Some industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as "forever chemicals," but the pesticide industry is doubling down.
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved six new PFAS pesticides: Corteva-DowDuPont’s fluazaindolizine under President Biden, and Syngenta-ChemChina’s cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, Bayer-Monsanto’s diflufenican, BASF’s trifludimoxazin, and Sumitomo-Valent’s epyrifenacil under President Trump.
PFAS kills. There is scientific evidence that it causes cancer, kidney disease, birth defects, and liver damage, and batters the immune system.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Your State Legislators to Ban PFAS Pesticides!
If you've seen the documentary The Devil We Know, you've heard the story of DuPont’s decades-long cover-up of the harm caused by chemicals used to make its popular non-stick Teflon™ products. The film shows how the chemicals used to make Teflon poisoned people and the environment—not just in Parkersburg, West Virginia, where DuPont had a Teflon plant, but all over the world.
One of the key ingredients in DuPont’s Teflon was C8, a toxic, man-made chemical created by the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, better known as 3M, to make Scotchgard. C8, a PFOS or PFOA chemical, is what gave Teflon its non-stick properties.
Both 3M and DuPont were well aware of the health hazards associated with C8. But that didn’t stop them from dumping the toxic chemical into local waterways where it made its way into public drinking water and sickened thousands of people, ultimately killing many of them.
C8 in drinking water is linked to several diseases, including birth defects, kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid, liver, and pancreatic disease, preeclampsia, and high cholesterol.
DuPont phased out C8 in 2015, but it still makes Teflon. DuPont replaced C8 with a new chemical called Gen-X, which is already turning up in water. Animal studies conducted by DuPont found tumors in rats exposed to Gen-X suspiciously similar to those seen in rats exposed to C8.
The reason why PFAS has been detected in the blood of 98% of Americans and is contaminating 45% of U.S. tap water, is because the Environmental Protection Agency gives companies like 3M and DuPont a free pass to dump their waste right into streams, rivers and sewage systems. Then, sewage sludge is disposed of on farmland where plants and grazing animals can get contaminated with its toxins.
PFAS pesticides give these companies a devious new way to poison us.
In 2017, DuPont merged with Dow Chemical to create DowDuPont. In 2019, DowDuPont launched Corteva as a spin-off company for its pesticides and GMO seeds business. Now, Corteva sells PFAS pesticides.
These companies have poisoned us with PFAS long enough. We have to draw the line at them spraying these toxins on our food!
TAKE ACTION: Tell Your State Legislators to Ban PFAS Pesticides!
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*SAMPLE TEXT TO YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS*
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Dear [State Legislator],
Please follow Maine's lead and ban PFAS pesticides.
Some sectors are transitioning away from PFAS, but the pesticide industry is doubling down. The Environmental Protection Agency has approved six new PFAS pesticides: Corteva-DowDuPont’s fluazaindolizine under President Biden, and Syngenta-ChemChina’s cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram, Bayer-Monsanto’s diflufenican, BASF’s trifludimoxazin, and Sumitomo-Valent’s epyrifenacil under President Trump.
Chemical companies like DuPont and 3M have covered up evidence of the dangerous human health and environmental impacts of PFAS since the 1960s.
Today, overwhelming research links PFAS to a wide range of health problems, including kidney, testicular, bladder, and prostate cancer, as well as developmental, immune, reproductive, and hormonal dysfunction.
Chemical companies are replacing older PFAS with other chemicals in the PFAS family. Unfortunately, these replacements, such as GenX, act a lot like older PFAS, and studies show that they can present similar hazards. Short-chain perfluoroalkyl sulfonates and perfluoroalkyl carboxylates adversely affect rat livers and thyroid hormones just like their long-chain homologues do.
PFAS do not break down naturally and bioaccumulate in the environment and our bodies.
It’s time to ban all PFAS--including pesticides--and set to work cleaning up the water and remediating the land. Some plants, including hemp, have been shown to suck PFAS out of the soil, a process known as "phytoremediation."
For more information, please contact the National Conference of Environmental Legislators: http://www.ncelenviro.org/issue/pfas/
Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
[Your Name]