WEBVTT - Forever Chemicals: PFAs in Food Packaging – Lab 074 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.920 I have to say, I think we're very good about recycling. 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.560 I like to compost. I've seen stasher bags. They did 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.319 not have reusable zip lock bags like that when I 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:12.119 was growing up. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.560 No, we were putting our peanut butter and jelly in 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.040 that bag, coming home, putting it in a trash. That 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.840 was it. We didn't think anything about it. But now, 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.119 I mean, if you see somebody with a plastic grocery 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.360 bag in a grocery store, everybody's kind of looking at them, like, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.640 my goodness, it's the thing of the past. 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.920 I got a thousand canvas totes, okay, and I'm carrying 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:35.640 them all out like the Hulk. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.720 Yes, now, a nice canvas tote. You're definitely keeping that. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.199 You used to keep all those plastic bags under the 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.480 sync in another plastic bag thing of the past. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:47.440 And there might be a pretty good reason for that, 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.600 according to a recent consumer report, right right. I'm glad 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:52.440 you saw that, because that's exactly what I wanted to 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.000 talk about. This consumer report was talking about the chemicals 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.520 that are found in some of these plastics and packaging 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.920 that we use us for our food, and that made 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.040 me kind of nervous because everything low key is packaged 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.440 in something. Even the oranges coming in a net. You 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.880 can't just buy a couple loose. I mean sometimes you can, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.720 but they want you to use those little thin green 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.360 film bags. Usually those are compostable, but a lot of 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:16.960 times it's not. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.840 And if you don't put it in the compost. 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:20.920 Then what then what? 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.160 I'm t T and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify. This 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:26.040 is Dope Labs. 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.720 Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that makes it 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.760 hardcore science, pop culture and a healthy delsa friendship. This 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.360 week we're talking about the chemicals that are commonly found 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.720 in food packaging and lots of consumer products. We want 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.800 to know more about them and how they impact our 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:00.920 health and environment. 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:14.040 Let's get into the recitation, all right, CT. 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:15.120 What do we know? 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.320 Well, we know that there's a lot of single use 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.000 packaging all around us. I mean we grew up during 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.640 a time with you know, the ziplock bags, all the 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.640 bags for fast food pizza boxes, everything like that, and 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:33.720 so at this point it's almost unavoidable grocery bag. It's 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.400 just a part of the world culture. 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.240 And I think what we also know, well, I can 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:44.800 speak for myself in many of my colleagues that we're 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.440 doing a lot of takeout. We saw that, especially over 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.320 the early stages of the pandemic, takeout and convenience food. 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.080 There is a lot of packaging involved in that. If 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.160 you're not going and picking a bell pepper, you know, 0:02:57.800 --> 0:02:59.760 or picking a tomato off the vine, it's coming in 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.680 one of those little plastic containers. Those products are often 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.200 wrapped for your convenience and safety, but they're made out 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.320 of something. We also know that chemicals are everywhere, but 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.840 not all chemicals are created equals. Some of the chemicals 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.200 that we come in contact with, like water, which is 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:21.160 a chemical. It's made up of molecules, and so water 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.000 and you know, carbon monoxide are two very different things. 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.359 Carbon dioxide you don't want that much of, but. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.240 Water we know that we need. We need some of 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:30.480 that every single day. 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.000 I think this is a very good example of the 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.360 importance of moving past what you can see with your eyes. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.000 We talked about this in a previous episode when we 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.320 spoke about oysters and seeing their health. But it's easy 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.680 to look at something and say, huh, seems okay, just 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:46.200 because you're looking at it and you don't see a 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.160 lot happening with your eyeballs, But there's a lot past 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.280 what these eyeballs can see. So what do we want 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.840 to know? I want to know about some of these chemicals. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.800 What are they called? Are there different categories of them? 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.440 Because the only two like bad guy can micals I 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.720 know about our BPAs and then just styrofoam in general. 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.119 I know you're not supposed to hit styrofoam in a microwave, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:08.880 but I know there's more to worry about than that. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.360 I want to know how these chemicals in the packaging, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.600 how they're affecting the environment. Because we know the landfill, honey, 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.400 we talk about it all the time. Everything is going 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.280 into a landfill and we know that once against the 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.880 landfill that that means is becoming a part of our 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:28.880 ecosystem es ecosystem, right, So how is it affecting our environment? 