hello and welcome to politics

and prose bookstore, the wharf. my name is casey. i am assistant manager of branch stores here for politics and prose, where we host a range of in-store events along partnered events, trips and classes. just a couple quick housekeeping things before we get started. if you have your cell phone on you, we ask that you please mute it or turn it off. that way you don't disrupt the event. and when we get to the q&a portion of the evening, we be passing a microphone around. so raise your hand and we will come to you. that way we can hear you clearly on our audio recording of the event. all right. without further ado, tonight am delighted to welcome rachel frazin celebrating the release of poisoning the. well how forever chemicals contaminated america. rachel friesen covers energy and environment policy for the hill. that's everything from climate change to gasoline prices to toxic chemicals to renewable and fossil energy. she's originally from south florida, and she studied journalism and political science at the very called northwestern university.

previously, her work has appeared in the chicago sun-times, the daily beast, the tampa bay times. the palm beach post. friesen be in conversation with miranda willson an environment reporter at any news where they focus on water pollution, flooding and the epa. she previously reported on energy policy and the federal energy regulatory commission. prior to joining any news in 2020, she worked a local reporter in las vegas. she graduated from tufts university in 2017 with a degree in environmental and urban planning. so please join me in welcoming to politics and prose. rachel friesen and miranda willson. hi. for of you who don't know me, i'm rachel frazin. i'm one of the authors of this book. this is my miranda, who i consider this to be most d.c. friendship, because we met at a

networking event and now she's here, like moderating, like my book event. so that's true. well, i'm very excited to be talking to you about your book. rachel it's so good. i devoured it in like, two weeks. and it also just, even as difficult of a read it as at times. it's so moving also. so i just want to say that. thank you. so how did you first hear about forever chemicals? so for my day job, i energy and environment policy for the hill and i think just on my first weeks on the beat they were voting on a bill called the fast action act and when i first heard of it, i was like, oh, this seems like it could be a big deal. and i think just the more that i learned, the more fascinated, horrified i was learning about these chemicals that are sort of in every one and everything and are everywhere and last a very long time. yeah. and i mean, i think the pollution crisis guess if you

want to call it that really has kind of flown under the radar for lot of people. and i as your book talks about, it's also not necessarily gotten the attention it always deserved from regulators. how did we get to this point? you know, forever chemicals are in like half of our tap water or something that. so i think in order to fully understand we just sort of have to understand about how our nation sort went about sort of regulating and the environment in general. the epa didn't exist until 70, so before that it was sort of there were sort of no rules. and by the time we got to passing our first chemicals law in 1976, everything that was already in commerce was pretty much grandfathered in. so that left us in place where all of these chemicals that existed, even if they were harmful and even if the chemical companies knew about the harms or had evidence of the harms, they were still out there. yeah. so what did the companies know and when or how early did they

to realize that there might be a problem with these chemicals? so there evidence of various harms going back to like the fifties and sixties, like in the fifties there were cases documented where people who were exposed to like heated teflon developed sort of what became known as polymer fume polymer or fume fever or, teflon flue, which is basically they would have like flu like symptoms for being exposed to these chemicals. and that's been documented as early as the fifties. in the sixties, you know, dupont's internal documents were describing them as or toxic or saying they should be handled extreme care. you know, by the sixties there are also finding in rats and in dogs like evidence of like damage to their organs in, their livers. and so certainly the evidence has been there. and by the 1970s, we know that 3 a.m. was made aware of evidence that it was building up not just in the blood of its own employees, but in the general. so your book in addition to featuring these documents showing all of this, you have a lot of compelling stories from people who have been affected by pfas pollution.

what was it like getting to know some of those people and, hearing about what they've been through, challenging but rewarding what we shared and i met so many parents, my coauthor, we met so many amazing, incredible people who are going above and beyond to protect themselves, their families, communities. and, you know, it was really, really moving. one of our main characters is brenda. jarod and i both met her. she lives in alabama in her community. you know, they live downstream from, not just a pure facility, but lots of pollution. she goes above and beyond to not just fight against the corporations. she also know delivers like water and food to her neighbors. it, you know, great expense to herself. it was also in north carolina where i visited. you know, it was really amazing. talk to people who are still dealing this problem and really moving and, i think going to visit people and having just sort of random national journalist who they didn't just sort of show up in their neighborhood, i think raised bells for people and they started thinking, you know, i do know a lot of people who have cancer. that's kind of weird.

