1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:08,480 Hello. This is the story of how polyfluorotetraethylene, brand name Teflon, has poisoned almost the 2 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:17,040 entire world with perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOA, which is cancer-causing. The amount 3 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:24,400 of PFOA in the average person isn't necessarily harmful, but nevertheless, PFOA can be found 4 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:32,400 in dolphins off Florida, the rain in Tibet, household dust, in food, in water. It's 5 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:39,360 basically everywhere. Yay. It's a silent threat lurking where you'd least expect it. 6 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:43,520 They are known as forever chemicals. They are being increasingly detected in the 7 00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:49,360 water of thousands of American communities. Good thing it's Teflon. Cookware never leaves 8 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:56,080 time if it has DuPont, Teflon. 9 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:05,280 Polyfluorotetraethylene, PTFE, was discovered by accident in 1938 by a chemist working for DuPont, 10 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:11,280 which is now Dow DuPont, which I hope paid a graphic designer a million dollars for this logo. 11 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:20,400 PTFE is hydrophobic, low friction, and non-reactive, meaning it makes an ideal lining for anything 12 00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:28,320 containing certain industrial chemicals, pipework, an ideal sealant for machinery, and an ideal non-stick 13 00:01:28,320 --> 00:01:32,000 coating for, of course, kitchen utensils. 14 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:51,440 It was patented in 1941, and the Teflon name was trademarked in 1945, with DuPont calling it 15 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:58,400 the most slippery material in existence. Imagine the man hours that went into the most slippery, 16 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:00,800 or slipperiest, series of meetings. 17 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:08,160 Teflon was used across many sectors right from the get-go, generally as a lubricant and coating. 18 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:16,080 By 1948, DuPont was producing around 2 million pounds of Teflon every year at its Washington 19 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:23,680 Works Plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The same year, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing 20 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:31,360 Company, now called 3M, acquired the patent for a chemical process for creating compounds from 21 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:39,120 fluorine. Manhattan Project scientists, several of whom landed at 3M after the war, had already used 22 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:45,920 fluorine to separate the uranium used for early nuclear weaponry. Their new patented chemical 23 00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:54,400 process could create novel materials like PFOA, which is often simply called C8 in DuPont internal 24 00:02:54,400 --> 00:03:04,640 documents. PFOA is also non-stick and hydrophobic, and can be used as an emulsifier, an insulator, 25 00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:10,160 and a suffocant. Basically, it has a lot of industrial applications. 26 00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:18,560 In 1950, 3M signed a deal to sell PFOA to DuPont, which wanted to use it to make Teflon, 27 00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:26,080 and by 1951, DuPont was using PFOA in the manufacture of Teflon to smooth out the final 28 00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:33,920 product's physical properties and make application of it easier. DuPont ramped up production, and the 29 00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:42,160 first US-made non-stick pans hit the shelves in 1961, which was also the year that DuPont's own safety 30 00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:51,360 testing laboratory linked C8 exposure to enlarged livers in rats and rabbits. DuPont scientists 31 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:58,080 then got a group of volunteers to smoke cigarettes laced with C8 and found 9 out of 10 people in the 32 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:04,320 highest dose groups were noticeably ill for an average of 9 hours, with flu-like symptoms that 33 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:13,280 included chills, backache, fever, and coughing. At that time, there were very few environmental 34 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:20,560 dumping laws, very few environmental laws at all, and both DuPont and 3M were routinely dumping 35 00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:30,080 industrial by-product, including PFOA, into local rivers. DuPont even dumped barrels of this waste 36 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:36,960 into the ocean, which is indisputable as fishing vessels have over time inadvertently caught some. 37 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:45,440 So, DuPont knew, as they entered Teflon into the consumer realm, that the C8 in Teflon was toxic. 