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Toxic #Gaslighting: How #3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the #ForeverChemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe
Decades ago, #KrisHansen showed 3M that its #PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the #EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles with the secrets that 3M kept from her and the world.
by Sharon Lerner
May 20, 6 a.m. EDT
"Kris Hansen had worked as a chemist at the 3M Corporation for about a year when her boss, an affable senior scientist named Jim Johnson, gave her a strange assignment. 3M had invented #ScotchTape and #PostIt notes; it sold everything from sandpaper to kitchen sponges. But on this day, in 1997, Johnson wanted Hansen to test human blood for chemical contamination.
"Several of 3M’s most successful products contained man-made compounds called #fluorochemicals. In a spray called #Scotchgard, fluorochemicals protected leather and fabric from stains. In a coating known as #Scotchban, they prevented food packaging from getting soggy. In a soapy foam used by #firefighters, they helped extinguish jet-fuel fires.
"Johnson explained to Hansen that one of the company’s fluorochemicals, #PFOS — short for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid — often found its way into the bodies of 3M factory workers. Although he said that they were unharmed, he had recently hired an outside lab to measure the levels in their blood. The lab had just reported something odd, however. For the sake of comparison, it had tested blood samples from the American Red Cross, which came from the general population and should have been free of fluorochemicals. Instead, it kept finding a contaminant in the blood.
"Johnson asked Hansen to figure out whether the lab had made a mistake. Detecting trace levels of chemicals was her specialty: She had recently written a doctoral dissertation about tiny particles in the atmosphere. Hansen’s team of lab technicians and junior scientists fetched a blood sample from a lab-supply company and prepped it for analysis. Then Hansen switched on an oven-size box known as a mass spectrometer, which weighs molecules so that scientists can identify them.
"As the lab equipment hummed around her, Hansen loaded a sample into the machine. A graph appeared on the mass spectrometer’s display; it suggested that there was a compound in the blood that could be PFOS. That’s weird, Hansen thought. Why would a chemical produced by 3M show up in people who had never worked for the company?"
ProPublicaToxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe
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Oil pastel on post-it.
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Doodle while on the phone with Verizon. Strongly not recommended.
I got this effect by sticking a pink post-it over the flash. I did not expect this #nikond800 #flash #postit #steptoeedwall #wife #photography #red #flashphotography
Still #doodling. Love the size of a #postitnote #panel. #sharpie #illustration #postit #mastoart #punk
