Source: Byrd J (2022) What is PFAs in Drinking Water? Water filter Guru.
Preface. PFAS are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. The compounds are ubiquitous, and linked at low levels of exposure to cancer, thyroid disease, kidney dysfunction, birth defects, autoimmune disease and other serious health problems. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally degrade for millennia.
Of all the many 62000 or more chemicals not regulated because they were “grandfathered in” after the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) without being reviewed for safety or requiring companies to provide health or environmental safety data on them, they may be the most dangerous to ecosystems and human health of all because it will take millennia for them to break down.
You are surrounded by forever chemicals in your home: 2023 All The Stuff in Your Home That Might Contain PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’. Time magazine
And I hope you don’t live near one of the 50 U.S. military sites polluted with forever chemicals. It will cost at least $31 billion to clean them up, but the money being spent to do so is so small it will take over 50 years to accomplish (Perkins 2023).
When I first wrote this post in 2011 at energyskeptic, nothing was being done, despite a tremendous amount of outcry against them by scientists and journalists. The history and reasons of how forever chemicals came to be immune from regulation is described in the book Blake M (2025) They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, which you should read, and Feb 3, 2026 I will publish a book review of it with a few excerpts.
Preface. This post is a book review of Be Wilson’s Swindled. From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee – The Dark History of the Food Cheats.