yeah. my neighbor and my other neighbor, all these people i know of cancer. what's up with that. and so it was, you know, challenging at times, but also really, really rewarding. so it's good that you mentioned brenda because there's a really good quote from her in the book. and i just want read it briefly. and i think kind of gets to this question of what justice and you know, why have these companies been able to get away with what they've done in many cases? so. in brenda's words, she asks this if i knowingly poison, i'm going to jail. so how can these people poison thousands people and just pay a fine? i don't understand that. i mean, what are your thoughts on that? and just complicated question of accountability. yeah, you know, that's something we heard a lot of people in our reporting as a through line of people who have lived downstream, you know, people who became sick or they or, you know, lost ones.

a lot of times they said to us, you know, why are these people not very criminally prosecuted? why do they only get fine and or, you know, no amount of money can like bring back our loved i think another one of our characters, mark favre says, you know, all the money in the u.s. treasury can't bring back my grandmother. so that's something that we did hear from a lot of people. but the way our system is set up, you know, that is just not a very common like method of justice. a lot of times it is a fine and when the epa claimed that dupont was violating the law and three was violating the law and reached settlement with both of those companies and their settlement with dupont was largest administrative penalty it had ever issued in the history of epa at that time. when it reached that settlement was the most they'd ever find. anybody. but at the same time, it was just a fine. after these corporations have made billions of dollars, you know polluting our air, our water and our soil. yeah. and i mean, you also about how they've sort of, in some cases

spin off into other companies. so that they can avoid liabilities. so what have some of our recent presidents or presidential administrations trump? what have they done on pivots? it's interesting. it's an interesting picture. so i feel like of the fact that past was still problem really came into view in like 2016. and so the trump administration, the first trump administration, kind of inherited this problem and they did sort of when they got into office, they put together this four step plan, a lot of their critics would say that they slow walked it and a lot of the career officials that i spoke with said that the trump administration in some cases sort of i guess interfered in the science and did not allow the science to proceed independently when biden came into office, he then inherited that and he put forward two major regulations on purpose. one is setting drinking water on six kinds of pass. and under those rules, you know, by 2029, if you're a water

system has passed in it, the water utility will be required to put in a filter. so in 2029, if that rule stands, you know, theoretically the water systems, people who are on, public water systems will not have passed in their water anymore. the second thing that they did was sort of to declare two types of past pfoa and pfos hazardous substances. and what that does is it basically corporate polluters on the or allows the epa to recoup its clean up costs or to put the polluters on the hook for that clean up. now are in trump 2.0. and it's not totally clear what's going to happen next. actually, just this week, the trump administration did give us some details their past plans. and there is one thing that they're doing that further than what biden ended up doing. they actually accomplish it. they have said they want to set a nationwide drinking water or a nationwide limit on how much like chemical companies can. so like the makers of these chemicals went to the trump epa

that they want to set some sort of limit as to like how much they can dump. i'm it's not clear what that limit will be and i think the effectiveness that rule will sort of be in the details of. you know, how low or high they set those limits if they get around to doing it. biden also said that he wanted to do that and did not accomplish it. at the same time, it's not clear whether the trump administration will leave the biden rules as they are. seems like they might make some changes, but may not repeal them in their entirety. as part of this plan, they said they wanted to address compliance challenges and not clear to me what that means. it seems. trying to read the tea leaves, they might try and change the rule or change how it's enforced there are things they can do, such as, you know, raising level of pass that requires action. but we're not sure what they ultimately will do to change that rule. if anything. i mean, another thing that i think needed is just more and funding for solutions. and you you talk about that a little bit in your book as well.

you know, figuring out how we destroy these chemicals that are so hard destroy. and so there been some some cuts in some proposed to funding for research science. do you think that that could have an effect in the long term? yeah. i mean, think it's difficult to say like what exactly the impacts are going to be, those funding cuts. but anecdotally you do sort of see people, you know, you research cuts or research cuts. and if somebody is a fast researcher and they're cutting research funding previous research could get caught up in that. i think it's too soon to say with certainty, the extent, how much that will impact things. but i would be surprised if it wasn't caught up at all. so you also talk in your book a little bit about kind of a turning point in the regulation. so in 2016, congress, a law that basically required it so that chemicals have to be proven safe before they can enter market and that it seems like the reviews were not necessarily adequate.

