Minnesota Reformer
BY: DEENA WINTER
3M toxicologist Richard Purdy did a study in 1998 to see whether any of the company’s perfluorochemicals showed up in the blood of eagles and albatrosses.
That seemed unlikely, given the birds’ diet consists mostly of fish. So Purdy was surprised and disturbed when he found levels in their blood similar to those found in human blood. It even showed up in bald eagle nestlings whose only food was fish their parents fed them from remote lakes.
That indicated what Purdy later called “widespread environmental contamination” — the likelihood the manmade, toxic chemicals were moving through the food chain and accumulating in animals.
Purdy warned 3M that if wild birds’ blood contained the chemicals, then fish-eating mammals — like otters, mink, porpoise and seals — could have it, too. A study of rats found they had significant levels of a 3M chemical in their livers, likely from eating fishmeal.
He told company officials in an email there was a significant risk of ecological harm, which should be reported to the EPA.
In response, 3M managers dispersed the team collecting the data, Purdy alleged.
Purdy resigned in 1999 and sent his resignation letter to the EPA, informing them that while 3M had disclosed to the EPA that a chemical called PFOS “had been found in the blood of animals,” it didn’t mention that it was found in the blood of eaglets.
The EPA began investigating the chemicals that year. But by then, 3M had reaped billions of dollars in profits from chemicals that the company had been warned were harming the environment and risking human health.
The per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) had spread — through groundwater and products like Scotchgard stain repellent, Teflon cookware, food wrapping and fire retardant — and were showing up in the blood of people and animals in every corner of the world. They were in nearly every living thing, from house dust to human blood, in wildlife in the Arctic circle and drinking water, rivers, streams and breast milk.
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