Veritasium - 2025-05-14
The biggest chemical cover up in history. PFAS has polluted the entire global water system. Now, potentially dangerous forever chemicals are being found in the entire US population. Go to https://groundnews.com/Ve to get all sides of every story. Subscribe to save 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan through our link. If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV Sign up to the Veritasium newsletter for weekly science updates - https://ve42.co/Newsletter We have a tabletop game launching! Pledge your support now - https://ve42.co/KickStarterD ▀▀▀ 0:00 Killed by Fridges 5:27 Teflon and The Manhattan Project 7:59 Teflon is Tricky 11:37 The Teflon Revolution 13:27 Earl Tennant's Farm 17:34 Inside DuPont 20:28 Fluoride In Drinking Water 25:00 It's bigger than that 29:23 What is PFAS? 35:56 How much PFAS is in Derek’s blood? 37:56 How forever chemicals get into your blood 46:18 Removing PFAS from drinking water 49:30 Can you lower your PFAS levels? ▀▀▀ Thank you so much to everyone who voted for this video to win the people's voice awards for best longform at the 2026 Webby Awards. We couldn't have done it without you. Thank you again for all your support! A huge thank you to Rob Bilott for his time and expertise. Check out his fantastic book: Bilott, R. (2019). Exposure. Simon and Schuster - https://ve42.co/7R Rob's story also inspired the 2019 film: Dark Waters. Thank you to Doctor Mike for giving us a medical perspective on PFAS! Check him out at @DoctorMike Thank you to Henrik Haggeman and the Puraffinity team, as well as Andrew Patterson and Eurofins, for doing the PFAS testing. Thank you to Leslie Hamilton, Johns Hopkins APL, Alex Conrad, Imperial College London, Jana Avgustini, and Matija Krvavica for their help on the project. ▀▀▀ PFAS Tools: PFAS Blood Test - https://ve42.co/PFASTest What's My Exposure? via www-pfas.pfas-exchange.org - https://ve42.co/myexposure Serum PFAS Calculator via ics.uci.edu - https://ve42.co/pfascalculator Interactive Map: PFAS Contamination Crisis via www.ewg.org - https://ve42.co/pfasmapinteractive The Map of Forever Pollution via foreverpollution.eu - https://ve42.co/foreverpollutionmap Australian PFAS Chemicals Map via pfas.australianmap.net - https://ve42.co/australianpfasmap ▀▀▀ References: References can be found here - https://ve42.co/PFASReferences Images & Video: Image and video references can be found here - https://ve42.co/PFASVisuals 3D Models: "Low Poly Base Mesh-530 Tri" (https://skfb.ly/onsxE) by Huge_Man "Blood Vessel" (https://skfb.ly/owHJX) by IMU University “Generic Factory” (https://skfb.ly/onQpR) by assetfactory "Lowpoly People + Waldo" (https://skfb.ly/6zqCE) by Loïc Norgeot PFOA Molecule via PubChem - https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Perfluorooctanoic-acid ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, iRick, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Sam Lutfi, Samuel White, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee ▀▀▀ Writers: Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Producer & Director: Gregor Čavlović Editors: Peter Nelson & Jack Saxon Camera Operators: Tas Underwood, Emilia Gyles, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller Animators: Andrew Neet, Emma Wright & Fabio Albertelli Illustrators: Caine Esperanza, Jakub Misiek & Maria Gusakovich Assistant Editor: James Stuart Additional Editor: James Horsley Researchers: Geeta Thakur, Darius Garewal, Gabe Strong & Emilia Gyles Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley & Ben Powell Production Team: Rob Beasley Spence, Tori Brittain, Casper Mebius, Sulli Yost & Matthew Cavanagh Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Zoe Heron Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5. Music from Epidemic Sound
The Unholy Trinity of Companies:
1. Nestlé
2. DuPont
3. Shell
Dole is also HORRIBLE
And two of three of these companies were located in Fulton, NY
What about shell tho ? What did they do
I have never heard of this company
Edit : so many people saying I am ignorant, I live in asia how tf am i supposed to know about shell, do you guys know about reliance ? No right, now tell me how do you not know about reliance ? It's a crime. Smh
how tf is a person supposed to know about each and every single multimillion corporation, shell doesn't sell anything in my country so just stfu
@angelicasysnila5476 Shell is an oil company. Oil industry practices are uh.. problematic
Pfizer
Zero accountability for corporate US.
They got congress in their pocket. Nothing will be done. That’s a guarantee.
Capitalism over Life.
