Dourson: Should the 'forever' chemical matter to you?
This is the third and intended final essay in the series about the “forever” chemical, per-fluoro-octano-ate, also known as PFOA, and similar chemicals. The first essay in this series ended with a statement that many of us have fluorinated chemicals in our bodies that are otherwise not medicine (yes some medicines are fluorinated to keep them around longer), and with a question, “Is this a concern?” The second essay in this series answered this question with reference to a safety assessment, but then showed that safety assessments differ by over 100,000-fold around the world. Not all of these safety assessments can be correct. And the implications of choosing one over the other means either enormous health risk if one picks a higher safe dose and it is wrong, or an enormous public expense, if one picks a lower safe dose and it is wrong. This essay will tell you why you should care about using the right value.
As previously mentioned, PFOA and PFOS like to hang around and not break down, which is why they are so very useful. They are referred to as “forever” chemicals because some estimates have them staying in our bodies for well over four years, although a recent international collaboration shows that these estimates may be much shorter. PFOA and PFOS were used early on to solve a problem in protecting human life. The problem? In 1967, a fire occurred aboard the USS Forrestal during combat operations. Firefighting foams used on the U.S. ships at the time were made from proteins and were ineffective. As a result, 134 sailors died and 161 were injured. PFOA/PFOS was later put into the foam with remarkably protective results.
Success in fighting such fires with PFOA/PFOS foam continues to this day. For example, an uncontrollable oil fire in 2019 at Deer Park, Texas, released 200,000 pounds of chemicals per hour into the air for over 50 hours — more than 10 million pounds of contaminants — before firefighting foam with PFOA and PFOS were used to put the fire out in 13 hours. Many of these contaminants are associated with respiratory and heart diseases. So an obvious risk was avoided to folks living around this area with the use of the PFOA/PFOS foam that quickly put out an otherwise uncontrollable fire. What was the trade-off? PFOA/PFOS put out a fire in 13 hours and contaminated the environment to a low level that might not be harmful, versus adding more than 10 million pounds of air emissions at concentrations that are known to cause toxicity.
Yes, PFOA/PFOS foams are very good at putting out fires and have been used extensively in the past. Unfortunately, at present, there is no alternative to fluorinated firefighting foams that maintains the superior performance characteristics as the current versions. You don’t have to take my word for it. Here are three expert statements:
• “AFFF (PFOA/PFOS) is mission critical because it quickly extinguishes petroleum-based fires. The Federal Aviation Administration has adopted its use at airports nationally. To date no commercially available fluorine-free foam has demonstrated comparable performance on critical MILSPEC performance tests.” (U.S. Department of Defense Alternatives to AFFF: Report for Congress, May 2018).
• “Currently, the fluorine-free foams on the market do not match the performance of their fluorinated counterparts, and they require more agent to extinguish fires quickly. Fluorine-free foams are not able to provide the same level of fire suppression, flexibility, and scope of usage as MIL-PRF- 24385 AFFF (PFOA/PFOS) firefighting foam.” (Federal Aviation Administration CertAlert, January 2019).
• “There is no alternative non-fluorinated foam that maintains the superior performance characteristics as AFFF. As the use of all AFFFs become banned across the world, there is nothing available that can replace with the same performance for flammable/combustible liquid fires. As airports, including those in the U.S., move away from the use of AFFF, I am concerned about the safety and survival of passengers/crew when non-AFFF foams are used. I have other concerns with fire safety of large liquid fires that require AFFF for extinguishment.” (Dr. Michael Larrañaga, President and Managing Principal of R.E.M. Risk Consultants, 2023).
But the lack of good firefighting foams is not the only problem, and even though the lack of these foams is likely to result in more deaths, it may not even be the biggest problem. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio ordered class status for “individuals subject to the laws of Ohio, who have 0.05 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOA (C-8) and at least 0.05 ppt of any other PFAS in their blood serum.” You might remember from one of my earlier essays, one sugar granule from a package of sugar is about 50,000 ppt in a liter of water. So the court’s judgment of 0.05 ppt is 1 million times smaller than one sugar granule. So does this judgment mean that Ohio residents with small amounts of “forever chemicals” in their blood can be sued for donating blood to save someone’s life? Hmm …
And, unfortunately, the litigation does not stop there. We all recently found out that the city of Mansfield is suing a number of organizations over low levels of PFOA and related chemicals in the surface water, groundwater and soil of the Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport. In Maine, organic farmers are being sued for levels of PFOA and related chemicals in their soils. Underwear manufacturers are being sued for PFOA and related chemicals in their products. The number of lawsuits is voluminous and in many areas. Where will this all end? I’m afraid it’s not going to because we have such widespread, low-level contamination. The question we need to consider before spending billions of dollars on litigation is whether this low-level contamination is a health risk, and for this we need to get the correct safe dose, as mentioned above.
So what can we all do? Write, call or email your congressman/woman and/or representative, both national and local, and insist that the U.S. EPA (contact: Radhika Fox: Fox.Radhika@epa.gov; 202-564-5700) work with international organizations, such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the European Food Safety Authority, or with an existing international collaboration, to get the right safe dose.Your help is not only welcomed, it is needed. Otherwise, litigation on this chemical is likely to go on “forever.”
Michael Dourson is a local board-certified toxicologist and director of science for the nonprofit organization Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (tera.org), which studies chemical hazards for both government and industry. He also is executive director of the nonprofit Toxicology Education Foundation (toxedfoundation.org), which helps the public understand concepts in toxicology and specific information about chemicals, and serves as a scientific adviser for the American Council on Science and Health website (acsh.org). Questions from readers are welcome. Send them to yournews@mansfieldnewsjournal.com.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: The “Forever” Chemical: Should This Matter To You?
