Health Matters By Jeffrey Kluger EDITOR AT LARGE
IN 2023, IT’S HARD TO GET AWAY from breaking news about PFAS, a class of more than 12,000 chemicals used in countless products from nonstick pans to cosmetics to food packaging. These so-called forever chemicals have been linked to a host of physical ills, including increased risk of certain cancers, high cholesterol, hormonal disruption, immune-system problems, decreased fertility, and developmental delays in children.
PFAS, first developed in the 1940s, weren’t always so well known by people outside of the industries manufacturing them. But a new study analyzing industry documents published in Annals of Global Health reveals just how much and how early the two biggest manufacturers of the chemicals— 3M and DuPont—knew about the potential harms the products posed. As the researchers found, 3M and DuPont had preliminary evidence of PFAS toxicity as early as the 1960s, and knew broadly about the dangers the chemicals pose by 1970—two decades before the public really became aware of the chemicals’ health risks.
The study also reveals that the tactics the companies used to cover up what they knew about the toxicity of PFAS—suppressing unfavorable research, distorting public disclosure of research that did leak out, withholding information from employees who might have been exposed to dangerous levels of PFAS—are reminiscent of those used by the tobacco and fossil-fuel industries.
“Having access to these documents allows us to see what the manufacturers knew and when, but also how polluting industries keep critical public health information private,” said Dr. Nadia Gaber, an emergency-medicine resident and the first author of the paper, in a statement. “This research is important to inform policy and move us towards a precautionary rather than a reactionary principle of chemical regulation.”
In an email to TIME, DuPont said, in part, “In 2019, DuPont de Nemours was established as a new multi-industrial specialty products company. DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured PFOA or PFOS [two types of PFAS]. DuPont de Nemours cannot comment on allegations contained in the UCSF paper that relate to historical . . . matters.” 3M emailed a comment as well, stating, “The paper is largely comprised of previously published documents—as evidenced by the paper’s references section, which includes citations dating back as far as 1962. 3M has previously addressed many of the mischaracterizations of these documents in previous reporting.”
THE SECRETS BEGIN
It was in 1961 that the dissembling around the dangers of PFAS started, according