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.080 Well, when you know better, you do better. Over the 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.560 past couple of decades, there's been a greater understanding of 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.440 things that are around and just in the environment, and 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.120 how long it takes for things to degrade, and some 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.640 things don't ever go away. So what's the plan? Is 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.640 there any policy around this stuff? How has the packaging 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:52.000 industry responded to these things like what's the tea? What's 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:52.400 going on? 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.480 And I want to know what we can do in 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.680 our day to day lives to not only protect ourselves 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.920 but protect the environment. How can we consume more responsibly? 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.440 Because I'm gonna be going to Burger King That's one 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:06.479 thing that I know for sure. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.080 You love a wopper. 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.720 I love a whopper, I do, and I am going 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.920 to be going to Popey's, Popeyes Burger King. Hear me up? 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:15.320 I mean for real. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:17.560 So let's jump into the dissection. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.720 Our guest for today's lab is Justin Fouchet. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.440 My name is Justin Fouchet. I'm the operations director at 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.599 a nonprofit science, research and communication organization called the Food 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:38.760 Packaging Forum Foundation. 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.560 The Food Packaging Forum Foundation research is the chemicals found 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.160 in food packaging and its environmental impacts. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.600 So you've been hearing Zaki and I say this term 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:53.320 forever chemicals, and a forever chemical is defined as a 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.360 p FOSS, which is p fa s and we ask 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.160 Justin to explain at a basic level what p fos 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.039 are and where we can find them. 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:07.840 We use the term pfos pafas, and it classically sustains 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:12.440 for per and polyfluoro aalcool substances, and the current definition 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.279 according to the OECD the Organization of Economic Cooperation Development, 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.960 is that pfos are any fluorinated substances with at least 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:25.159 one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom. And the 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.599 main thing to know about these very simply is that 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.599 these are molecules characterized by having carbon atoms attached to 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:32.520 fluorine atoms. 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.480 And this bond that Justin is talking about is the 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.760 strongest known bond that exists. You'd think the bond between 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.520 JT and young Miami is strong. Well, this is stronger 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:46.280 than that. This means that it's virtually impossible for this 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:47.800 chemical to break down. 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.080 The chemical properties of p fos make them very useful 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:52.560 for many consumer products. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.760 The chemical structure this carbon fluorine bond makes them have 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.480 a high water and oil repellency as well as being 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:04.080 very thermaline chemically stable, and research recently over the past 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.000 few years has shown that they're used across many many 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.720 products and really practically all industries. There was a study 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.320 in twenty twenty published by a research group that found 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.440 over the four thy seven hundred different pfos chemicals identified 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.200 by the oecd that are known to be on the 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.600 market or have been developed somewhere at use sometime. 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.200 Justin says that p FOSS has been found in some 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:29.280 climbing rope, guitar strings, ski wax, artificial turf, and. 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:36.320 Some cosmetics cosmetics not my skincare, not my foundation, All 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.240 of those things. Basically p foss are there. 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.080 PFIs are found in lots of food packaging materials. But 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.440 p fos are man made chemicals, and the problem is 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.600 exactly what we just talk about. They don't degrade, so 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.840 they stay around essentially forever, which is why they're called 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:55.000 forever chemicals. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.960 Many of them can start to break down in the 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.120 environment a bit, some of them break down more than others, 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.560 but none of them really break down completely. 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.880 So we ask Justin to explain what makes p foss 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.440 stick around so long. 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.320 And it all goes back to this carbon fluorine bond. So, 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:16.160 in organic chemistry, carbon fluorine is the single bond and 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.680 it has the greatest strength that exists within organic chemistry. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.560 It's very, very difficult to break this carbon fluorine bond. 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.240 So normally man made chemicals in the environment that are 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.160 made up of different types of elements connected together with 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.920 different ways and different bonds. They can be broken down, 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.559 maybe by bacteria, maybe by environmental processes. Maybe they react 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.360 with their chemicals and eventually they turn back into whatever 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.520 they started with, just carbon molecules water. But this carbon 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.800 fluorine bond does not break down easily in the environment 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:45.559 like everything else does. 