What is toxic PFAS?
Health & Safety
Enough PFAS/PFOS to Exceed EPA Level Limits in all of the Freshwater on Earth: "In April, the EPA took two historic steps to reduce exposure to PFAS. It said that PFOS and PFOA are “likely to cause cancer” and that no level of either chemical is considered safe; it deemed them hazardous substances under the Superfund law, increasing the government’s power to force polluters to clean them up. The agency also set limits for six PFAS in drinking water. In a few years, when the EPA begins enforcing the new regulations, local utilities will be required to test their water and remove any amount of PFOS or PFOA which exceeds four parts per trillion — the equivalent of one drop dissolved in several Olympic swimming pools. 3M has produced enough PFOS and chemicals that degrade into PFOS to exceed this level in all of the freshwater on earth."
Target Audience:
Community Outreach and Education
K-12 Parents
High School Athletes
Key Contacts:
Diana Conway, President, Safe Healthy Playing Fields, Inc.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR | Environmental Medicine & Public Health,
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Dr. Evans focuses on the impacts of early life exposures to environmental chemicals on child development)
Injuries: Studies have shown that athletes are more likely to suffer from certain types of injuries, such as ACL tears, on artificial turf compared to natural grass.
In a 2024 National Football Players league survey, 92% of NFL players said they preferred playing on grass over artificial turf.
“About 20% more non-contact injuries occurred per play on a turf surface than a grass surface,” according to a report by Mass General Brigham in January 2024. (https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/articles/turf-vs-grass-fields-sports-injury-prevention#:~:text=About%2020%25%20more%20non%2Dcontact,grass%20and%20artificial%20playing%20surfaces).
Toxic Exposure: The materials used in artificial turf can contain harmful forever chemicals (PFAS/PFOS), including carcinogens, that pose health risks to players and nearby residents.
Toxic Gaslighting: The request for Kris Hansen to test human blood for PFOS was made in 1997. At this point in time, they already knew the answer. That is over 27 years of "Toxic Gaslighting" but in reality, they knew as far back as the 70's. Sadly, this is still continuing today with both Maret School and DGS/DCPS insisting that Artificial Turf is safe for our neighborhood. A couple of things to remember as you read some of the articles points below:
PFOS Chemicals in Babies:
"What Hansen wanted to know was how PFOS was making its way into animals. She found an answer in data from lab rats, which also appeared to have fluorochemicals in their blood. Rats that had more fish meal in their diets, she discovered, tended to have higher levels of PFOS, suggesting that the chemical had spread through the food chain and perhaps through water. In male lab rats, PFOS levels rose with age, indicating that the chemical accumulated in the body. But, curiously, in female rats the levels sometimes fell. Hansen was unsettled when toxicology reports indicated why: Mother rats seemed to be offloading the chemical to their pups. Exposure to PFOS could begin before birth."
Health Effects of PFOS/PFAS: "One paper, published in 2012 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that, in children, as PFOS levels rose so did the chance that vaccines were ineffective. Children with high levels of PFOS and other fluorochemicals were more likely to experience fevers, according to a 2016 study. Other research linked the chemicals to increased rates of infectious diseases, food allergies and asthma in children. Dozens of scientific papers had found that, in adults, even very low levels of PFOS could interfere with hormones, fertility, liver and thyroid function, cholesterol levels and fetal development. Even PFBS, the chemical that 3M chose as a replacement for PFOS, caused developmental and reproductive irregularities in animals, according to the Minnesota Department of Health."
Chemicals Accumulate in our Bodies: In an interview with Jim Johnson "he said that he had begun researching PFOS in the ’70s. “I did a lot of the very original work on it,” he told me. He said that when he saw the chemical’s structure he understood “within 20 minutes” that it would not break down in nature. Shortly thereafter, one of his experiments revealed that PFOS was binding to proteins in the body, causing the chemical to accumulate over time.
In an experiment in the early ’80s, Johnson fed a component of Scotchban to rats and found that PFOS accumulated in their livers, a result that suggested how the chemical would behave in humans. When I asked why that mattered to the company, he took a sip of coffee and said, “It meant they were screwed.”"
The Cost of Forever Chemicals: "New health effects continue to be discovered. Researchers have found that exposure to PFAS during pregnancy can lead to developmental delays in children. Numerous recent studies have linked the chemicals to diabetes and obesity. This year, a study discovered 13 forever chemicals, including PFOS, in weeks-old fetuses from terminated pregnancies and linked the chemicals to biomarkers associated with liver problems. A team of New York University researchers estimated in 2018 that the costs of just two forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS — in terms of disease burden, disability and health-care expenses — amounted to as much as $62 billion in a single year. This exceeds the current market value of 3M."
Elevated Risk of Cancer in Everyone: "Philippe Grandjean, a physician who helped discover that PFAS harm the immune system, believes that anyone exposed to these chemicals — essentially everyone — may have an elevated risk of cancer. Our immune systems often find and kill abnormal cells before they turn into tumors. “PFAS interfere with the immune system, and likely also this critical function,” he told me. Grandjean, who served as an expert witness in the Minnesota AG’s case, has studied many environmental contaminants, including mercury. The impact of PFAS was so much more extreme, he said, that one of his colleagues initially thought it was the result of nuclear radiation.
Heat Stress:
The higher temperatures of artificial turf can increase the risk of heat-related illnesses.
Other Links/Articles:
