Navigating the maelstrom of toxins modern life exposes us to can be a fraught business. Over the years I’ve limited my use of plastics containing BPAs (potentially bad), I’ve worried about electromagnetic radiation from Wi-Fi(not a thing). I even stopped using deodorants with aluminium in them for a while, and was hugely relieved when claims about them causing Alzheimer’s or cancer were debunked – no more social anxiety about having BO. It’s always reassuring when good science proves our worries to be false. Of course there are some chemicals out there that are just plain bad for us (asbestos and DDT being two famous ones) which have been banned. Currently the government and various industry and science groups are investigating a new class of chemicals with an increasingly bad rep – the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS (pronounced “pee-fas”).
So what is this acronym?
The 1940s introduced a lot of new products and innovations: bikinis, Frisbees, colour TV, Cher and a new chemical wonder – perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an industrial surfactant made by joining carbon and fluorine atoms together. When US company 3M started mass-manufacturing it in 1947 (it was invented in the 1930s) it was a product game changer. Thousand of other highly fluorinated chemicals have since been developed, and are collectively known as PFAS. They