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.680 And when we say break down easily, that still takes 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.160 quite a bit of time. Paper takes two to six 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.520 weeks to completely decompose, and apple core takes two months. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.880 Now contrast that with a plastic bag. We're talking to 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.800 to twenty years to decompose. 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.440 Right, And if that plastic bag has pfos in it, 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:11.199 those chemicals don't decompose with the plastic, They stay around 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.480 for hundreds and hundreds of years. Over the past couple 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.559 of years, p FOSS has been found in paper and cardboard, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.600 food packaging, plastics, and in some metal coatings. P Foss 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.559 coatings are applied to these packagings to create a water 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.760 in grease resistant food packaging, like with burger wrappers or 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.760 pizza boxes, and that's the reason why your pizza stays 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:33.719 in the box and doesn't fall through the bottom by 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.240 the time it gets to you, And unfortunately it's not 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.400 as simple as avoiding one type of packaging or food company. 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.600 Every food packaging material is different. Right, Because your food 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.079 packaging doesn't come with a list of ingredients like your 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.920 food does. You don't know necessarily what's in there. So 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.920 you might have one plastic or paper plate that is 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.120 comparatively fairly clean, so to say, right, compared to one 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:00.160 from a different manufacturer that uses their own formula. We 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.920 can't point the finger and say this one packaging is 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.440 different or better from this packaging because we don't have 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.839 the data. But all we can say is that, generally right, 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.440 non inert materials migrate chemicals. We know that there are 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.000 thousands of chemicals that could be used in this type 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.240 of food packaging, but because we don't know what's there, 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:19.960 we take a precautionary approach with how we use it 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.839 to avoid potential chemical exposures that we don't want to have. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.440 A non inert material is a material that will change 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:31.439 over time or decompose. An inert material won't change at all, 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.320 so there's no chemical reaction that occurs in its lifetime. 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.320 It may seem intuitive to avoid those chemical exposures. You 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:42.840 can say well, I'm not eating the wrapper, So I 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.120 have accidentally done that, haven't we all? You know when 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.080 you've eating a burger and the cheese is on the 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.520 wrapper and you want to get that little bit, Yeah, 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:51.040 I've eaten it. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:55.000 You should have left it behind, friend, it's too hard. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.920 Justin says we should be concerned about how these chemicals 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:00.600 might migrate in to our food. 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.080 It's one thing for the chemical to be in the packaging. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:05.520 It's another thing for it to then actually move into 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.760 your food, a process called migration, and then expose people 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:09.640 who are eating that food. 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:09.960 Right. 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.040 There was a recent study that came out that showed 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.600 that pithos migration increased when the food had a high 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.199 fat content, when it had a high salt content, when 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.920 it was acidic, and during higher temperatures. 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:24.560 I think I saw something on Netflix that told me 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:30.600 that those were all the components of good food. There's 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:31.680 a whole cookbook about that. 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:36.760 Yes, and that sounds like all of my favorite favorite treats. 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.360 I fat, I salt, and hot okay. And I think 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:46.040 a lot of us microwave our food when we get home, 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.400 and a lot of time it's in the packaging. So yeah, 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:50.560 that's not good. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.440 And the reason for that is because plastics and also 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.280 paper and board are what we call non inert materials, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.000 which means that the chemical structure of these materials is 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.559 not fixed. The chemicals inside the material are not bound 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:05.680 and they don't stay in the material. They're kind of 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.360 able to float and move and migrate into the food. Right. 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.440 So when you expose these not in their materials to 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.640 lots of heat, the molecules move more. 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.280 Those molecules are cupis shuffling right on out of the 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:22.640 paper and into your meal. That's wild to me. One 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.440 of my friends told me that she got rid of 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.200 all her plasti tupperware and only uses glass. Hmmm, she 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:30.160 might be on the something. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.320 She's ahead of her time, and Justin agrees. 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.560 A really simple thing to do to avoid exposure to 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.240 chemicals and food packaging in general is to instead use 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.120 what we call inert food packaging materials, and the most 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.719 common examples of this are standless steel, glass, and many 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:46.719 kinds of ceramics. 