so what do you think was has been broken kind of in our regulators three system and, you know, how much have things gotten better? so until 2016 and new chemicals that came the market were sort of innocent until proven guilty rather than guilty until proven innocent. that is to say, if you're to get a new chemical on the market, if the epa could come up with some not to get it on the market, they wouldn't allow it. but if they couldn't come up with any reason, why not chemical would go out onto the market, into the environment. but in 2016, the changes now they're guilty until proven innocent. now have to come up with data as a corporation showing it's safe and you know on the one hand as far as new chemicals go, i think that's a huge change. right, because i would think it's even a deterrent. like if i a chemical company and i couldn't, that my chemical was safe, i even try to get it past the epa. so i would think that for some people it's a deterrent and i'm sure it's a safeguard that does catch a lot of potentially harmful things from going out on the market.

but at the same time, that still only applies to new. so all of those chemicals that have already been in commerce are still there. so the scope, the problem is just enormous. you know, we have evidence there's gas traveling, rainwater potentially. it's been found in remote parts of the arctic. so i guess, you know, how do you wrap your head around this problem? it's a great question. and it is difficult to wrap your head around the scope and size and scale of the issue because, you know, it's pretty much in everyone, right. like the cdc found it to be in at least 97% of americans. so that means it's probably everybody in this room. right. so not only when 3 a.m. alerted the epa to problem the reason why, but the epa officials told me the former officials is that because they couldn't find a human, which means they could not find anybody who did not have this in their blood and.

that's why they were like, oh, there's problem here. so yeah, and like you said, i've read that he's like pristine parts of like the everglades, supposedly pristine or not pristine because this stuff moves, water moves. there's been finding it in rainwater. so even you're not in a polluted area if the clouds move over your area from, uploaded area, it will get into you. so it it really is impossible to wrap our heads around it. what are some things that people do to try to protect themselves? so there's a lot both sort of on an individual and on sort of a larger scale. you know, as individuals, i think just being vigilant about the products that you and because it's in many things it really is difficult to avoid 100%. i think for me as a consumer, what i'm most focused on is things can get into my body. so that's things that i ingest things that i inhale, things that sort of touch my blood. and i think what i mean by that

is things like dental floss, right? dental. a lot of them have parts in them. and so and that's something that when you floss you bleed so that it can get into your bloodstream. i also you know, i've swapped out my nonstick pans, stainless steel cast iron is also good. so i think that that's what i would focus on as well as drinking water. so looking up your drinking water in your town and seeing whether it's found have previous contamination and you know, if so, people can look getting filters for their homes. i know that's a very expensive thing to do but you know i think at some for some people it might be worth it. definitely going to ask you for a dental floss recommendation after this. we'll circle back. yes. so fast is a very bleak topic. is there. one thing maybe that gives you hope or that has given you hope in your reporting. so the science has come long way. so while there isn't necessarily a silver bullet that's going to eradicate issue, they're working on it and there have been a lot

of strides in terms of filtration and up and, you know, regulators early and sort of politically we are moving clean up. i think we're also, you know, with the general public moving more awareness. you know, i think that more people are pushing back, you know, 3 a.m. which was one of the major of pass has said that exiting the people's business and what cited when it said that it's a changing regulatory and changing stakeholder expectations. so i know the term is a little bit vague. those of us in washington, it's a little bit of a buzz word. but i think i took that to mean customers and. shareholders. right. the people who are impacted as well as i'm sure the people who live nearby. but sounds like changing, you know, expectations can make change. does anyone in the audience have any questions as. i thank you so much for the

book, obviously i my so you mentioned that this didn't really come across the federal government's at least until around 2016. and obviously then there has there have not there has not been a full eight consecutive year term president has that has that hurt the continuity at all in terms of that the government's to address the issue, in your opinion? i mean it's a good question. i don't know, because i think that, you know, politically, while the trump i don't know if they had had two consecutive terms whether they would have been able to complete their actions. but i think because they didn't do it, the biden folks may have been more motivated to say, hey, you know, let's prove we did do something about this problem. i'm not sure that. i think, though, although i guess you could make the argument that you know obviously you had biden's date in place maybe that regulation that he didn't get he would have been able to continue work on that.

