
Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water Leave Military Families Reeling - longdefeat
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/military-water-toxic-chemicals.html
======
apo
_Blood testing has emerged as a sticking point. Specifically, a growing
movement of veterans and others, united in advocacy groups with names like
Fountain Valley Clean Water Coalition and Need Our Water, are asking the
military test their blood for the chemicals, hoping to bring results to their
doctors or use them in lawsuits._

Strange that the article is being so cagey about why this might be the case.

Every human blood sample tested since the 1950s has shown detectable
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA aka C8, a member of the PFAS class of chemicals
mentioned in the article). The problem was so bad that DuPont had to search
high and low for blood samples that _weren 't_ contaminated with PFOA. They
did eventually find clean samples - archived from a group of recruits for the
Korean War.

A little about the chemistry. Think of most forms of grease as a greasy, long,
water-repellant chain of carbon-hydrogen bonds attached to a small water-
attractive "polar" head. PFASs replace all of the carbon-hydrogen bonds in the
greasy tail with carbon-fluorine bonds. This makes the molecule repel grease
(great for non-stick coatings throughout the house). But the carbon-fluroene
bond is quite inert, thus the name "forever chemical." There are few
environmental mechanisms that can degrade them - either exposed or inside a
body.

This article fails to put the problem into proper context - making it sound
unique to military bases. That not true. PFOA is a problem at numerous sites.
Nobody knows the long-term consequences of releasing this much highly-inert,
carcinogenic material into the environment. What is known is that those
unfortunate enough to have worked on PFOA production and who received high
exposure to it developed horrific problems including cancers.

The Intercept did a massive series on this:

[https://theintercept.com/series/the-teflon-
toxin/](https://theintercept.com/series/the-teflon-toxin/)

The Netflix documentary "The Devil We Know" is also worth watching:

[https://www.netflix.com/title/80997719](https://www.netflix.com/title/80997719)

~~~
amelius
That's a nice explanation. But what I don't get is: if the chemical is highly
inert that means it doesn't react easily with other substances, so how then
can it be carcinogenic?

~~~
ridgeguy
Even if not reactive in the sense of forming chemical bonds with cellular
material, interactions through mechanisms like Van der Walls forces could
change 3D shapes of enzymes, altering their reactivity. If those enzymes
participate in cellular replication, the effect could be carcinogenic.

Poor car analogy: tossing a ball bearing into the open oil fill cap in your
car will probably not cause the ball bearing to bond with the lifters, valve
springs & stems, etc. But it will probably damage your engine.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, there are many ~inert enzyme inhibitors. And receptor agonists and
antagonists.

------
caseymarquis
I wonder if there's a way to democratize inexpensive health testing and see
these trends faster? Imagine a world where you're testing your
blood/sweat/saliva/vitals daily and semi-anonymously sending the results to be
analysed using statistical methods. A doctor can give you a one time use
current diagnoses voucher to add into the system for serious diseases. The
whole thing is voluntary. There's definitely some dystopian abuse potential,
but in the US healthcare is already a disaster for a large portion of the
population, and this could lessen that. Is it possible for something like this
to be created?

~~~
rjf72
There's one general point that has to always be considered in these sort of
ideas. Resources are not infinite. Of course you realize this, but I think we
who come from the software world can fail to appreciate how severely
restricting a problem this actually is. There are 325 million people in the
US. Let's imagine a very high participation rate and just exclude infants and
some outliers, just so see what would happen. So we'll call it 300 million.

That's 300 million tests per day or about 110 billion per year. The cost there
is already going to be extreme. Even if you can get the tests down to
$10/person, which you probably cannot, that's more than a trillion dollars a
year -- upwards of 5% of the GDP. But the bigger issue here is what money
represents: resources.

Machinery, maintenance, operation, even the strain on the transportation
system would be intolerable. For instance think about the little kit you send
over with your sample. I mean you'd think just getting it there would be
negligible, but it'd be anything but. The USPS currently handles 20.2 million
pieces of mail per hour. [1] Just handling these packages alone would increase
the entire postal system's burden by more than 60%!

Or even consider the simple packaging that needs to be produced and disposed
of. How small of a kit can we get to ensure sterility, sufficient sample size,
and transportation safety? Let's say 100 grams. That doesn't seem like that
much, but again think about it at scale. That's 30 million kilograms. For some
sort of scale, The Statue of Liberty weighs about 200,000 kilograms. So each
day you're talking about 150 Statues of Liberty of packaging and material that
needs to be manufactured, distributed, delivered, processed, and disposed.

Big ideas in the physical world have quite tremendous barriers.

\---

As one interesting aside, imagine you took the market value for literally
every single consumed good and service in the US, the sum total of money
invested by businesses, and all government expenditure on top of it. And then
you divided that equally among every man, woman, and child. How much would it
be? It's interesting to compare expectation versus reality there. Conveniently
what I described is really easy to measure - it's the GDP/capita. And it's
less than $60,000. I always find that number quite bemusing when thinking
about it contrasted against our economic ideals in various matters.

[1] - [https://facts.usps.com/one-day/](https://facts.usps.com/one-day/)