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.120 We wanted to learn more about some of the environmental 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.719 and health impacts of pi fas. According to Justin, there 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.520 are two factors that go into a risk assessment. One 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.600 isposure to our chemicals, so how likely are we to 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.600 come into contact with it? And number two is the 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.400 hazard of the chemical, so is it going to cause 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.000 an adverse effect on my body or the environment? 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.559 First of all, the exposure part. The fact that pifos 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:20.560 are so stable in the environment and they don't necessarily disappear, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.640 means that the exposure to them is potentially very long term. 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.320 And there's been multiple what are called biomonitoring studies, which 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:33.280 measure fluids in our bodies. Usually it's blood or breast milk. 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.199 There was a study from the German government just a 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.560 few years ago and they measured twelve different types of 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.840 pifos in the blood of over one thousand children that 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.680 were aged three to age eighteen during the second half 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.920 of the twenty tens dozen fifteen, twenty seventeen, and they 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.800 found that one hundred percent of those thousand children all 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.719 had detectable levels of piphos. Right, this very classic pifos 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.440 in their blood, and the other pifos they looked for 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.160 were also detected as well, all lower levels. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.720 You know, this reminds me of a movie that talked 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.320 about some of this stuff. What it's The Hulk, Mark 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:13.600 Ruffalo he's in this movie that talks about p foss basically. 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:18.960 Exactly Dark Waters. It was about DuPont and their production 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.440 of non stick coatings, and those nonstick coatings had p 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.400 foss in it. And what happened to a town that 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.760 was located near that factory. So they experienced a lot 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.440 of runoff into their water and a lot of people 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.880 got sick, and there was some folks that also died 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.320 because of their exposure to these chemicals. This is a 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.480 true story that was not fiction, that was real, and. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.720 It had me looking at my nonstick skillet like at 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.400 two brute and it seems like we need to look 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.440 at everything, your zip lock bag, the rapper like rope, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.200 I mean, just everything. Justin told us there are lots 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.800 of studies measuring p FOS exposure in the environment. 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.880 Most commonly, they measured groundwater. They measured ocean water around 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.720 the world. Big ships went around, took water samples off 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.280 the side of the boat, checked for PFOSS concentrations. 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.960 And these studies are measuring PFOS in groundwater, ocean water. 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.360 One study even measured p FOSS in the blood of 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.960 Arctic seals. I hate to tell you, but the results 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.000 showed that there were pipots in both the ocean water 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:24.280 and in the blood. 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.200 And the concentrations change over time, so we can see 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.720 when a chemical has been phased out. We can watch 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.440 the concentrations in ocean water slowly decrease. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.240 So it's not all bad news. What we can see 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.240 is when a chemical has been phased out, you can measure, 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:42.880 you can detect the concentrations decreasing over time, slowly but surely, 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.640 and scientists saw this by measuring ocean water in the 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:47.400 pfos in it. 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.480 Justin told us about another study from just last year, 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.360 so twenty twenty one, where they tested the breast milk 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.200 of fifty mothers and they were able to detect p 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.720 FOSS in every single one of their breast milk and 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.000 overall they found sixteen different p FOSS chemicals. 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.520 This included what are known as shorter chain compounds that 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.160 were used or created to replace kind of these legacy 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.400 older p FOSS chemicals like pfos and P four. So 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.040 it's not only just these older ones we've phased out 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.080 that are being detected. There's also the newer generation. And 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.400 that's exactly what everyone should and wants to avoid. You 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.400 don't want to replace a hazardous chemical with another one 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:27.440 that's also hazardous. 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.600 Yes, you heard that right. Folks are in the lab 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:35.000 making new p FOSS materials that might not be able 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.720 to be detected by the technology that's currently available. But 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.560 there are some good guys out there that are working 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.600 really hard in the lab to develop alternative materials that 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:45.800 aren't hazardous. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.040 So it's clear that humans and our environment are being 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:51.880 exposed to p FOSS regularly. 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:54.560 We've found it in our blood, it's in breast milk, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.000 it's everywhere. 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.480 It's even in the Arctic Circle. What come are we 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.960 doing with pfos up there? So now that we've covered 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.960 the exposure factor, let's get into the hazard factor. Justin 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.640 told us that studying the hazards is a bit complicated. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.320 It requires a lot of testing and there are many 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.600 endpoints that indicate impact. