are a few that are left. Big brown bats actually have declined in Connecticut, but their number of cats. are not as bad. So researchers are trying to study the survivors to see, you know, what makes these bats unique and what makes them special and able to survive this.

And how do they spread to the West Coast? I mean, the bats can't fly cross country. How do they get there? That is, you know, that is another question that probably points to us, right? So one of the things that happens with white nose is if you go into a cave and you get the fungus on your shoes or on your clothes, potentially you could transport this fungus even maybe across the U.S. And scientists think this actually, is probably what happened in 2016 when the fungus moved all the way across the country and popped up in Washington State there. Bats can't fly that far as you said, so that probably was a situation where we did that. Interesting stuff, Patrick. Thanks for taking time to be with us today.

You're welcome. Patrick Escahill is a science and environment reporter from WNPR in Hartford. We're going to take a break and we're going to come back and talk about P-FAS chemicals. They've been found in everything. just about from pizza boxes to polar bears to even in breast milk. We'll talk about it, and the journey of one man for the last two decades to try to get attention for it. He'll be here to talk about it after this break. Stay with us.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Plato. In 1998, a lawyer, Robert Bilat, looking for evidence of chemical poisoning on farm animals, sued the chemical company, DuPont, And in the process, he uncovered a trove of internal documents about a chemical called PFOA. PFOA is part of a larger class of chemicals called PFS, PFAS. For decades, Robert has been suing chemical companies and fighting to get these chemicals regulated. In September, he testified before the House's oversight and reform committee. After years of litigation, pull this information out and to make it public, after gag orders, protective orders, et cetera.

Now that this information is finally there, unfortunately, EPA still has not acted. I first warned EPA 18 years ago, and we are still here. Robert Beloit is a partner of the law firm Taft-Statineas and Hollister in Cincinnati. He talked about it, as he said, for about two decades. He's been on a crusade. And there's a new book out about it called Exposure and a new movie about this. It's called Dark Waters, based on his story, comes out November 22nd. We invited DuPont to join us to talk about it.

They have declined, but they have sent a statement over, which we'll read at the end of the segment. Welcome to Science Friday, Robert. Thank you so much for having me. Back in 1998, you were not in the business of suing chemical corporations but defending them, right? That's right. I started working for the law firm of Taft, and Taf, and Tanneson, and Hollister in 1990, in their environmental department, representing and corporate clients, and a lot of those were big chemical companies.

So what turned you to the other side? Well, it was about eight years into that working at the firm where I got a call one day and a gentleman on the other end of the line started talking about cows dying. I wasn't quite sure what he was talking about. I was about ready to hang up the phone, and he blurted out that he had gotten my name, from my grandmother. And it so happened that my grandmother and my mom's family had grown up outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia. And this gentleman was calling from that same area. And so when I heard that he had gotten my name as a recommendation for my grandmother, I started listening and

invited him to come up and show us what he had, what he was concerned about. And he was concerned about animals, farm animals dying on his property? That's right. He raised several hundred head of cattle on a piece of property outside of Parkersburg, West Virginia, right along the Ohio River. He and his family had been doing that for quite some time. And over the preceding couple of years, he had noticed all kinds of problems with his cows, tumors. They were wasting away. Their teeth were turning black. By the time he called me, he had lost over 100 cows.

And he was also seeing impacts in the local wildlife. He was seeing deer dying, fish, birds, you name it. So he was convinced there was something in water that was running off of a nearby landfill that was impacting everything in the area. And you took the case to defend him and decided to look into it. And you did find evidence for the animals getting sick. That's right. ended up finding out that this landfill was owned by the DuPont Company, which owned a huge

manufacturing facility right up the river. And this landfill was where they had been to, this landfill was where they had been disposing waste for many years. And so when we took this case on, we started digging into what was permitted, what went into this landfill, what was allowed by the local government agencies, and really couldn't find anything that was explaining what we were seeing in the animals. So I sort of broadened our request to the company for additional documents. We ended up having to bring a lawsuit against the company, DuPont, and we finally started getting internal documents. And one day, I stumbled across a document that mentioned something called PFOA had been sent in materials to that landfill, something I'd never heard of. So that started me

on a whole other journey. And so what did DuPont documents say about the health risks of PFOA? Well, it was pretty disturbing, actually. I mean, I tried going to our environmental library at the time. This is back in 1999, the year 2000, really couldn't find anything about what this chemical was. I really wasn't finding much in the published literature.