but i also think that, you know political pressure and you know the fact that our system is changing maybe can put pressure on politicians if they feel from their bases that they need to do something something that's. hey rachel. there was a recent supreme court decision that really tempered federal government's ability to regulate and overturn chevron decision. how do you think going to affect, like regulatory, efforts by any administration forward? it's interesting i think that because chevron was sort of in the crosshairs, think that the biden administration was careful not to necessarily use that as a justification for a lot of their regulations. and so i think at least, you know, the regulations that came out in the later years of the biden era, i don't think they are going to be inherently based on chevron. i do think that, you know, anything that makes regulating more difficult or, you know, any

decision that sort of says, okay, you can't defer to agency experts does make it somewhat more difficult. i think that they also have other legal justification in their rulemaking. and obviously had the chance to talk with so many people about their personal during the process as wondering if you've had a chance to keep in touch any of them or know what their reaction to like the book and you raising attention to this issue and sort of their personal shining a light on it. yeah to some extent. think from what we've heard a lot of the activists we spoke to have just sort of been excited to have their stories told and are hopeful that know this effort can help raise more awareness for their cause. we've heard lots good things and actually this week i'm going new york and i'll be speaking on a panel with you know marc faber, who's one of the characters in the book. not every update is necessarily a happy update, though, unfortunately, some of the folks i've been speaking with, like somebody spoke with, i texted them, i was like, hey, how are

you doing? so, you know, the book is coming out and they let know that they had you know, they were diagnosed. the new illness. so, you know, it's been some sad to a woman named janice gaines. the book. can you talk a little about how you went about finding the human sources in the book and telling stories, getting them to open up to you? and then on the flip side, in terms of like the hard evidence or the documents, how you guys went about those, especially when seemed like stuff the companies didn't necessarily want shared. so, so in terms of connecting with people, i think that people were really eager to speak about this there, you know there is a network sort of all around the country or peoples activists, because this is everywhere and so because it's impacting so many people, you know, they are just very eager and excited but also just sort of asking the question, who else should i talk to? who else whose story not being told in your community? and i think that's something we really tried to make an effort to do as well as documents because there've been a lot of court cases on this. this is or that has sort of opened the door to a lot of

documents. and the epa itself actually has, you know, an administrative record of documents on purpose and so that was record really helpful actually. i put it in a player request, the epa, and they were like, well, actually we have this administrative record that you can use and so i they sent me three desks in the mail and i spent time going over the titles of all these thousands of documents and pulling the ones that looked interesting. and i think, we found some really interesting stuff. i try and think of free radicals as to pose for things. go into my body and at home. i have three types of water. i distilled water that i use actually for my i have reverse osmosis water, which, as you probably know, puts magnets and calcium back into the water. and then alkaline water, which is supposed to fight free radicals, but you can't drink it

all the time. do you have opinion on those different types of water? as you say? i feel like i don't know all that much about free radicals, so i don't know that i would be the best person to speak on that. and as far as pfas goes, think that reverse osmosis is a filtration system that's very effective at filtering out people's. thanks for this talk. you mentioned water filters. and my question is, have seen examples of companies trying to greenwash or otherwise capitalize on people's fears to market products that might not necessarily help them with this issue and sort what should people be looking out for when? they're kind of looking at patterns and things like that, well, it's interesting because. i feel like a lot of times i'll look at straws for, for example you see paper straws marketed as much better alternative to plastic straws. i don't necessarily think that's true.

like i don't have a direct comparison of fast versus but most straws across the board, including in especially paper and bamboo straws, have been found to have pfas in them generally. so i think that's probably a good example of, something that people market as like an environmental or a healthier alternative that maybe also comes with its own health risks. as far as pans, i think that stainless steel and cast iron are your best bet. you touched on the potential for funding cuts research cuts a little bit. are there any open questions about how fast in our environment gets into our bodies or affects our bodies over long term? yeah, i definitely there's open questions on all of that, especially, you know, on the human health impacts. well, first of all, there's a lot of different parts out there, right. so some of the most well studied have been found to have health impacts, including cancers impacts the liver, kidney fertility, immune system, problems but because there are

thousands of chemicals are so many that are unstudied or, understudied and the research and the science there is emerging. i think what they're trying to do there is to sort of do it in groups and sort of group them by know what properties each set of for each subset of these people may have. but definitely it's an area that is still emerging and because really this first emerged sort of in the public consciousness in the late nineties early 2000s it resurged in 2016. but this is scientifically a relatively new topic for the general. even if, you know, chemical have had some evidence of toxicity for a very long time. hi. thanks. the talk. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what do you think current epa levels or the ones that are going to be there in 2029? are they like low enough to be protective of? or what do you think of the so