~~~
adamsea
Well, considering how the U.S. (where I live) spends about 1 trillion + on war
or war-related stuff each year, and, considering all the people in the country
with crappy jobs that can't pay the bills, seems like shifting even say $500
billion (plenty enough left to bomb people) to hire or train folks to solve
these problems would be a good investment.

------
js2
_I grew up drinking and bathing in the toxic waters around a military base in
North Carolina. Thirty years later, I went back to investigate._ :

[https://psmag.com/environment/what-happened-at-camp-
lejeune](https://psmag.com/environment/what-happened-at-camp-lejeune)

 _From the 1950s until at least 1985, the drinking water was contaminated with
toxic chemicals at levels 240 to 3400 times higher than what is permitted by
safety standards. ... Camp Lejeune has been characterized as a candidate for
the worst water contamination case in U.S. history—and I am one of up to a
million people who were poisoned. The tragedy, though, is hardly all in the
past.

According to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the military's
failures are continuing today; mistakes are being repeated at our bases
overseas, and, in foreign cases, it took a whistleblower to prompt action on
contaminated water. A 2013 investigative report produced by the Navy inspector
general, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveals
"shortfalls in the oversight and management of drinking water for Navy
personnel stationed overseas—even in wealthy, developed countries." The report
concludes that "not a single Navy overseas drinking water system meets U.S.
compliance standards" or the Navy's own governing standards," according to
POGO._

~~~
lostlogin
I don’t know where the ‘foreign’ place referred to is, but this is playing out
in New Zealand too. The slow moving shambles is shameful.
[https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.rnz.co.nz/article/80fdd24...](https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.rnz.co.nz/article/80fdd245-8515-4ac9-89e7-b761faf13aed)

------
hu3
This is really bad. Most bad things in life are reversible but this degree of
health damage isn't.

May everyone responsible for this be exemplarily punished to deter this kind
of disregard for human life from happening again.

> Since then, the Defense Department has admitted that it allowed a
> firefighting foam to slip into at least 55 drinking water systems at
> military bases around the globe, sometimes for generations. This exposed
> tens of thousands of Americans, possibly many more, to per-and
> polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of man-made chemicals known as PFAS that
> have been linked to cancers, immune suppression and other serious health
> problems.

~~~
bitexploder
They will not be punished. They never are.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Flats_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Flats_Plant)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory#Controversy_and_criticism)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_States)

The "problems" kill people. From the governments perspective this soft,
civilian side, collateral damage is a required cost of our military machine.
Inside of the military you have no real chance unless it is egregious beyond
comprehension to ever get any kind of remedy.

The government will poison you and your family and then look at you with dead
eyes and pat your survivors on the head and tell you to move on. EVERY one of
those sites have a history of medical issues in the nearby community. A little
"light" water table poisoning is nothing to the government if people can't
pursue the vast history and documented scope of nuclear weapons production
poisoning people.

~~~
meko
It's important to note that 'the government' you mention, is doing the
poisoning, is actually through private companies.

~~~
bitexploder
True. But they gained tremendous protection via the govt. There is at least a
small chance a company is fined if they do something egregious. (Exxon
Valdez). It is rare though.

------
DoreenMichele
I was a military wife for a lot of years. I have very serious health problems.
Doctors officially blame that on my genes, which can't be changed, so it's a
de facto means to throw their hands in the air and call me unfixable.

I think environmental factors are a big part of the problem and that those can
be addressed.