There wasn't much out there. And so we started digging into the company's own files. And what we saw was this was a completely man-made synthetic chemical had not existed on the planet prior to World War II, been invented by the 3M company right after the war, and they were selling this material, PFOA, to DuPont, who was using it since as early as 1951 at this factory up the river. And it ended up, this was the world's largest Teflon manufacturing site, and this chemical was being used by DuPont making Teflon. Well, they'd been studying the health effects of the chemical since the 50s.

finding all kinds of problems, toxicity in rats and monkeys and dogs, and they had been studying the workers, and they even had been doing cancer studies and had found out by the 80s that the chemical caused cancer in rats and even internally classified it as a confirmed carcinogen. But the most disturbing thing was we were seeing that the company had all these documents, but we didn't really see where any of this information was being shared with the regulatory agencies or really was known outside the company. And so you settled that case for that farmer but then decided to expand it to a class action suit? That's right.

You know, one of the things we found was not only, you know, did we find out this chemical was in the landfill? We found out there were about 7,000 tons of sludge soaked with this chemical in the landfill. The chemical caused white foam. So when we figured out what was going on, we were able to settle the case for the farmer, Mr. Tenet and his family, but what we also discovered was it wasn't just on the farm. DuPont had been sampling the drinking water supplies of the surrounding community, and as early as 1984, had found that the chemical was in the public water supply.

And even though it wasn't regulated, the regulatory agencies didn't know anything about it. DuPont had set its own drinking water guideline, and the levels in the water supply were above that. So we realized we might be the only ones who knew that. because this was in the internal files, but the regulators, the public didn't know. So I sent a big letter to the EPA and to the state agencies in 2001 alerting them. And that's the point where the public finally found out. This was in their water. And where does that suit stand now?

Well, we ended up after several years of litigation and finding even more documents and finding more disturbing information about the chemical. We were able to settle that case in 2004. It was after EPA even sued DuPont for withholding information about the chemical from the agency. We were able to settle the case. By that point, we found out that the chemical had made its way into the water of 70,000 people on the Ohio and West Virginia side. And we were able to get clean water filters put in. But most importantly, under that settlement, we set up a process to have independent scientists,

look at all of the data and confirm what kind of health effects were generated from exposure to the chemical. That took seven years. And we had 70,000 people actually from the community that came forward, gave blood, participated in that. And after seven years of some of the most comprehensive human health studies ever done on any chemical, that independent panel confirmed that drinking that chemical was linked with six diseases, including several forms of cancer. So after that, those people were entitled to free medical monitoring under our settlement, and the people that had those diseases were able to bring individual claims against DuPont.

We had about 3,500 people do that, and those started finally going to trial in 2015. I want to bring on another guest. Sharon Lerner is a health and environment reporter at The Intercept. She's been covering the PFOA and the larger class. PFAS chemicals for several years. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi, thanks for having me. Incredible story. Yeah, it is. It is. And how widespread, you know, I mentioned that it's in lots of different things. It's in just about everything, right? Yeah, it is at this point. Yeah. Do we know at what levels it's dangerous? Well, that is being determined. And, you know,

when I first learned about this story, I started writing about it a little more than four years ago. The numbers that were, I heard as safe, were much higher than they are now. The EPA had, I believe it was 0.4 and 0.2 or 400, and it's hard to try. Now we're talking about parts per trillion. Right. So it was much higher. It was 400 and 200, is that right, Rob? And now we're at, as of 2016, the safety level that the EPA set was 70 parts per trillion,

but you've seen several states at much lower levels. And then recently, Linda Burnbaum, who is the recently retired head of the NIHS, which is the National Institutes for Environmental Health Sciences. She said that she thought a safe level should be around 0.1 parts per trillion based on research her agency did. So you're seeing really a very downward slope, which is not unusual for environmental contaminants. As we learn more about them, this happened when led to, you see the numbers go down and down. Robert, are these chemicals? Were they taken off the market?

