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This long-form article feels like it should be a short-form article.

tl;dr:

- PFAS/forever chemicals have a lot of science saying they're harmful to health

- Government regulation is the best long term solution

- Short term solution: buy non-PFAS pans, take your own to-go containers, using water filters that filter PFAS




Part 1 (the science) is best left long-form.

That's because it is actually quite a complex topic. It is not like many of the recognized harmful substances that have very obvious effects. Lead poisoning has been known since the antiquity, smoking can increase the risks of cancer by several times, asbestos causes diseases that are otherwise extremely rare, etc...

Here we are talking about things like a 15% increase in the risk of diabetes, with a confidence interval that still leaves chance as a possibility. Acute poisoning is almost unheard of, except with free radicals, making it hard to evaluate toxicity as if it was a typical poison. The article mentions how scientists are struggling, especially when we consider that there is not a single PFAS. The article also links to several studies, something I wish to see more often, traditional newspapers often don't link a single study.

So yeah, in essence a lot of science is saying PFAS are harmful to health, but the real take is that we don't really know, but it doesn't look good. And because they are "forever chemicals", it may be a good idea to try to limit usage right now, even if we don't know much, by precaution.


Additional note on the ‘there is not one single PFAS’ - there are several million distinct PFAS compounds.

Some are in wide use, some unclear, some unused. With a wide variety of elements in the various compounds.

It is like saying ‘plastic bad’. Which plastic? What is the definition of bad?

Yeah don’t eat plastics, but the difference between styrene, PTFE, and HDPE on any axis one would care to define is crazy big.


Avoid plastics and choose glass or porcelain that doesn't come from China (they have high lead content, especially in their porcelain glazes). For cookware, stainless steel or cast iron; try to avoid coatings, especially Teflon.




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