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.280 Over the years, various pfos have been reported assigns of 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.359 literature to be associated with various different health effects that 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.480 were adverse. It doesn't apply to all chemical or one chemical, 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:29.240 but there's been reports of associated metabolic and cardiovascular disease 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.840 and verse developmental effects and fetuses and children, and there 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.240 was a more recent study that looked into PFOS exposure 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.720 and the effects on the immune system function, especially in 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.560 the context of antibody responses to vaccines. This became a 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.440 topic with the COVID vaccine, and there was some evidence 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.880 to show concern that PFOS exposure, at least some of them, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.159 may contribute to reducing our ability for immune systems to function. 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:54.480 This is wild. 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:59.879 Yeah, I would have never guessed that PFOS and the 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.640 OVA vaccine would overlap in any way. 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.120 Yeah. Yeah, I don't like it. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.639 It's scary, it really is. 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.560 When we consider the body of research on p fos. 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.240 Remember Justin told us there are over forty seven hundred 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.159 types of known p fos, and they're kind of different. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.520 They're really different, actually. But when we consider where the 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.359 most research is on pfos, there are two most popular ones, 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.320 and they are p FOA and p FOS. 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.880 They've been investigated for decades and after lots of lots 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:34.920 of research, they were found to be persistent and harmful, 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.560 and they were banned globally under the United Nations Stockholm 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.720 Convention for almost all uses worldwide, So except for very 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.480 very few uses that are limited, they're just not allowed 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:46.879 to be used everywhere. 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.399 The United States signed the treaty but has yet to 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.720 ratify it, so legally nothing has to be enforced. 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.239 It's really difficult to study sometimes the effect of these 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.760 chemicals because it's not possible or even ethical to do 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.680 science experiments on people. Right. We can't just expose someone 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:06.600 to a chemical and see if they get sick or 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.479 have some disease in twenty years, So instead scientists have 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.600 to rely on doing animal studies, often with mice or rodents, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.240 to really understand what the effects could be. We also 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.440 use what we call in vitro studies, so in petri 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.639 dishes looking at bacteria, or using computer models comparing the 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:24.960 properties of a chemical to other chemicals to see if 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.200 we expect the effects to be similar. And there are 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.480 recent studies looking at various pfos that link them to 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.720 different endpoints, including more developmental effects in these rodents, reducing 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.359 their birth weight, reduced survival rate of some of the 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.200 rodents that we're exposed. There's kind of an increasing level 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.280 of concern for this group of chemicals, has more and 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.360 more people look into all these different endpoints. 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.040 So this is wild because multiple things are happening here 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.880 as soon as somebody says, Okay, we've identified this type 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.200 of PFOS that is harmful, the company says, all right, 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.879 slight change new chemical. So if you're still looking for 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.320 old chemical X, people are now using chemical Y. And 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.320 does that even matter anyway because that treaty hasn't been ratified. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.359 I have questions exactly. 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.520 So these companies are doing whatever they got to do 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.040 to a skirt skirt the regulations and still get what 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.440 they want, which is us consuming their products at a 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.240 high rate so they can get those dollar dollar bills. 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:29.640 So if we know this, I mean somebody has to care, right, 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.640 Are there any policies or industries that are responding to this? 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.160 What are folks doing to address these issues? 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.320 So in the EU, at least, there's a law that 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:44.399 the manufacturers of food packaging are legally responsible that their 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.680 food packaging is safe. Now, the exact way that they 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.680 ensure that they're safe isn't always exactly clearly prescribed based 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.399 on the food packaging material type, and for paper and 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.240 board food packaging in the European Union there's not currently 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.800 what's called harmonized regulation. Plastics, for example, have a much 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.720 more detailed regulation with a very specific list of chemicals 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:09.920 that can and cannot be used. Paper and board does 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.280 not yet have harmonized regulation for this that gives exact guidance. 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.560 But it is the legal responsibility of the food packaging 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.000 manufacturer that the product that they put on the market 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:18.639 is safe. 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:20.400 You know, I don't know if I trust these big 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.439 businesses to do us right, you know what I mean, Like, 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.240 that's a lot of responsibility and what that responsibility means 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.320 changing your processes, which means you might be spending more 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:35.320 money on packaging. So if you're spending you know, a 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.200