PFAS chemicals were used for decades in firefighting foam. Photo: Ivanludvic/CC
PFAS chemicals were used for decades in firefighting foam. Photo: Ivanludvic/CC

Jon Dale, Mansfield Socialist Party

A public health and environmental threat more dangerous than asbestos or tobacco – that could be the result of the widely used PFAS family of chemicals.

Known as ‘forever chemicals’, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) do not breakdown in the environment and spread easily. They have been found across the globe in drinking water, soil and food. Because they don’t break down, concentrations in the environment go up. Almost all of us have them in our bodies.

Unborn embryos are exposed – PFAS are found in umbilical cord blood. Newborn children are exposed through breast milk. Sewage plants cannot remove PFAS, which get discharged with treated water into rivers and sea, or with treated sewage sludge spread on land, entering the food chain.

69,000 people living near chemical company DuPont’s West Virginia factory have been studied. Teflon, a PFAS, was manufactured there from the 1940s. A “probable link” was found between exposure and high cholesterol (raising heart and liver disease risk), ulcerative colitis, testicular and kidney cancers, thyroid disease and high blood pressure in pregnancy. Other studies linked PFAS exposure to low immunity, fertility problems, low birthweight, birth defects and delayed brain development.

PFAS have many valuable uses, including waterproof clothing, non-stick cookware, electronics, food packaging and firefighting foams. There are safer alternatives for some of these.

Two PFAS chemicals have been widely used in firefighting foams. There are highly contaminated manufacturing sites in North Yorkshire and near Blackpool. Airports, RAF bases and the Fire Service College in Gloucestershire, where fire fighting foams have been regularly used for training, are contaminated, affecting groundwater.

17,000 PFAS-contaminated sites have been identified in Europe.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) commissioned research that highlighted firefighters’ risks, including cancer death rates 1.6 times higher than the general public and deaths from heart attacks are five times higher. (These death rates are not only due to PFAS exposure.) As well as cancer screening, the FBU calls for better fire station decontamination design.

This needs proper funding and workers’ control. Instead, the FBU has battled cuts for years, with more to come from Starmer’s Labour.

PFAS appeared in streams near Jersey’s airport in the 1990s, where these foams were used for weekly training from the 1960s. Local people drank contaminated water from a well for years, despite 3M, the US manufacturer, and Jersey Water knowing their exposure. Now these residents are being recommended bloodletting to reduce the concentration of PFAS in their bodies.

Profits prioritised

Like asbestos and tobacco, companies making and selling PFAS knew the dangers long before this became public knowledge. They deliberately kept this secret.

In 1949, evidence showed these chemicals were not biodegradable. 3M company’s internal evidence in 1978 showed they “should be regarded as toxic”. In 1983, its documents confirmed they were not degradable. Despite that, 3M described PFAS as biodegradable in sales literature until the 1990s and in 1979 as “low in toxicity”.

3M made 16% profit on its PFAS sales in 2022, when the global market for PFAS was $28 billion. If other major producers made similar profits, that totalled around $4 billion profit a year.

But the astronomical cost of cleaning up these chemicals in soil and water, together with healthcare, is estimated to be over $16 trillion a year, according to the International Chemical Secretariat. 4,000 times higher than their profits!

Profits are siphoned off by big shareholders while costs – health, environmental and financial – are dumped on the rest of us.

Unite the Union has called for PFAS phasing out and better regulation. It pointed out the Health and Safety Executive is grossly underfunded and completely unable to cope with the scale of the problem.

With Keir Starmer parroting every prime minister since Thatcher, promising to “rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment,” it’s clear this government will also not prioritise safety over profit.

Giant chemical corporations should be brought into public ownership with democratic workers’ control. Their resources should be used for common benefit instead of private profiteering. No compensation for wealthy shareholders, profiting from decades of environmental vandalism!

Scientists and laboratories currently researching armaments and other profit-making destructive industries could be redeployed to develop safe alternatives to PFAS. They could research ways to defend those most exposed and the natural environment. Nationalising military industries is needed to transfer to useful work.

PFAS pollute the planet. The fightback against the giant chemical corporations and their capitalist system must also be international. Working-class people with the world’s resources and armed with science and technology could democratically plan to prioritise people’s health and living standards, instead of what makes toxic profits for a few.