when the epa forward its levels, it basically said, okay, at least for some of these chemicals, we don't think there's really any safe level for the two most harmful ones. pfoa in pfas or at least two of the most well-studied ones. but you know, it can be to detect. so basically the level that they set it at was like a the lowest level they can detect. so they were effectively doing the best they could. it still might not be good enough, but it was pretty the lowest level that you could possibly set the limit at. that being said, it was only six chemicals. i think there's good news and bad news there. and the good news is that chemicals that filter out those six probably can also filter out a lot more. however we have seen evidence and we do tell in the book, you know, sometimes some of them, even the smaller the ultra short chain compounds can slip through some of the filters. this the granular activated carbon filtration systems there has some evidence of slippage.

i think he was basically. yes, you've described a few products that contain pfoa, as you mentioned, pots and pans that are nonstick teflon. i didn't know about. you know, dental products. is it also waste that's generated in manufacture of other things because epa would tend to regulate kinds of things. they would tend to regulate wastes things that go into landfills are disposed of in a sewage treatment system that gets into waters united states and hence sources of drinking water. but but but are there. manufacturing processes which this is a byproduct? yes there are. and it's actually really interesting in north carolina, you know, it seems that they were making sort of intentional fast and then byproduct pivot

and they were capturing the intentional, limited power and preventing it from going to water. they were not capturing the byproduct to pass. so, yes, absolutely. i thank you so much for this conversation. i really learning so much and i just about your books. i can't wait to dive into. so you've a few places in the south particular and you said, you know, these are everywhere. but i'm wondering if you saw any patterns as it relates to race or class and in this geographical locations and also access to medical care. hmm. yeah. well, i think that you know for pollution in general and, certainly including perhaps certain communities that are targeted more than others or certain communities, they're polluting facilities are allowed to be built in some communities that are not. but so it's a it's a funny thing i think that, you know, people certainly a lot of the communities that we visited were know historically black communities and were impacted.

and there was what are known as environmental justice communities because, they have really high pollution burdens, not just a fast pollution, but of other types of pollutants and that something that can make this messy is that, you know, if you've got somebody who lives downstream from a bunch of polluting facilities, it's really hard to know which one did it. and i would also i point to access to information because in north carolina example, i think that a lot of the more affluent people were on the city water and what was being tested first whereas you know we went to a more rural historically black and older community that, you know not as well informed necessarily, but also maybe not as proactive reached out to and their groundwater wasn't tested. they were they're not on city water. so they are sort of in the process of getting this community hooked up to city water because the city water has filtration system on it. but right now they get their water from wells, you know, unless they've installed a filtration system in their

house, no way to filter it. we found a cancer or there's maybe a cancer cluster in that community right? yeah. so i think my visit is again just sort of this clear outsider, a national reporter who has no ties to the community, did get, i think, people thinking and they ended up doing a count and found in sort of this relatively community, 130 cases of cancer and. they've asked now their local government for an investigation. hi rachel, i just want to say congratulations again on such a well reported, well, well-written and important book like it really was such a pleasure to read. so somebody asked about the response from the people that you worked with. and i want to ask about the companies that you write about. have any of them contacted you since? and what was it like approach them with reporting that they may not have necessarily wanted there? and what kind of pushback did you receive?

i think they are it's it's an interesting interesting question. i think that we are necessarily the first people to report on people. so think the company has pretty much already have sort of a strategy in play, which at least as far as you know, reporting can be helpful a sense because they're not like, who are you? why are you reporting on this? and we've never had to answer questions about this board before. i think the big chemical companies have had answered a lot of these questions, so i've not heard from them. the book came out or anything like that. not to say that i won't, but as of now, i've not really gotten any feedback. the responses generally that we got were a little bit varied. dupont has since spun off its past business and then it itself sort of merged with dow and then re separated into new dupont, new and another company called corteva. and so they now claim that they not only are they not the company that made the chemicals because they spun off their past, they also are not the

company did the spin off because they've merged with dow and separated and so now they are their own thing they have sort of refused to answer on this because they said no, no, no. that us through. 3 a.m., which is one of the historic quarters, they've not done anything that and so they were they did engage and they did. i sent them a list of written questions. didn't necessarily answer every single question, but they sort of provided responses. you'll see in the book. and then the company. that dupont spun off its business to its past business, they have answered questions about their air pollution since 2015, when the spinoff. but they also didn't answer any questions about anything that happened prior to 2015 because they said, oh, we didn't exist yet yet. they thank you so much, rachel, for having us and for this backtalk, i was wondering sort