Wait what???! You mean in every tv show, movie, book, the CEO is the bad guy and the Corporation is evil. Almost like we know but just don’t care. Because jobs and money! Merica! We need jobs!!!! That’s you that’s what you sound like when voting for people that could stop this.
What gave it away
Corporate US has always owned the US. No such thing as accountability when you own the ppl meant to hold ppl accountable. Nothing will change until the sheeple actually take a stand
grandparents being filled with asbestos, parents filled with lead, me filled with microplastics. all filled with c8
boy do I love the industrial society traditions!
Let's turn the clock back 200 years. We existed for millennia without all this tech crap.
Whats next what will our kids be filled with
@Space.Ghost. No thanks, I like my tech and my human rights
@spinach-dip00 did I F'n say anything about policy? 🤡 I like my genetics undegraded and my everything to not contain toxic chemicals.
My grandfather was a chemist. He used to tell me in the 80s never cook with anything that is non-stick and never microwave anything plastic. That was 40 years ago.
I still have a Teflon pan! Why are they still selling them?
@HandmaidenUK because you are being lied to by your own government. And the government is being lied to by the companies that produce these chemicals. Both are aware, but they are in too deep.
In my country, there is 1 plant who contaminated much of the surrounding. Everyone just ignores the problem, since once they start enforcing, half of the farmers in the country will need to shut down their business.
I thought it was just general gen x hippie attitudes which caused my dad to also say these things. I honestly dont know if he ever owned a Teflon pan...
seems like using a Teflon pan won't hurt if you don't overheat or scratch it.
@jj-jak Useless risk to take spend a little more and get a proper stainless pan
when a video starts off with "for legal reasons" you know its going to be a banger
It didn't start off with "for legal reasons" at all, it started off with "In 1929 in chicago" you tweakin
@CarmeloRagusa-w7twhat bro🤣🤣 you so fuckin tough😂😂
@CarmeloRagusa-w7t whats cowardly about covering your ass?
Video gets deleted if that disclaimer isn't there.
Then immediately mentions DuPont, nothing good coming after that lmao
The fact that disclaimer is even needed at the start speaks volumes about DuPont and 3M.
dupont entrepreneur got a lot to explain fr
Also the Trump admin, they overturned regulations on PFAS, and they send people to concentration camps
Dupont is probably the worst company in the world.
DuPont approach works every time!
@dabadcod4 Smith and Wesson, General Dynamics, basically every company Blackrock has more than a 4% share in.......
"Oops" - The last surviving human, holding all the money
Exactly, they’re drinking the same water they are knowingly poisoning.
@tdawgt5866 no, they are not. They have their own water and food.
@DarkOps2442exactly. They have the safest and best of everything while the rest of us slowly die off. I turned 61 yesterday but some days I feel like I’m 100. I’m just glad I didn’t have children because I would have lost my mind with worrying about them.
@tdawgt5866do some research before you post something so stupid as this.
@DarkOps2442 Exactly, world contamination and polution is not their problem, it's YOUR problem. They have the freshest spring water and best meat from most natural feed animals. Meat for me, but bugz for ze.
In 30 years, there will be another hour long video about how harmful AI data centers were for us and our planet
Or more likely soil contamination from solar panels on farm land.
@HarryVerey extraordinary claim. It also only took me about 20 seconds on google to learn just how untrue it is! You should do the same.
Ground contamination from solar panels more harmful than smoke spewing data centres that leave the local water they dont use undrinkable?
Thats funny, tell another!
@HarryVerey bro what?
Who told solar panels contaminate soil?
@HarryVerey bro what?
Who told you solar panels contaminate soil?
@shabberto You should check pictures of solar arrays after hurricanes and severe storms.
"Hey you know that time Dupont created a chemical that poisoned the entire earth and killed millions?"
"No not that time"
"No not that one either"
"Nope not that time also"
Is that supposed to be funny or do u have a warped sense of humor
@shirleyandrews1152? How else can they casually say that they're notorious for that? What are you talking about
@shirleyandrews1152You are asking the same question
@shirleyandrews1152 It is funny.
My accountant called, said profits lookin' grand, somethin' 'bout "waste disposal plan"
He winked and chuckled, patted on my back, said "Sometimes, you gotta cut a little slack!"
My lawyer smilin', lookin' awfully smug, said "Deny everything, just give a shrug!"
it should be " you can't use this substance until it is proven safe "
not " we can use this substance until it is proven dangerous "
How can you proove something is safe ?