38 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:54,080 At the same time as 3M were supplying DuPont with PFOA, they were also manufacturing perfluoro 39 00:04:54,080 --> 00:05:02,400 octane sulfonic acid, PFOS, for use in their own products like Scotchgard. It has many of the same 40 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:12,240 health risks as PFOA. In 1975, a University of Florida researcher found a type of fluoride in his 41 00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:21,040 own blood that hadn't been detected in blood before. By 1977, the University of Florida had linked this 42 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:30,080 new type of fluoride in blood with 3M manufactured PFOS. Further research led them to find that PFOS was 43 00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:38,880 present in blood samples from as far back as 1957, and as of their research in the late 70s, it was 44 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:48,640 found in blood samples taken from everywhere in the world. In 1978, 3M did its own study on rats and 45 00:05:48,640 --> 00:05:56,640 monkeys, and concluded that both PFOS and PFOA were toxic, and that their levels were building in the 46 00:05:56,640 --> 00:06:04,000 blood of their own workers. The company decided not to contact the Environmental Protection Agency, 47 00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:10,400 and not to publish its studies where all of its test monkeys died after acute exposure. 48 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:21,680 In 1981, 20 years after DuPont's own toxicology chief said PFOA, C8, should be handled with extreme care, 49 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:29,120 DuPont moved all women out of the Teflon Manufacturing Division after two of seven pregnant women 50 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:33,920 gave birth to children with otherwise unexplainable birth defects. 51 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:42,480 He was born with half of a nose, one nostril, a serrated eyelid, and a keyhole pupil where the iris 52 00:06:42,480 --> 00:06:51,360 and the retina is not connected. Through the 80s and 90s, DuPont and 3M continued to monitor the level of 53 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:58,800 these chemicals in their own workers and across the world. Internal documents since obtained paint 54 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:05,920 a picture of a profitable but precarious position for both of them. They were concerned that there 55 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:13,040 would be a tobacco industry type showdown should their own internal research come to light. So they 56 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:21,200 kept quiet, hoped they could limit the spread of PFOA and PFOS, but 3M realized it needed to discontinue 57 00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:29,120 using PFOS in its own products, which it did in the year 2000. Their share price even rose. 58 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:35,840 DuPont, however, had no intentions of slowing down their use of PFOA. 59 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:46,240 In 1998, a cattle rancher in West Virginia and his family sued DuPont, claiming around 280 of their 60 00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:54,880 cows had died due to the DuPont landfill next door. DuPont had purchased the land for the landfill from 61 00:07:54,880 --> 00:08:03,360 the family in the 1980s and promised to use it as a non-hazardous landfill, but instead they dumped 62 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:09,520 PFOA by-product straight into the land's creek, which led into the Ohio River. 63 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:18,160 That case was settled in 2001 for an undisclosed sum, but while acting as the plaintiff's attorney, 64 00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:24,160 Robert Billet obtained a tremendous amount of DuPont's internal memos. 65 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:40,320 He started a class action suit against DuPont, representing around 80,000 people in the Ohio 66 00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:49,520 Mid Valley area, at the same time as passing on information to the EPA. In 2005, the EPA settled 67 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:57,920 with DuPont for $16.5 million for withholding information, which is something like 0.1% of its 68 00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:06,560 revenue. At the same time, this was the largest fine in the agency's history. DuPont agreed to stop 69 00:09:06,560 --> 00:09:14,480 using PFOA by 2015, and they did, and they stopped using it for Teflon on pots and pans before then. 70 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:23,440 That same year, 2015, Billet's public action suit came to fruition, settling for over $100 million, 71 00:09:24,560 --> 00:09:30,640 with DuPont agreeing to pay more should direct links between PFOA and specific diseases be met. 72 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:38,320 They also agreed to instill water filters, pay for some community healthcare, work with an 73 00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:45,440 independent study, and still be open to other individual lawsuits. There were other lawsuits too. 74 00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:59,520 In February 2017, DuPont settled over 3,500 PFOA lawsuits for $671 million, but they got to deny any 75 00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:07,520 