I lived on a military base for 2.75 years where there was one tap in the house
labeled "potable water." You weren't supposed to drink water from the bathroom
sink while brushing teeth, yet we bathed in this stuff and washed our dishes
with it, etc.

The house was not very far from Hinkley, CA, location of the hexavalent
chromium plume made famous in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

When I have said on the internet that I believe hexavalent chromium poisoning
is one of my problems, I have been dismissed as a nutter and conspiracy
theorist by internet strangers who are confident they know all about my life
better than I do.

I actually spent some years on an antivaxxer email list. They had a lot of
interesting and useful information that helped me begin turning my health
around while my doctor expressed zero curiosity about my improvement, advised
me other patients needed him more and scheduled me fewer appointments.

YouTube recently demonitized anti vax channels (seemingly part of general
trend to shut down such views). Most people seem to think that's a good thing.
It leaves me wondering where people like me are supposed to go in a world
where "fringe" views cannot be discussed in good faith on the internet. Are we
supposed to just quietly die because that's the PC answer when doctors tell
you "People like you don't get well. Symptom management is the name of the
game."?

If you make zero effort to get me well and write me off for dead because of
the label you gave me, wouldn't my decline and death be a form of self-
fulfilling prophecy?

And when I defy that prediction, I'm written off as a crazy person and thrown
off of one forum after another.

Insert some quote about "And when they came for me, there was no one left to
speak."

~~~
orf
Seems your condition is very different from that of a newborn baby with an
under developed and fragile immune system, who's mothers are fed mistruths
about how harmful vaccines are.

I don't see how your story relates in any way about harmful anti-vax groups
(and vaccines in general) other than "I got some unrelated help at one point".
So yes, we can absolutely be happy they are being demonitized.

That being said I am sorry that your doctor treated you like that and I am
glad you did manage to help yourself.

~~~
mindslight
The person you're responding to is a decade-long HN commenter. Currently, her
comment is sitting at [dead].

I myself don't necessarily agree with her chain of implications, but it was
her journey. This isn't directly solely at your comment (but I can't respond
to the top one directly, as it's dead) - When you latch on to it simply to
beat the anti-anti-vax dead horse, you're doing everyone a disservice.

IMHO if you want to know why online discourse has turned into such shite, then
examine this. The noble ethos of judging words on their own merit has devolved
into a tyranny - when you remove the "inertia" of individual reputation, each
comment stands in isolation. Rather than seeing a larger pattern of a person
being generally reasonable, giving the benefit of the doubt to a questionable
comment, and perhaps extracting something worthwhile from it... we instead
quickly judge it as "other" and move on.

~~~
orf
The fact it is sitting at [dead] has nothing to do with my comment and the
length of her time here on HN bears no relevance to this discussion. I fail to
see why you can latch onto that fallacy and try to beat me with it as if it is
my fault that her comment has been flagged. If it helps you sleep at night I
have vouched for her comment as I don't think it should be flagged.

If you would take the time to re-read my original comment, which was replying
to a comment which has since been edited to be a bit more explicit about it's
message, you would find that I'm simply questioning first what anti-vax groups
have to do with the original post (or really her original comment at all)
because vaxxines have nothing to do with her apparent on-base drinkwater
poisoning, and also why her journey should make us feel bad about them being
demonetized.

Nobody is labelling her as "other" and moving on. I would say that you are
pretty quick to judge my comment and to lambaste me for the ills you perceive,
which is a bit ironic given the content of your message.

~~~
mindslight
> _the length of her time here on HN bears no relevance to this discussion_

It's directly germane to my larger point about the results of eschewing
personal standing.

> _lambaste me for the ills you perceive, which is a bit ironic given the
> content of your message_

From your earlier comment:

> _So yes, we can absolutely be happy they are being demonitized_

The difference is that you are starting to go on the group-offensive,
celebrating the winning against one flavor of Youtube nutter.

The original comment did tangentially bring up anti-vax, yes. But my point is
we should aim to tolerate that, as it's tangential. Focusing on that single
aspect then either results into re-arguing whether the censorship is good
(which can only go more meta, because obviously the immediate anti-vax
phenomenon itself is bad), or simply left to sit and form a tacit consensus
that censorship is worthwhile.