of, i guess maybe a two part question. one, in terms of companies that spin off in this kind of way do you know if there's any legislation or any movement around trying to kind of target that so that, you know, just in terms of liability and and that sort thing and accountability that this doesn't happening. and in the case of like dow, for example, and the second question is, you mentioned that there were that there chemicals that haven't been regulated before because they were sort of grandfathered in. have there been any to try to regulate them since? so a lot there as far as the like at a national level, i'm not aware of anything because i'm not sure that this also issue is necessarily specific privacy or even to environmental issues. i think this is something that happens sort of in the corporate world all the time, and they might put another justification on it. they're not spinning off their liability is they just it makes sense for business reasons. so i think that kind of thing

can be difficult to track as far as other chemicals those 2016 updates did provide sort of a way to get existing chemicals off the market, but it's very slow. the epa sort of puts together ten at a time, studies those ten, and then determines if they should stay or if they should go. so there is a way to get those things off the market. but just a much slower process. yeah, sorry. again, there are at least two ways of regulating a dangerous products. be they wastes household products themselves at least two. one is government regulation and the other way is by private action. and as you you know, there's been and i think referred to it a lot of private it actions brought again manufacturers or

disposal force over the years. i can of a book that i write called exposure by robert millet. you probably aware of that the cases he brought against dupont over years these are products have been known to cause cancer and all of other illnesses for many many years. what is the the epilog on that story that belittles about private actions being brought by need be the manufacturers could be or the of the byproducts and i asked about the byproducts why has that been successful are companies that you've talked about they're reincorporate to avoid some liability but that doesn't answer the question because there's still liable for cleanup under superfund laws. so what is the private sector response and how have there been others bill it who brought cases

against manufacturers the distributors of these and to ask further question if they're so dangerous particularly with teflon why do stores that they carry it still market it because they themselves would be in the chain of liability so good questions a lot to unpack there. i'll try to get to all of it, but please write up something for me if miss it. my response. first of all. yes, are other lawsuits. and you know, these companies, those that claim that maybe don't have responsibility anymore, are still being in some of these lawsuits. dupont and comores actually to their own settlement about how some of these legal liabilities should be distributed between the two of them. but yes there are a lot of cases. there are i think a lot of the personal injury cases have been consolidated into what's called a multidistrict litigation that's being sort of settled court, sort of they're sort of but it's a long and lengthy process because. there's a lot of harms and there's lot of, you know,

allegation of harm and a lot of individuals and, you know, these are everywhere. so those cases are sort of making their way through the courts. but, yes, there have been other litigation and then water have also sued because they have to filter that stuff out. but they also, you know, they didn't put it there. it's not their fault. it's in the water. and so they also have sued and reached a settlement. you know, it necessarily cover all their cost, as i understanding from speaking with the water industry, but they also have turned around and, sued. farmers have also sued. you know, that's sort of another example of private industry that has been impacted by this. sometimes they were given this waste water and they were like, hey, it's fertilizer here, take it. they spread it on their farmlands, not knowing that they were contaminating their farmlands, their cows, and the milk and the eggs that they produce and so, yeah, there have been a lot of sort of private sector civil action on this.

can you remind me, was there anything else that i didn't get to the question here yet you could regulate. hmm. and and is essentially regulated. it and epa you want to start to control the discharge of and enter the water systems and control them as well. but why has that not been a deterrent the manufacturer of chemicals you're saying you're so far. well it's a good question i think some of them have been effectively a couple of them pfoa and process have effectively been mostly phased out of commerce. those which are the most well studied that the harms are the clearest of are out of commerce. but this is but people as a class are just now there are thousands of them and they are in many products that are useful products maybe even that are necessary. they've been used in heart valves. and so certainly i don't think anybody would say, no, don't use

this in a life saving product if it's a life or death, if it's a life or death situation. but there are other things that are fuzzier and there's sort of, i guess, varying degrees of study of some of these chemicals. there's also sort of the challenge of finding a substitute. right? like people like these products, people like nonstick products, people like it that they don't have, you know, you know, they like a waterproof rain jacket. and even if that's not a lifesaving product, there is consumer demand. and so if there's consumer demand, i think that they'll make it so. i think it's sort of on consumers to find this information and, you know, a lot of people don't know about this. people i know had never heard of this had never heard of these chemicals. most people i still probably haven't, except for when i talked to them about my book. but so i think that there is sort just an education challenge here as well.