wrongdoing. Which is definitely not nothing, but it wasn't any sort of rebuke. It was just the cost of 76 00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:16,400 doing business. Both DuPont and 3M, I would argue, knew a settlement like this was inevitable, and they 77 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:22,160 both factored the loss of this particular group of toxic chemicals in their manufacturing processes 78 00:10:22,160 --> 00:10:31,040 in their long-term plans. Both companies provably knew about the health effects on animals, and in 79 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:37,920 quotes the potential health effects on people, but they both continued dumping into rivers and hiding 80 00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:46,720 their findings, and DuPont was doing that until at least 2001. So they stopped using the toxic component 81 00:10:46,720 --> 00:10:57,760 in Teflon and switched to something better. Right? Right? Wrong. In 2015, DuPont founded the Kemmors 82 00:10:57,760 --> 00:11:09,440 company, which, among other things, manufactures organofluorine, trademarked as Gen X. DuPont uses Gen X, 83 00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:16,640 which it started manufacturing in 2009, as a replacement for PFOA, but it poses 84 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:23,280 very similar potential risks to health. It's been shown to cause cancer in lab animals. 85 00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:34,160 In 2017, Kemmors was caught dumping Gen X into the Cape Fear River. The following year, the North 86 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:43,040 Carolina Department of Environmental Quality fined DuPont $13 million and ordered them to filter water 87 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:52,080 and slow down on that dumping, please. Then, in 2022, the Virginia-Roanoke River was found to have 88 00:11:52,640 --> 00:12:02,560 1.3 million Gen X parts for every trillion parts. For reference, the Michigan drinking water maximum 89 00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:13,920 allowed level for Gen X is 370 parts per trillion. The EPA says Gen X is linked to cancer, immunosuppression, 90 00:12:13,920 --> 00:12:21,600 and especially problems with the kidneys. But until 2021, it was virtually totally unregulated. 91 00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:31,200 The good news is that as of 2023, the EPA is about halfway through its regulatory roadmap. It says it 92 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:38,560 aims to stop Gen X and other PFAS from entering the environment and clean up what they can. 93 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:47,840 The bad news is companies like DuPont have no incentive to stop doing this. Maybe chemicals like 94 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:55,120 these can never be produced without toxic byproduct, but surely that byproduct can be properly stored 95 00:12:55,120 --> 00:13:01,920 or cleaned. It's just that doing that is way more expensive than just dumping it and paying some 96 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:09,200 people a sliver of your fortune 20 years later. 20 years later when you can obfuscate responsibility. 97 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:18,400 You could have gotten cancer from anywhere. DuPont has 45 billion dollars worth of assets. A billion 98 00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:24,560 dollars worth of fines and settlements might not be nothing, but I bet it's cheaper than doing things 99 00:13:24,560 --> 00:13:35,440 right. So the short of it is industrial innovation far outpaced regulation in the US and PFOA and Gen X 100 00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:43,040 are only an example of the chemical byproducts that now pollute the environment world over. Specifically, 101 00:13:43,680 --> 00:13:51,840 PFOA average levels in blood decrease every year, but more than 98% of people in the US have it in their 102 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:59,440 blood and other PFCs too. And it's not expected to disappear from the environment for thousands of 103 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:09,280 years. Yes, old Teflon coated pans were a factor, but PFOA is in the water because it was dumped there. 104 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:16,720 I think it's a big mistake to not pursue criminal charges against DuPont executives. 105 00:14:17,680 --> 00:14:24,000 If instead the risk wasn't losing your job but going to jail, I think that would actually serve as a 106 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:31,520 deterrent to most white collar criminals. Yeah, I want to be rich, I'm already upper middle class, 107 00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:38,560 but rich is better. Ten cars is better than three cars, but three cars is better than jail. I think 108 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:46,000 that's genuinely how these sorts of people in these positions think. Until then, there is no deterrent. 109 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:53,120 New chemicals will be used and dumped without responsible handling because responsible handling 110 00:14:53,120 --> 00:15:05,520 would be irresponsible to the bottom line. Same as it ever was. So there you go. That's it. A happy ending again. 111 00:15:05,520 --> 00:15:20,480 Thanks very much for watching. See you next time. Mwah. Nice little Teflon kiss there. Enjoy the cancer.