(I apologize for having focused on you by virtue of you being the only
commenter, and good on you for vouching - directly opposing the main symptom).

~~~
whorleater
>The original comment did tangentially bring up anti-vax

the literal original comment brought up how demonetization of anti-vaccination
youtubers is a "first they came for me" slippery slope, what definition of
"tangential" are you operating on?

------
jnhnum1
FWIW, I found the EPA [1] and CDC [2] sites on these chemicals to be extremely
informative. Definitely gives me an appreciation for the "good" parts of
government.

1\. [https://www.epa.gov/pfas](https://www.epa.gov/pfas)

2\.
[https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/index.html](https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/index.html)

------
sigzero
I am affected by the Camp LeJeune water issue. I have cancer because of it. I
am on my appeal process with the VA over it. It sucks and it's still going to
be a long fight.

~~~
potiuper
Camp Lejeune is more known for cheap dry cleaners using PERC and dumping it
rather than perfluorinated contaminants [https://psmag.com/environment/what-
happened-at-camp-lejeune](https://psmag.com/environment/what-happened-at-camp-
lejeune). [https://www.popsci.com/dry-cleaning-
chemicals](https://www.popsci.com/dry-cleaning-chemicals) points out newer
water-detergent machines, but states they cost $40~80k. Best cheap solution
has been to use hydrocarbon solvents and incinerate the waste. I do not know
of any list of dry cleaners that do so.

------
dade_
I'll stick to my distilled water. I still don't understand why they aren't
more popular. Here they add a chemical to our tap water that bonds to lead so
that there will be less (hopefully no) lead from the lead water
pipes/solder/fittings. No thank you.

~~~
lr4444lr
Doesn't drinking distilled water in significant quantities remove important
minerals from your body?

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
No that is a common myth. Food has plenty of minerals etc compared to what you
get via tap water.

[https://www.healthline.com/health/can-you-drink-distilled-
wa...](https://www.healthline.com/health/can-you-drink-distilled-water)

~~~
gorilla_fight
From the very article you linked to:

"Because it doesn’t contain its own minerals, distilled water has a tendency
to pull them from whatever it touches to maintain a balance.

So when you drink distilled water, _it may pull small amounts of minerals from
your body, including from your teeth._"

How does this contradict lr4444lr's claim "drinking distilled water in
significant quantities remove important minerals from your body"?

Are you arguing it is a matter of degree, that while distilled water does
remove minerals from your body, the "myth" is that it is significant?

> Food has plenty of minerals etc compared to what you get via tap water.

How many minerals do you receive from food and how do you know this is
sufficient?

There is research showing a (weak) correlation between hard water (high in
mineral content, as opposed to the low/zero mineral content of distilled
water) and cardiovascular health, eczema, and dermatitis:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896978...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969781800472)
Studies of water quality and cardiovascular disease in the United Kingdom

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393510...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935103000689)
Ecological association of water hardness with prevalence of childhood atopic
dermatitis in a Japanese urban area

[https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(16)30187-7/ful...](https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749\(16\)30187-7/fulltext)
Association between domestic water hardness, chlorine, and atopic dermatitis
risk in early life: A population-based cross-sectional study

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Upon further research I have changed my stance, I had never seen this WHO
report before. It’s old but they recommend not drinking water less than 100
ppm.

[https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientscha...](https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf)

------
shereadsthenews
We really need to switch to a regime under which we first establish the safety
of a compound and then mass-produce it.

------
jorgesborges
I wish there were established means by which institutions and individuals
could admit fault in order to expedite problem solving. So much energy is
wasted trying to conceal blame and responsibility. The problem becomes harder
to tackle because nobody can acknowledge it.

------
Svperstar
I grew up on a military base and we were told on certain days not to drink the
water but on other days it was "fine"

I wonder about the after effects.

------
dlandis
> That was 2016. Since then, the Defense Department has admitted that it
> allowed a firefighting foam to slip into at least 55 drinking water systems
> at military bases around the globe, sometimes for generations.

Where's the list of locations for the 55 systems?

~~~
potiuper
At least 91 per Northeastern University - [https://www.ewg.org/interactive-
maps/2017_pfa/](https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2017_pfa/)

Here's a different one:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-3M-groundwater-
pollu...](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-3M-groundwater-pollution-
problem/)

All public landfills can be added to those maps.

------
Trisell
Once again we see that government doesn’t have regard for doing the best for
its citizens. It’s only regard is doing what is best to keep itself alive.

