the PFOA/PFAS situation is extremely insane. there's a good flick with mark ruffalo playing real life Robert Bilott a corporate lawyer who tanked his career trajectory and became an environmental lawyer after stumbling upon PFOA. it's called Dark Waters (2019) and was limited release, but very good imo.
it also brings up one of the uniquely american legal phenomena whereby novel chemistries that are invented do not have to undergo any outside testing or investigation before they can be used (Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976). if you invent a chemical, you can literally go buck wild with it here. and it's almost in your interest not to do any legit testing of it, because if you do it represents a liability to you, if in the future, it turns out your chemical fucks people up. because then it shows you knew it would.
this was theoretically changed in 2016 through a pipartisan bill (Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act) passed requiring the EPA to test unregulated novel chemicals (including the near 2,000 novel chemicals being invented every year), but it's going to take decades to work through the backlog. and that's assuming the EPA is allowed to do its job, which it generally isn't.
the PFOA/PFAS situation is extremely insane. there's a good flick with mark ruffalo playing real life Robert Bilott a corporate lawyer who tanked his career trajectory and became an environmental lawyer after stumbling upon PFOA. it's called Dark Waters (2019) and was limited release, but very good imo.
it also brings up one of the uniquely american legal phenomena whereby novel chemistries that are invented do not have to undergo any outside testing or investigation before they can be used (Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976). if you invent a chemical, you can literally go buck wild with it here. and it's almost in your interest not to do any legit testing of it, because if you do it represents a liability to you, if in the future, it turns out your chemical fucks people up. because then it shows you knew it would.
this was theoretically changed in 2016 through a pipartisan bill (Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act) passed requiring the EPA to test unregulated novel chemicals (including the near 2,000 novel chemicals being invented every year), but it's going to take decades to work through the backlog. and that's assuming the EPA is allowed to do its job, which it generally isn't.