@jorah5626 you test - on rats for example - if they get cancer (and other issues), it's not safe
@jorah5626 doesn’t actually matter if you can prove safety. It’s not acceptable to pollute the planet until the end of time so we can have it easier. These people have killed millions, potentially billions as time goes on.
@ctsean Rats are not human beings, you cannot determine if something is safe or not solely based on rats 🤦🏻♀️
They just fake the results. Look at the glyphosphate testing that was accepted to prove safety. They said they proved it doesn't pass through the skin and to prove that they got a bit of skin from a cadaver, lacquered it, baked it, lacquered it, and baked it and then sprayed glyphosphate on it. It didn't go through! Pity that it easily passes through unbaked and unpainted skin easily.
From 1999-2003 I worked for a furniture store and sprayed hundreds of furniture units per week with Scotchgard from 3M containing PFAS forever chemicals, some people also occasionally sprayed co-workers with the chemical as a joke I was sprayed dozens of times with the chemical. In 2002 we were told that our company was discontinuing use of scotchgard and switching to stainsafe brand spray, we were like - "wait this stuff isn't safe?!" In 2006 I was 27 years old and diagnosed with IGA nephopathy the doctors never could figure out why my kidney's were failing at such a young age. In 2007 I had to start dialysis and in 2009 I received a kidney transplant and I am doing good now. I wonder if PFAS caused my kidney failure. UPDATE: I'm shocked at how much attention this comment got! Just want to clarify a couple things. We were told the spray was "just like a glue mist" and safe if it got on us. we were given no PPE, and the spray area was not in a well ventilated area, also the pump sprayer would frequently clog and hoses would spring leaks which would spray us with the chemical- again management told us it was safe when we questioned it. We did question it from time to time and our employer did have a OSHA materials handling book, I cannot remember exactly what it said about the scotchgard chemical- being this was over 20 years ago. I myself never sprayed anyone with it, but because we were told it was safe beyond telling people to stop it I didn't think it was extremely dangerous - it was 1999. My old employer went out of business in 2015 so I don't think I would have any recourse there. I'm not really lookin for recourse at this point. I am going to talk to my doctor and have a toxicology work up done. I did some more research after watching this and found a 2022 National Institutes of Health study that found PFAS in blood plasma associated with higher rates of IgA nephropathy and other glomerular diseases. Being that I had no family history of autoimmune or kidney disease, and that I had heavy, unprotected exposure to Scotchgard chemicals containing PFOS/PFOA during a critical 3–4 year period, before the chemical was pulled from the market in 2002 due to toxicity concerns, I am leaning towards it being highly likely that this was the cause of my end-stage renal disease which was diagnosed within 3 years. I am looking forward to doing the toxicology blood work. At least I have an idea what most likely caused my kidney failure, for decades I did not know. Thanks Veritasium for putting this information out there.
Wow this actually made my jaw drop. I sure am glad you got a transplant
That's fucked, did you try to claim liability from your past employer or no?
I had shingles in my eye and it caused some nerve damage.
Olfactory senses changed.
I was spraying that stuff on furniture for a job and halfway thru the day my nerves were fried and I was I stopped doing it and went home.
Told the boss it's toxic and I couldn't handle it.
Unreal.
Does an adult really need someone to tell them that spraying any chemical on other people as a joke is a moronic idea? We live in Idiocracy.
100% associated dude
I wanted non stick pans, got ball cancer insted.
exactly
Chance of actually getting it is just so low though.
Hope your joking
14:08 "Do you have a good attorney" is probably the last thing I'd ever want an expert in any field to ask me when I'm inquiring about something strange
Yeah, it always means the news is bad, and the solution is going to be painful, hard to make happen.
@Targe0if the government or a large corporation involved it can take decades and swarms of lawyers if it happens at all. U gotta have evidence that also can't be interpreted in any one but one. Were getting slowly better about chemicals released but most of the worst stuff just released elsewhere, hopefully the environment adapts.
Insane
'Have you prepared your will?' would probably be worse.
@XdivineExp That would legally constitute a "threat" xD
A 1 hour video about a chemical that keeps you engaged the whole time is a masterpiece in my eyes. Congrats to Derek and everyone else at Veritasium
Call Veritasium the anti-teflon the way they make you stick around
i did not even notice until you pointed it out!
There's also a movie about it, called Dark Waters. You'll enjoy it too
Osmosis Jones 😏
And how many ad breaks?
What is most crazy, is this has been known for decades....and Dupont, having poisoned the planet, is still happily in business.
That's capitalism and greed for ya
It's the case for most polluants and dangerous products. Cigarettes, leaded gasoline, flame retardants, plenty of processed foods, pesticides, etc... Every company manufacturing those knew they were harmful well before anyone else and continued they business as if they didn't know until they had legal obligations to do something.
