Way back in 1979, Lewis Lehr, the CEO of American corporation 3M, met with an expert on toxic chemicals. A mysterious set of chemicals produced by 3M had been found in the blood of people across the U.S.
The toxicologist told Lehr that, when tested on animals, exposure to the chemicals resulted in symptoms consistent with cancer. Instead of reporting this information to the authorities, 3M wiped it from the minutes of the meeting.
So began one of the most sinister and deadly corporate cover-ups in history, laid bare in the new Stan documentary Revealed: How to Poison a Planet.
Nearly 50 years after that fateful meeting, PFAS, known as forever chemicals because they do not break down naturally, are in nearly everything—and everyone. They occur in a range of household items as varied as non-stick cookware, cleaning products, make-up and rain jackets. Tap water across Australia contains unsafe levels of PFAS. The chemicals were detected in every study of umbilical cord blood in the last five years.
In 1998, the head toxicologist at 3M estimated that a safe level of PFAS in human blood is about one part per billion. The average American’s blood has not double, not triple, but 30 times that amount.
Media coverage of the health ramifications of PFAS is growing, for good reason. The list of afflictions linked to the chemicals is long and expanding.
A 2019 study commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers estimated that more than 15 million Europeans are affected by illnesses caused by PFAS exposure. It also predicted that high blood pressure caused by PFAS could be responsible for the deaths of up to 10,000 Europeans each year.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found in a 2023 study that women with high levels of exposure to certain PFAS chemicals had twice the chance of developing melanoma.
While today’s scientists are just scratching the surface, the CEOs of 3M and the other major producer DuPont knew about the dangers decades ago. But the chemicals were key to their most profitable products, so in keeping with the tradition of many a mighty corporate empire, they chose a systematic cover-up over telling the truth.
As early as 1970, researchers for DuPont found that some PFAS were “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested”. Again, the company said nothing and continued to produce the chemicals.
In the late 1970s, 3M scientists found that a relatively low daily dose of PFAS—less than most people consume today—administered to monkeys could kill them within weeks. This would put the chemicals in the highest of five toxicity categories recognised by the United Nations. Again, the company said nothing while ramping up production.
In fact, 90 percent of PFAS have been produced in the time since 3M and DuPont knew how dangerous the chemicals are.
Actor Mark Ruffalo raises the sharpest political question of the documentary. Putting toxic chemicals into popular products was not an accident but a conscious “decision made by people”, he notes.
You can’t help but ask—what kind of people do that?
“Evil people”, he later concludes. He’s not wrong.
But he’s not referring to evil people like drug dealers who get thrown in jail for distributing toxic products. He’s talking about the evil people who get multimillion-dollar salaries and an obituary in the Wall Street Journal.
The leaders of 3M poisoned the planet because it made them money. They played by the rules of the capitalist game—profit before all else—and were rewarded massively for it.
3M has not been raided by police, nor have its leaders been thrown into jail. Instead, it is a Fortune 500 company with an estimated net worth of $58 billion. Forbes ranked it as one of “America’s most just companies” in 2021, based on “issues relating to giving back to their communities”.
PFAS are just one of the many ways in which capitalism’s relentless drive for profits is poisoning the planet and all those who live on it. The only “just” solution to this disaster is for every complicit corporate executive to be stripped of their wealth and power.