Are they still being used, places? Yeah, the 3M company actually announced in 2000 that they would stop making these chemicals. DuPont actually jumped in at that point and started making PFOA at its own plant down at Fayetteville, North Carolina. Well, after DuPont was sued by the EPA in 2004, they agreed to settle that case and then right after announced a phase-out of any further manufacture of the chemical of the United States. but that was over the next 10 years. And over that 10-year span, and Sharon has written some tremendous articles about this, additional chemicals that were deemed to be, quote, safe replacements were brought out onto the market, and we're finding out that many of these may present some of the same problems as the ones that were phased out.

I want to bring in our listening audience, 8447248255, 844724825. 844-724-8255 or you can tweet us at Sy Fry. Sharon, is it true that there are tens of thousands of chemicals? I saw the number, 60,000 being called it. No, in the class, no. The class is in the thousands, but I think it's between 4 and 7,000 actual chemicals. What, PFS chemicals? The ones, and so after Rob was saying 2015, basically there was this voluntary phase out.

But this was, and we're getting, we'll get a little technical here, this was for the PFS that were based on chains of eight carbons or longer. And so then we had these short chain PFS replacements, which he mentioned. And these is because they weren't subject to this voluntary withdrawal, start entering the market, and it turns out that, again, some of them pose some of the same health problems. The most, the best known one at this point is called Gen X, and that's DuPont's replacement for PFOA, and that's based on six carbons. And we, you know, we heard this, the name of it. I was able to find some documents that were actually on the EPA's own website that DuPont had submitted to the agency that showed that Gen X caused health problems, including cancer in lab animals.

So the EPA had those documents and went ahead and allowed them to make it anyway. And subsequently, we've learned that Gen X. is in the drinking water of some 250,000 people in North Carolina. But this is the best known one. There are actually many. It turns out I recently wrote about 40 replacement PFAS chemicals that have posed similar problems, neurotoxicity, developmental toxicity, and these are all from reports that the manufacturer is submitted to the EPA

that the EPA has, even while it's allowed these. chemicals to be used and made here in the U.S. I'm Ira Flato. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Talking about the PFAS family of chemicals with folks who should know. Our number 844-724-8255. So where do we stand now? I mean, has the EPA decided or attempted to take these chemicals off the market? or whose decision is that?

No, they have not been subject to binding regulation yet. They have not been banned. As we said, the longer chain ones were subject to this voluntary withdrawal. The shorter ones, they seem to be, sometimes they're released onto the market with something called a consent order, which says, okay, you can only make X amount of it, and it puts other restrictions on it. Unfortunately, and I've gotten some of these documents, the amount that, you know, that is capped and you can't make more than that is confidential almost always. So it's impossible to know if these arrangements are being adhered to or not.

A quick tweet before we go to the break. Chris asks, what are the myriad uses for this substance that makes it so difficult to phase out quickly? Sharon? Oh, there are so many. And Rob, you can chime in when I get them with my list. They're non-stick coatings and stain-resistant coatings like Scotch Guard, right? There are, you see them in firefighting foam, which means that the military is actually a huge source of pollution because these A-Triple-F is called these firefighting foams that put out jet fuel fires have been used around the country. and from that use have seeped into drinking water near military bases.

So that's another huge use. Many other industrial uses. Rob, do you have others? I think that's a great list. And the other thing to keep in mind is because of all those uses, what we're finding now is this chemical is showing up in drinking water all over the country. And not just in the U.S., now it's all over the world. And it's not only made its way into our drinking water, into our soil,

but also into our blood. It's now being found in human blood of virtually 98 or 99% of the people on the planet. So we're talking about uses through all these different products that have really generated unprecedented exposures worldwide. Let me just announce that I'm Ira Plato. This is Science Friday from WNIC Studios.

