Week 3- Forever Chemicals, Forever a Problem
Hi friends!
It’s been another busy but productive week as I continue to dive deeper into my PFAS project. Here’s a quick update on what I’ve been working on this past week.
First things first, I’ve had the chance to meet with my site advisor, Dr. Karanikola. During our meeting, we went over everything I’ve been working on so far and discussed the next steps, including when I can make my on-site visit to the University of Arizona. Dr. Karanikola will be talking with her team to figure out the best time for my visit, so I’m looking forward to hearing more soon. I will have to keep things a bit vague once I enter the lab space as the team is currently in the process of filing for patents, but I will try to share as much as I can about the exciting reusable PFAS sponge project I’ll be working on!
Did you know that Arizona has 538 zip codes, distributed across 15 counties? This was something that I found quite shocking because I’ve always thought that Arizona was pretty small. I guess I never really realized the extent of its expanse until I put it into perspective…But anyway! Each of these zip codes is served by various water sources, making it essential to understand where the water comes from to track how PFAS contamination is distributed among these various communities. Over the past week, I’ve continued working on my data collection and identifying which zip codes the water sources that I’ve highlighted serve. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but things are coming together, and I can see how all of these steps are laying the groundwork for the rest of my project. I’ll keep you all posted as things progress!
That’s all for now, but I’ll be back soon with more updates!!
Now for this week’s Not-so Fun Fact: The toxicity of PFAS was not published until the late 1990s, despite being commercially produced since the 1940s. Although companies knew PFAS was “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested” by 1970, they chose to cover up unfavorable research and distort public discourse on the issue (Gaber et al., 2023). This suppression of scientific findings has led to a delay in the progression of PFAS research as major PFAS research only began in the late 1990s to early 2000s (Interstate Technology Regulatory Council, n.d.)
If you want to read these articles, here’s the link!
Gaber, N., Bero, L., & Woodruff, T. J. (2023). The Devil They Knew: Chemical Documents Analysis of Industry Influence on PFAS Science. Annals of Global Health, 89(1), 37. https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.4013.
Interstate Technology Regulatory Council (n.d.). History and Use of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Found in the Environment. Interstate Technology Regulatory Council. https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/history_and_use_508_2020Aug_Final.pdf.
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