i think with government, if they would substitute the word regulations with protect science people would view what's going on a lot different. and the other thing i just want to mention i'm concerned about the water supply do you address that a little bit in your in your book or. yeah, we absolutely talk, you know, drinking water and impacts of drinking water. now we try to tell the story of what's happening everywhere, through the stories of sort of the four communities that we visit that are impacted and probably would have higher levels or would have higher levels in their water systems than, you know, the average american. but, you know, the usgs, the u.s. geological survey did a study and they found it to be in the tap water of 45% of americans. and that's folks on public private wells across the board. yeah. this is sort of litigation and

regulation, presumably in these lawsuits, you got to put a price tag on how harmful these are just, you know, to people, general, when epa is thinking about which chemicals should be the table and which ones are safe do they do any kind of estimate on the potential harm, either through cost the government to take care of people's illnesses, lost economic from all of the problems that are associated potentially with the chemical. how do they think about that when they're making these decisions? so my understanding that, you know, when they're the safety of a new chemical, they can't consider the economic factors. they just have to look at like, is this safe? but they look at how they treat chemicals, broad lee and when they look at like you rule making that impact the entire chemical industry they do what's called a cost benefit and they look at all of it look at the cost. they sort of quantify the costs

to the best that they can of the health harms, benefits of regulation or deregulation and they also look at the economics. i was wondering if you talk about like the current industries on fast like is there are pushing back being like no like more fast like a higher level would still be safe like is that something they're trying like lobby for or anything like that. well i think i mean i think would depend on the company and it would depend on the chemical i think that there is a broad recognition. again that the two most studied pfoa and pfos harmful. but i have heard arguments that the others are not that those are just the only bad ones. then everything else is fine. the epa has found that others are associated with lots of impacts cancer. but it's complicated because there are thousands of them. and you know, it's it's really difficult to, you know, go through and study single wanted

to sort of do those lengths and so you know it's tough question and certainly a challenge. have there been any proposals in congress to look at them more broadly, not just one by one or any proposals generally? yeah, no. i mean, i think that you hear a lot, you know, should we look at these one by one? should we look at these in groups? should we look at these as a class, just sort of study common properties of all of them. and it's a mixed bag, right like there are some efforts at the epa and there have to study them sort of in groups. i think that seems to be the approach that they're doing. but still science takes time. so we're still we're still getting there there. seeing your science. you mentioned reverse osmosis, i think is what it was is it was promising filtration system. and one of the things that i really appreciated is at the end of the book, you talk about some of the solutions that have been

developed to address on a larger scale. and i was wondering what were some of the most promising solutions that you found when talking to the scientists that are trying to address this? so reverse osmosis filtration definitely there are that's one of sort of the three main filtration types that we speak about. one the other being granular, activated carbon and ion exchange. as i mentioned, the granular activated carbon was there has been some slippage that we've heard of, at least anecdotally in, some places where some of the smaller ultra short chain paths are breaking through by it. and there's also sort of solutions that are being developed on the clean up end. they are sort of finding ways that they can break apart sort these unbreakable bonds and but that's progressing. and there are still challenges not only of the technology itself, but also do you scale this? how do you you know deploy it not just in one area, but everywhere. so there are solutions and there's new science on this every single day.

so. thank you so much. thank you so much for doing this, rachel. very exciting to get to see you. talk about your book speaking of solutions and as someone who's a military reporter by day, i'm always thinking about things on like the micro level. so you mentioned, you know, certain communities including people who might be lower income example or people who are in the military might not be able to you know, up and go somewhere. so i was just curious like on the day to day, are there just practical that people can reduce their exposure to fires that are you know in addition to reverse osmosis there aren't too cost prohibitive. i was listening to a podcast

recently like the preponderance of like polyethylene urns and that gets into the body too. and had me wondering about practical solutions that we might be able to implement on the community level. sorry. yeah. so do mean more individually or do you mean more like like as an individual? okay, so i think it's difficult to them 100% because they are in so many different things. but i think i mentioned this earlier, i would have as a consumer, i mean definitely just making sure that you're looking at the products that you buy i think when you shop on a lot of websites, they list sort of product specifications. and if it's a product that is sort of known to be or where there might be suspicions of past contaminate, that's things that are waterproof, sweat proof greaseproof, stain resistant. you can, you know, try to avoid those products overall or you can look for those that are marketed as past free or free of fluorinated chemicals or free of pfc is another one.