We're going to have to take a break. So I didn't want you to get into it. I know you're very eager to jump in and say something. So we'll get back and talk lots more with Robert Belot and Sharon Lerner. Our number 844-724-8255. Stay with us. I know you want to talk about this. We'll take your calls and talk some more about it after the break.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. We are talking this hour about the ubiquitous and potentially hazardous PFAS chemicals. You may be exposed to them through food packaging, drinking water. They're even found in breast milk. My guest, Robert Belot, a partner at Taft, currently suing on behalf of everybody in the U.S. with PFAS in their blood. He is author of a new book, Exposure.

Sharon Lerner, a reporter at the Intercept Covering Health and the Environment, our number 844-724-8255. Lots of calls. Let's get to see how many we can get in there. Claudia and Westchester. Hi, welcome to Science Friday. Just really grateful you guys are doing this work. My question is I studied environmental policy and science, and that was our curriculum for undergrad and master's, and I was really surprised we only had to take one toxicology course, and that even, you know, our professors were saying, like,

there are thousands of chemicals that are being released into the product stream every day. A lot of them are not tested? How are these products and chemicals even being, like, approved to be in products in the first place? Like, how can we prevent these kinds of things from happening instead of trying to deal with the mess afterwards after damage is already done? All right, let me get an answer. Robert or Sharon, you want to take them to take? Robert, how do these chemicals get out there in the first place? Yeah, I mean, you have to take a, you have to look at it from the historic perspective here.

These chemicals were, like I mentioned before, that came out right after World War II. And that's decades before there even was a U.S. EPA or before even some of the federal laws first started coming out to regulate chemicals. You know, our first real comprehensive federal law governing new chemicals. coming out on the market, toxic substances control act came out in 1976. That's decades after these chemicals were already out and being used. And under that law, under that toxic substances control act law, it really focused on new chemicals coming out. And for things like PFOA that were already out there, it essentially required companies

that were using or manufacturing those chemicals to notify the agency if they believed the chemical presented some sort of substantial risk. So it was up to the company to really alert the agency and tell them whether there was a problem. And what we saw in the case of PFOA was the company just repeatedly making the decision they didn't think there was a problem despite what was in their own records. So the agency didn't know and had to catch up. So because of that and in similar situations that occurred over the last several decades, there was some change made to that law just recently in 2016 to try to beef up the requirements. But for communities that are exposed to chemicals like this, it's under our legal system, the people who are exposed are essentially told they're the

ones who have to come forward and prove that the chemical is causing them harm. And the company that put it out there, doesn't have to prove that it's safe. It doesn't. Sharon? Right. Yeah, there's this presumption of innocence, basically, on behalf of the chemicals. It's true. And then the other part of this is that is the numbers. So we've had this exponential growth in industrial chemicals. We have more than 40,000 in use right now on the active list. And so you see the EPA trying with, you know, with varying degrees of success to try to assess what their safety, but they're going so slowly. And as they, there's so much pressure from industry, when they close in on a chemical and actually come close to regulating it, it slows down the process incredibly, and there's virtually no hope

of, you know, actually assessing the vast majority of them at this point. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the situation with PFOA, it's a perfect example of that. You know, we first alerted the agency in 2001, 18 years ago about what we were seeing about the chemical, how people were being exposed, its toxicity. And then we ended up doing the community had to come forward and do some of the most extensive human health studies ever done. So we now have some of the most extensive, comprehensive data on a chemical like this. more so than probably any other chemical. Yet we are still dealing with a situation where the agency has not moved forward to regulate it yet. We're still grinding through that very slow process.

So it's an incredibly complicated in slow process. And as Sharon said, the closer you get to the point of eventually being regulated, the more conflict arises and the more it slows down. Let's go to the phones to Meg's County, Ohio. Hi, Liz. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. Go ahead. So I live in Meg's County and was one of the, my family drank this water. I'm so grateful to you, sir, for coming in and taking this to the public. And we did do the blood tests. And this was just a horrible experience for us. It was tremendous.

for us. It still is. We still worry about what our health is going to be like in 10 years, 15 years. And it was just a horrible thing to happen to our community. And I don't think we've learned anything because our area is Appalachia, Ohio, and we are often, you know, the last ones to be considered when it comes to regulations and things of this nature. And now the fracking injection wells are in my county. And if water, you know, the deep off. aquifers can be penetrated by, we call it C8, was the word that they used with us. It was called C8. If it can be penetrated by C8, we worry that the fracking injection wells can get into the aquifers.

