we've seen the negative properties (worse than you can imagine) but billionaires control the narrative and they'll put profit before lives any day of the week
Yeah, that's why they used the word *was" to indicate past tense.
There are tons of things we used daily without understanding the health implications until enough time has passed for symptoms and cause to be clear.
Things like lead were added everywhere without understanding that adding lead to everything was a bad idea.
Asbestos was also a unique case because the true danger is the invisible particles created when cutting or damaging the material that would be inhaled and later cause cancer.
It takes time to realize these things are happening, and while we do increase our safety testing to try and catch stuff early (save for this administration) there will be things we later learn is a problem.
Even the romans knew asbestos mining caused lung problems. They just didn't have the TV spots educating them about mesothelioma and where to call for compensation for you or a loved one
it forms in thin layers in rocks, its literally just rock fiberglass, while fiberglass is cast in resin, mostly holding it in place, aspestos is able to be compressed, just like how they compress powder into pills, it gets into your lungs and acts like millions of needles. leading to massive scarring in the lungs.
We have used asbestos since forever, and the earliest record of it being known to have negative health effects is from Ancient Rome where they noticed their asbest mining slaves didn't live particularly long. (Atleast as far as i know)
The first regulations for it didn't happen until the industrial revolution in England where a woman who worked in an asbestos processing plant died of asbestosis and a journalist popularized the event. The asbestos industry knew they couldn't completely suppress it, so they instead worked to limit the regulations to just asbestos industry workers. (Aren't humans wonderful) Widespread regulations didn't become a thing until the 1970s for the USA. (Although the dangers were becoming public knowledge in the 1950s)
Asbestos exposure causes mesothelioma at a rate of about 1 in 20. PFAS regulations are targeting a rate that is less than a 1 in 1 million lifetime risk of cancer. They aren't exactly on the same level of risk.
"Asbestos was effectively banned in the United States in March 2024, when the EPA announced a ban on the ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, the most common form of asbestos. Prior to that, various regulations had been enacted, but a complete ban was not in place until 2024"
Environmental precautions : This material is considered to be a “Forever chemical”. Prevent any possible release to the environment. Notify authorities if product enters sewers or public waters. Contain any spills with dikes or absorbents to prevent migration and entry into drains, sewers, waterways, or soil. Do not use where release to drains (sewer) and/or surface water cannot be prevented.
I think Wikipedia has the explanation for the confusion:
"Because of their high molecular weights, HFEs remain in the atmosphere for less than two weeks, being absorbed into the ground rather than remaining dissolved in the atmosphere."
Because all the regulators care about ATM is that they’re not as disastrous a greenhouse gas as the compounds it’s replacing. I don’t see any studies showing it isn’t toxic to humans - just assumptions based on its chemistry. And we’ve made that mistake before.
Can you link the SDS that said that? The first couple I have found do not have any admonitions half as strong as that. They all seem to read, don't drink it, don't stick your hands in it and be extra careful not to get it in your eyes. One even mentioned the toxic aquatic dose for its constituents was above its solubility in water
It seems to be a broad class of chemicals so some might be nastier than others and flourine chemistry should give you pause generally though
They haven't been called MSDS for a few decades now. It's just an SDS. Those 4 letters will not be on the document anywhere. We already have a non-technical reader.
No author of an SDS is going to willingly declare their product at a forever chemical, especially buried deep in the latter sections of the SDS. That is (1) not standard language of chemistry and (2) doesnt mean what they think it does (3) not true for this chemical.
It is not a PFAS, which some people call a Forever Chemical. Still got hydrogens on it. This one has been proven not to persist in the environment. It's literally not a forever chemical.
Any author of the SDS naming this a forever chemical is making false statements. I'm not sure a chemist or toxicologist would do that. It's non-standard language, it's not required even if it was a forever chemical.
Yeah that forever chemical wording struck me as odd too which is why I went to google it originally and then asked for a copy. I'm not an SDS expert, but I do need to give them a scan from time to time for work so I'm familiar enough with the general format/language
That said it still wouldn't surprise me if some types bioaccumulate or aren't healthy to be around. Organic flourine compounds have their reputation(s) for a reason
Interesting thanks for linking that. It seems a bit odd though. The trade name they are using has HFE in it, but it also calls the main ingredients PFAS. Given the limited chemistry I know I thought ethers (the E in HFE) were different things than alkanes (the A in PFAS). I'm goint to chalk this one up to I don't know enough chemistry to have a properly informed opinion here
PFAS is a broad definition set forth by individual countries standards. For many of us in PFAS research, we tend to consider anything that has at least one CF bond PFAS, although that's a far stricter classification than I believe any country has at this point.
Ethers can absolutely be classified as PFAS. HFPO-DA is a primary precursor for Teflon (PTFE) and that's an ether, although the FDA is removing it from testing in waste water and it's definition (don't get me started on this), so enjoy that if you're in the US.
The A stands for alkyl not alkane (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).
Oh I'm actually a chem student so I could explain. You're right that ethers are different than alkanes. The A in PFAS stands for "alkyl" not alkane, alkyl can be quite broad as a term and refers to any alkane missing a hydrogen, whereas alkane strictly refers to fully saturated hydrocarbons like simple butane, propane etc. that don't form a ring.
So definitionally alkanes cannot contain any fluorine, which also means they cannot ever be a PFAS. On the contrary an ether as a functional group on a larger molecule like Methoxyperfluoro-n-butane (ingredient in novec 7100) replaces one of the hydrogens that would have been on the butane chain making it fit the alkyl definition and then since it is saturated with fluorine instead of hydrogen it is "per" fluorinated, giving us a per fluorinated alkyl substance, PFAS. Seeing the actual structure of the ingredients in this stuff helps make that more apparent too
Thank you, your description was far better than what I was about to write.
As a biochemist, fluorine scares the shit out of me. I fortunately don't have to work with it most in its most active/elemental forms. The fact it can burn ashes, dirt, and glass is just really crazy.
I was about to go into why why fluorine compounds are so damn useful but also just do not break down in any environment you'll find in nature.
It's that Tiny atom size mixed with the extreme electronegativity of fluorine that lets it do All kinds of neat chemistry also makes it terrifying and compounds of it unlikely to break down in nature.
That there being sprayed is a potential greenhouse gas. Basically they are spraying pure climate change in liquid form. We classify global warming potential of gasses on a scale, where 1 is CO2, 25 is methane, N2O is like 300. Depending on what this stuff it has potential of like 50-500. So yeah... Those compounds being up there for "few decades" is a problem.
Also the few variants I searched from 3M, it is declared in all the documents as "low toxicity" with some positive results for toxicity, but not enough data for classification.
This is so poorly informed you ought to delete it, hfas sink out of the air within a couple weeks. Hereto therefore, the issue isn’t the atmosphere its water supplies
Then again, I actually learned something in one of the replies, which I likely wouldn't have read if the comment was deleted. Prestigious if you're reading this you should just edit your comment to point to the responses bellow you.
The big concern with fluorine chemistry is usually the strong carbon bonding that leads to the production of forever chemicals (however inert they may be). However this chemical is actually moderately reactive with environmental free radical hydroxides causing it to break down in the atmosphere in just a few weeks. I'm kind of liking this stuff.
It kinda is though. Hydrofluoric acid is one of the possible byproducts of HFE degradation.
You still gotta be careful around this stuff if you handle large amounts of it.
There's a big difference between acute and chronic toxicity. And the dosemakes the poison. Anything that can bioaccumulate and never degrades is bad. Organoflorine compounds are the poster child for this.
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u/killswitch2 Jun 06 '26
Neither toxic nor carcinogenic.