P-FAS, P-FAS, sometimes called forever chemicals, and more properly known as per and polyfluorical substances,

are a family of chemicals that are primarily used to make things resistant to stains or disallowing

anything from sticking to them. They're good at keeping stuff from adhering to whatever it is

they're applied to, basically, whether we're talking about fabrics or non-stick frying pans.

These substances have been in the news here and there, since their original deployment across a

range of product types in the 1940s. But because they were mostly seen as a sort of wonder material,

one of many developed and deployed around the middle of the century. When they were talked about at all,

it was usually with a sort of awe and marvel. These things solved a lot of consumer problems and

were used in various shapes and iterations for a variety of use cases by some of the biggest, wealthiest and

most job-creating companies in the United States, including DuPont and 3M. These chemicals were also

broadly thought to be inert, non-reactive in ways that matter to biological entities, and the

concentrations in which they were found in nature and in the blood of workers making them

were considered to be far below toxic or cancer-causing levels, as tested in animals.

But, and this is a big but, because of the nature of these chemicals, basically being

ultra-resilient and long-lasting, which is part of what gives them their non-stick and non-stain

properties, they just cause other stuff that might break them down to flow past them

and bounce right off, instead of interacting with them in depleting, degrading ways, hence that label,

forever chemicals. Because of that nature, they also stick around a long time in ecosystems and in plants,

animals, and humans.

That means that although the amount of PFAS we take into our bodies might be safely in

the non-toxic, non-carcinogenic range for a period of time, the volume of these substances

tends to build up and accumulate.

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