So it's just a never-ending fear for us, and we've put a home filtration system in for our own water. Even though the company did that, we've done our own because we're just, you know, people still are afraid of what's going to happen. And you ask what you can do. You live in Ohio, and you can vote, right? Oh, I do more than vote. I organize. I better believe I vote, and I get others to vote. All right.

Well, thanks for sharing that. Robert? Yeah, you know, thanks so much for calling. That's one of the communities that was impacted by the original case. And really, you know, what we're hoping is with the book and the movie coming out that we're going to be able to finally elevate that story so people know what actually happened in that community. and what that community did over 20, you know, last 20 years to bring this story to light so that as this chemical is being found and detected and all these additional water supplies all over

the world, that people don't have to do that all over again, that we're not going to have other communities that have to go through what the caller went through in Meg's County, that we can learn from that and not repeat it. Well, let's talk about learning from that. Let me start with the tweet from Nancy who wants to know, should I just throw away all my old nonstick cookware? Is there a list online of safe brands? Thank you.

I mean, should you just throw away your nonstick cookware and not use them? Robert? What do you think? Well, I think one of the primary sources of exposure really has been drinking water. There are potential exposures from a lot of these different products. But the products have been kind of quietly. reformulated over the last several years. As Sharon mentioned, you know, as these new chemicals come out onto the market, manufacturers have started reformulating their mix of chemicals that they use in making

these. So I think there's a concern right now. A lot of those in the scientific community are happy that people have stopped using PFOA in making nonstick pans, for example. But you may see them advertised as PFOA free, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're P-FOS free. They may have some of these related chemicals that people are really just now learning about. I mean, it took 20 years to learn what we know about PFOA, and we're just now starting to look into these related P-FOS chemicals. Sharon, did you want to jump in? Yeah, I guess I'd say that cast iron and oil work really well and did before these non-stick

coatings, but I think also you're getting at this issue, which is so many of the uses of these chemicals are not essential. And you find them in all kinds of products in ski wax, in clothing, in food wrapping, in cosmetics even. And there's certainly no need for it. You know, some people argue that they have some essential uses, some industrial and medical uses. I suppose it's arguable, but there's no question that you don't need it on your pan. And I think we need, and you don't need, you know, we have accepted sort of these modern conveniences of, you know, stain-free carpets, but maybe we just would be okay with a stand on our carpet. Robert, tell me the status of your lawsuit now, and how many people are involved in where is it headed?

Well, that original lawsuit I was mentioning for the community at West Virginia, Ohio, after the science panel found the links with disease, the 3,500 people who had their cases were able to finally go to court after three trials where DuPont was found liable, including for punitive damages for causing cancers in that community. Those cases were settled. And I have since brought a new case, I think you referenced earlier. where now that we're seeing these related chemicals pop up all over the country, we're starting to hear that same argument we heard 20 years ago with PFOA. Well, there's just not enough known about what this does to people. So I've brought a new case in federal court in Ohio seeking to require the companies that put the chemicals out there to actually set up a new scientific panel, independent scientists, to look at all of these chemicals and look at it on a national, basis and do whatever science is necessary to tell us exactly what they'll do in the long term.

The company has moved to dismiss that case. The court recently ruled denying those motions, so it's moving forward. And what are you seeking monetary relief or just stopping making those chemicals? No, what we're seeking is scientific studies. We want, you know, if the argument is going to be there simply isn't any scientific evidence to confirm that these chemicals present risk to humans. If that's the argument, then the companies that put those out there, we believe ought to be paying to do whatever studies are necessary to resolve that. Exactly what will this stuff do? And that the people drinking it, who are being

exposed to it every day as guinea pigs, they shouldn't be the ones who have to fund and pay for those studies. It should be the people to put it out there and put it into our blood. Let me just mention that we invited DuPont and it spin-off Camor's to join us today or provide a statement. DuPont did write us saying, quote, does not make these chemicals in question. They don't make them anymore. And they have, quote, announced a series of commitments around other limited use PFASs, which include eliminating the use of all PFOA, PFOS-based firefighting foams from our sites and granting royalty-free licenses to those seeking to use PFAS water,

treatment resin technologies. We actually have the full DuPont statement up on our website, and Kim Moore's has not yet responded. We also contacted 3M, which used to manufacture PFOA, and supply it to DuPont, and they declined to provide a statement, but pointed us to their website, which we'll link to along additional information on our website. And just to say, you can find all of that on our ScienceFriety.com slash PFA. F-A-S-I-S-I-S-I-S-I-S-Syside.