and so if they're in one of those industries, like if you pans and your pans don't have parts in them, you probably want to advertise that, right? so if again, so as a consumer, i sort have a red flag for anything waterproof. greaseproof resistant, sweat resistant, anything that is sort of made to repel liquid or anything that's nonstick for me. there's just sort of a red flag word that doesn't necessarily mean it has past in it, but it certainly means that i need to do more research. i. oh, okay. i think it's working now i know i'm asking a lot of questions, but i was wondering if you've ever thought about like the communication aspect fast like, like i do a little bit of communication with people and we always say like it's not like it's zero risk, but you should try to your risk like anywhere less is better. and so like, do you ever like

get into numbers of like one in 10,000 or anything like that to, try to communicate like the risks of certain amounts of exposure, like, is that something try to get to, to talk to people about it? or is that not like effective? so what is the one in 10,000 number? is there something there? no, i'm that's just an example. okay i mean, i think that as a communicator can be helpful to a point, but at a certain point, i do think people's eyes glaze over like i feel like i don't want to be i try to avoid language talking about like the parts per trillion level. i think that's just not something that a regular who's not in the science world would understand. i feel like i try to or if i do use those data, i try to quantify it like you a drop in, you know, several olympic sized pools or something to try and put a picture in people's heads that they can understand. but when you say things like fast have been found to be in the blood of at least 97% of americans, i do think numbers like that can be helpful if it's something that i feel like people can see and and quantify. but if it's something like a

part per trillion or a nanograms per liter, i try to avoid that just because i don't that it's something that a regular person can understand. and frankly, as a non-scientists something that i have difficulty understanding, i'm within within your book you were as you're talking talking about the the different communities and the people within those community used that have been affected by the p fast that have those resources or aren't getting the communication about what p force or not even having the means to understand these are the best practices that you can take. what do you think can be made now that you do your book published? what efforts do you think can be made to inform those communities or the practices that they can take, the resources that they do have? well you know, i am hopeful that

this helps spread awareness. you know, i think that's why i wrote it is because i, you know, think that this is something that people ought to be talking about. this, you know, as a journalist, has given me the opportunity, do events like this or to go on tv or to go on the radio and just as another platform for talking about it. i think that if you are somebody who does know about this issue, i think that sort talking about it, you know, with your own friends and family and online can help to spread the word i think, you know, the media certainly has a role to play as do local activists. and if you are a local governmental activist, i think that, you know, reaching out to sort of underserved parts of the community. part of that role, i think a just a question on that. i guess, you know, do you think that there needs to be improvements to how, you know, these chemicals are communicated from like, let's say, live in a community and you're drinking water is why it that you're not told that and do you think that

that's something that needs to be improved? yeah. i mean, i think again passes, in the drinking water or the tap water of 45% of americans, 45% of americans have not heard of this issue. right. so fundamentally, there is a mismatch there. and i think some of the water utilities would say, well, we put it in the water quality report. anybody can just look that up. but like, who in this room is anybody in this room ever looked up their water quality report? you know, maybe a couple, a small handful, but not. and if you're here, you're already engaged this. so i think that you know, part of it is just having to answer tough questions is tough nobody wants to bring liability to. and i think that as this becomes more in the public view, more companies, water companies are becoming aware. it i would think at this point they probably are all familiar with the issue. but there's also an issue and, a question of testing. right, is like army testing and all of these communities and knowledge. and so there's just a lot of moving pieces.

and like i might have missed this. what's the forever chemical situation in the dmv? like, are there what's. that's a good question. i recall looking this up a very long time ago, and i don't recall finding, you know, particularly high level or to be honest, the i'm not sure off the top of my head they are in our drinking water or not, which is probably something i should look up as somebody who lives here. because of that water quality or. right. yeah, i got to take my own advice here. look up my own water quality, report that that that it as far as questions that we think things are. thank you so much. thank you.

washington journal continues. host: former congressman chris gibson is back at our desk, former republican from new york. since leaving congress, he has written three books, the latest is "the spirit of philadelphia." a call to recover the founding principles. take us back 238 years or so and explain what you mean by "the spirit of philadelphia." guest: we are in a tough time right now. i enjoyed your last segment.