~~~
skh
How do you eplain all the instances of when government has shown regard for
doing the best for its citizens? Do you apply the same logic you used here for
government on corporations? Instead of focusing on the fact that it was a
government agency in this instance let’s focus on the fact that without proper
oversight bad things can happen. This is true for corporations, individuals,
government agencies, non-profit agencies, and all other organized groups of
people.

~~~
deogeo
> Do you apply the same logic you used here for government on corporations?

Obviously not, since the article says DuPont did the same, but that elicited
no anti-corporate criticism: "While the military has used the chemicals
extensively, it is far from the only entity to do so, and in recent years,
companies like DuPont have come under fire for leaching PFAS into water
systems."

------
post_break
Is this because military bases aren't held to the same standard a house next
door to the base would be?

------
renholder
> _But the military has said it continued to use firefighting foams containing
> the compounds because companies have continued to produce them and the
> E.P.A. doesn’t regulate them._

Isn't the point of capitalism that if 'x' company isn't doing 'y', you can
take your dollars to company 'zed' and drive the market to the desired
result[s]?

They make it sound like no one in the history of ever has produced a
firefighting foam without those chemicals. Erring on the side of caution
(e.g.: if that were truly the case), couldn't they have used their research
arms (e.g.: DARPA) to come-up with an alernative, on their own? After all,
it's been 28 years since the Army Corps of Engineers sent the warning out,
according to the article, yeah?

I find the thought incredulous, at best, that they had _no_ alternative but to
keep using the same foams.

~~~
CptFribble
I think this is the big weakness in our current implementation of
capitalism/market economy. It's supposed to depend on perfect information
about producers and products, but how can the average person know what's in a
firefighting foam, and how it will affect them?

Even if you take the government aspect out of it - consider if your bought
this foam for your own use. How would anyone know what it would do to them and
their family, in time to make an educated decision to avoid poisoning
themselves? Are we supposed to all get a degree in chemistry, build a lab in
the basement, and analyze every product we bring into our homes?

If no one knows it's poison, or if the only ones who know are the producers,
or if the purchaser is separated from whoever gets poisoned (i.e. govt
purchasing personnel -> people drinking the water at the bases), then there's
no incentive for anyone to make an alternate foam, especially if the most
effective/cheapest version is the poisonous one.

A less effective or more expensive foam would be a hard sell when the people
buying are not the people getting poisoned.

Without a requirement to verify that a compound is safe for long-term exposure
before being sold, this is going to keep happening, no matter who is buying or
selling. Unfortunately, you can't say regulation in the USA without getting
shouted down as "anti-capitalist" or worse, "socialist."

------
gumby
Are US military bases overseas doing the same to other countries?

~~~
potiuper
If jet fuel is stored on base, then it is part of the standard fire
suppression operating procedure.
[https://www.afcec.af.mil/WhatWeDo/Environment/Perfluorinated...](https://www.afcec.af.mil/WhatWeDo/Environment/Perfluorinated-
Compounds/) I cannot fault that given the cost of the jets, but if they use
any fire retardants and a good job of cleaning any mess up is not done, then
the users need to be given a stern talking to as everyone will be drinking the
stuff in a few years.

------
joshuathomas096
This is terrible. Why do we treat people that protect our freedoms this way?

~~~
eeZah7Ux
"our"?

------
forgotmypw3
People often seem to think I am being unreasonably paranoid for saying that
you have to look out for yourself and your family when it comes to exposure to
dangerous chemicals, and not just trust the Environmental Pimping Agency (or
your local equivalent) to do it for you...

~~~
hu3
You're not paranoid in the least. My family always went to great lengths to
ensure we never had to drink tap water. Always buying and stocking mineral
water from respectable brands.

In my generation I'm going a bit further and using filters for shower/tap
water. And I plan to test the mineral water brands we consume at least once a
year.

~~~
apta
> And I plan to test the mineral water brands we consume at least once a year.

How do you conduct these tests out of curiosity?

~~~
hu3
Don't know exactly what labs I'll use yet. It depends on where you live.

This is the article that got me interested:
[http://blogs.worldbank.org/water/how-test-water-quality-
chem...](http://blogs.worldbank.org/water/how-test-water-quality-chemical-
tests-limited-budgets)