I'm Ira Flato. This is Science Friday from W-N-Y-C Studios. So, Sharon, where does it go from here? Someone who's covered this for four years now? Yeah. What are you feelings about it? Are you still feeling helpless? No.

I guess, I mean, I started with the three-part series that I thought it would end there, and then it was at 11, and I've written more than 40 articles. on this and I think I've accepted that it's, you know, this issue is not going away and the chemicals are not going away. Unfortunately, they literally won't go away. They don't

break down. They don't break down. So they're going to be on the planet long after humans are. And as we said, it's not, you know, it started, I've thought of this as an Ohio, West Virginia issue. It's the whole nation. It's the whole world. And as you mentioned, it's

not just blood. It's in breast milk. It's in placental tissue. It's in babies when they're born. It's their first meal. So it's something we're going to have to understand and how it affects us. And so, unfortunately, this issue will, I will continue to write about it. Maybe not forever, but it will go on for quite a long time. Robert, is this an endocrine disruptor, classic chemicals?

Well, I think that's among the areas that are being researched right now is to try to find out exactly what all effects these chemicals have. Unfortunately, they're being found to have a wide variety of effects, including decreasing immune function, decreasing the effectiveness of vaccines. And, you know, it's, as Sharon mentioned, the real concern is this stuff doesn't break down. And so it's great that companies have phased out making some of these, the long chain C8s, for example. but that doesn't address all of the years and thousands of tons of this stuff that's already out in our environment, in the soil, in the water, in our blood. And that's what I think we have to deal with now is what do we do about what's already out there.

And the first thing that you're asking for is to actually study the chemicals, study the problem itself. I think that we already have more than enough information on at least PFOA. that there's more than enough on that chemical to move forward and take effective steps to regulate that. There's no reason that we aren't doing that already. But if others are going to claim that some of these other related chemicals, that there isn't quite as much information, then, yeah, we need to have that information and have those studies done. And the people who are exposed to it shouldn't be the ones paying to do it, though. And I would just add, until we have information, that information, we should not be allowing new chemicals in this class onto the market, which the EPA is currently doing.

Well, we're going to follow this story, and I want to thank both of you for sharing it with us. Sharon Lerner, reporter at The Intercept covering health and the environment, and Robert Ballot. You have a new book out. It's called Exposure and also a movie, a film called Dark Waters, is coming out in theaters, November. 22nd, which is based on your life story about that's taking you now 20 years to go after this. We wish you good luck with both both for taking time to be with us today. Thank you for having me. You're welcome.

Charles Berkwurst is our director, senior producer Christopher Taliatta. Our producers are Alexa Lim, Christy Taylor, and Katie Feather. Ella Fetter produced this hour's interview on PFS. We also had production help today from Lucy Wong. And we bid a fond farewell to our intern, Donya Abdul Hamid. I just learned how to say her name and finally she's leaving. She's pitched and produced a lot of terrific stories for us. And it's been a pleasure having her on the team at Science Friday.

We wish you great luck, Danielle. It's been a pleasure having you. We'd also had technical and engineering help today from Rich Kim and Kevin Wolf, B.J. Leideman composed our theme music. And on Science Friday, Vox Pop app, get the app. And we're asking you, what's the strangest behavior you've seen from artificial intelligence? We'll talk about it next week, so let us know about what happens when AI gets awkward. What's the strangest behavior you have seen from artificial intelligence?

It's on our Science Friday Vox Pop app. Go up there and leave your note. We may put you on the radio. Have a great weekend. I'm Ira Flato in New York.