Rob Bilott talking:
For many years, I have been trying to make sure that the public, the millions of people across this country and now globally that have these chemicals in their blood, in their drinking water, that these people have access to the most accurate and complete information about the health risks that are posed from being exposed to these chemicals. We’re talking about man-made, synthetic chemicals that don’t exist in nature, that are now in the blood of millions of people across the country.
Of almost everyone. About everyone, and in wildlife and living things all over the planet. And for many years, I have been trying to encourage the federal government, the U.S. EPA, the ATSDR, to release as much information about the health risks of these chemicals as possible. What we have now learned is that one of the federal agencies that has primary responsibility for looking at human health effects from chemical exposure, ATSDR, has developed.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. It is part of the federal government created back in the 1980s whose specific purpose is to look at potential human health effects from exposure to hazardous materials. What we understand is that the agency has come up with a draft report that apparently has taken a new look at the health risks from not only the Teflon-related chemical PFOA and the firefighting foam-related chemical PFOS, but several additional chemicals as well that are also now getting into people’s blood and in drinking water across the country. They’re looking at that information and are suggesting that the levels of exposure that might cause harm are actually a lot lower than what U.S. EPA has now been telling the people across the country.
what we’re dealing with here is a nationwide, if not global, public health threat. Whether it is a public relations nightmare, we have people that are dealing with a public health nightmare. So it is critically important to get the most accurate, complete health information out there as quickly as we can.
I believe the agency has looked at various studies that try to assess at what levels in humans and in animals can these chemicals cause harm? And like many states across the country, including the state of New Jersey, for example, which is suggesting that the levels that are allowable in drinking water ought to be a lot lower than what U.S. EPA is currently saying. U.S. EPA, for example, is saying 70 parts per trillion is acceptable in drinking water. Folks that are looking at a lot of the more current data, for example the state of New Jersey, are suggesting levels as low as 14 or even lower. And I believe people are thinking that this particular report that ATSDR has prepared is also going to suggest that those numbers ought to be a lot lower than they are now.
Firefighting foam has historically contained a combination of these chemicals—PFOA, PFOS—and is now possibly including some of these newer replacement chemicals that were previously thought to hopefully be safe, but may present some of the same troubling characteristics as the older materials. And what’s happening now is the chemicals used in those foams are being found in drinking water around military bases, airports across the country and worldwide. In Australia, New Zealand. Because these chemicals have been released through the foam that was released out into the environment and are now contaminating water all over the planet.
– Washington state Governor Jay Inslee signed the nation’s first law banning firefighting foam and food packaging that contains PFAS, which is the class of chemicals that includes PFOA and PFOS.
As we sit here today, in the year 2018, there is still not a federally enforceable standard for any of these chemicals in drinking water. There is an informal guideline from U.S. EPA. And because the chemical and related chemicals are showing up in drinking water all over the country, all over the world, there are states that are taking matters into their own hand and moving forward a lot quicker and saying, “We are going to set standards.” Like New Jersey.
These are chemicals that are presenting all kinds of different potential health threats. And one of the issues that we’re particularly concerned about now is realizing that our nation’s firefighters and emergency responders, who have been using these firefighting foams, or whose equipment and gear that they wear may have been coated with materials that included some of these chemicals in the past—those firefighters and emergency responders have very high levels of these chemicals now in their blood. And we now need to know, what is that doing to our firefighters?
I think highlighting the importance of the issue and how widespread the problem is across the entire country with almost every state having a community that has water contamination now affected by these chemicals, the U.S. EPA is having a pretty unprecedented event. They are holding a national summit next week to address this entire class of chemicals. Not just PFOA and PFOS, but all the related chemicals as well that are showing up in drinking water and in human blood. Representatives from all 50 states have been invited to come into this conference. And there was originally some concern about whether citizens and impacted committees would be allowed to attend as well. There is now—my understanding, there’s going to be a live feed that people can listen in and hopefully participate in this meeting.
I asked if I could participate and so far I have not been allowed to go and attend this meeting. I have been told I can call in and listen in on a live feed.
My understanding looking at the agenda that has now been posted is a representative of the American Chemistry Council, or ACC, will actually not only be there, but be participating in the conference.
Don’t know what will actually be the result of the summit, other than bringing all of these state and federal agency representatives together to try to come up with a plan of how do we address this nationwide contamination problem?
Right now we know that the firefighting community has very high levels of these chemicals in their blood. Blood testing that has been done over the years has indicated this is a particularly highly exposed community. They’re not only exposed to these chemicals in the firefighting foam that they use and often are coated in, but there is concern that a lot of the equipment or gear they have worn over the years, that some of the stain proofing or waterproofing materials may have been manufactured using some of these chemicals, and trace amounts of those chemicals may have also ended up on the coatings as well. And can any of those chemicals then get into the human body because of that? This is something that has never adequately been researched to date.
We have been actually asking the federal agencies, including—I sent a letter to the ATSDR, the same agency we talked about earlier, in September—last September—asking and pleading for the agency to do a national study of firefighters that have been exposed to these chemicals. So not only should we be studying people who were exposed to these chemicals in drinking water, but the firefighting community who has this special additional exposure, we need to be studying this to find out, are these very high cancer rates that we just heard about related to these chemicals in the equipment and the foams that they have been using?
Most of these chemicals, this entire family of chemicals, which now includes about 3,000 chemicals that are part of what we call the per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances [inaudible]—the best-known. They’re the chemicals that have eight carbons or C8s. There are now a bunch of related chemicals that have been made that are C4, C6s, that were hoped to be safer, that are now showing up with the same toxicity concerns. A lot of those chemicals, that chemistry was originally invented by the 3M company. Dupont manufactured PFOA for many years. Then you have a variety of companies that use those materials to make other products.
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Rob Bilott
leading environmental lawyer who represented citizens in lawsuits against DuPont. He successfully won compensation for 70,000 clients whose drinking water had been contaminated by toxic chemicals used to make Teflon. Bilott is a recipient of the 2017 Right Livelihood Award.
— source democracynow.org