Money buys power
@troubl3gum they will realize when everyone is dieing of poison even their own family
@RudeMcRude do you think the communists treated the environment any better? There's scummy people everywhere in the world, regardless of the political environment.
I live in Syria, a country that has been in conflict for decades, most recently a civil war that began in 2011. I try to imagine the amount of pollution and disease spreading in my country, in the absence of any organization or individual conducting any research on the matter. What a life!
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's legacy.
I've followed the news in syria since 2011, so much hope and so much regret seeing how it all went. On top of enduring, i hadn't considered that, not only the macro environmental effects but the lack of control/ monitoring the microscopic environmental and the effects on humans.
@switz008I think that watching the news has a detrimental impact on everything as the media have gained notoriety for being liars (environmental impact studies notwithstanding).
The general policy for everything new should be "contained until proven safe", not "dumped freely until proven unsafe".
The EU tries to do that and it's a success of the Greens.
The only chance we have to keep society in check is to use sortition. This would be true democracy.
You can never truly predict long term problems. But still when it does become known production should be stopped immediately, and not like this, ignored and covered up.
@AndreasDelleske Yeah. Democracy would be nice for a change really😇😄
@Flaggyt You can't predict them. But you can run test and find out something will cause long term problems. But our society is extremely shortsighted and very easily get lost in inmediate benefit, ignoring long term consecuenses.
Secure
Contain
Protect
Sweet, a 1 hour Veritasium video!
grabs popcorn
edit:
spits out popcorn
Popcorn... you're poisoining yourself, dear!
@alkante2962only if it's microwave popcorn. Regular popcorn exists.
Was the popcorn made in teflon or Microwave ? Ohhh Dear call 911
😂😂😂 under rated comment.
I immediately binned all my microwave popcorn, which I quite enjoyed, but I wish to live a bit longer so back to home made popcorn.
Andre Herring Art is cool
Nothing should ever be dumped in a river. Nothing. We don't care about your company, your product, or your profits.
I’ve taken a few dumps in the river. Never hurt anything
"We don;t care for your product", speak for yourself there. Teflon is one of the most vital materials in modern civilization. If you don't want to use it you are free to live like they did in the middle ages (because most infrastructure like sewage systems and water lines now use Teflon they gets disqualified), but than you have to remember how sewage was dealt with back then.
This!
Just because we can use Teflon everywhere doesn’t mean we should. People might miss their nonstick pans, Teflon tape, and Gore-Tex, but it won’t set civilization back to require non-toxic alternatives.
@QuixoticCowboysybau
A French company, St. Gobain, came to Merrimack NH and poisoned the river and everyone's wells with PFAS, mine included, and then packed up and moved away. I don't know how much PFAS we ingested over the years. After many years of litigation and testing, denials and admissions, we now have a HUGE carbon filtration system installed and maintained by them in our basement, as does most everyone around here.
*puts popcorn back into the pantry
Yooo wsp steven
Love your skits
bro is doing phd here
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE
Good mornin mr president of beijing corn
Can we all agree that the CEOs and board members of DuPont that said “no economically satisfactory alternative can be found” should be forced to exclusively drink the wastewater from their facilities?
Actually I think as a general rule, all CEO and board members of every company should be required to drink a gallon of wastewater from their dirtiest facility every month. I think you’d be stunned just how clean that water will get! 😂
Everybody is guilty because we waste too much ! The problem is knownnsince the sixties. Marketing !
@jpcaretta8847 The factories and coal-burning plants. These produce orders of magnitude more waste and pollution than any one person could on their own. A person wearing a PFAS jacket can contaminate each body of water they visit, but a factory producing PFAS can contaminate every body of water before it is even discovered by hikers.
That's not good enough. People dying because of your product is Gross Incompetence and Manslaughter.
@daviddavis4885 I'd be the first to volunteer. My plant's effluent is far cleaner than our mains water and we track both 24/7. Any other practice rightly invites suspicion.
The only problem is that if the antidote or treatment for the poison costs $1,000,000, it's still in the CEOs financial best interest to pollute the water, drink from it, and get treated afterward. Actually, I'm sure the company would pay for the medical treatment no matter the cost to make the water appear safe.
Alien archeologists 50 milion years from now:
"What's this weird layer of chemicals in the rocks?"
"Ancient aliens"
“Earth was infected for a brief period of time by a species called human.”
It's more like "stupid aliens."
There's already a detectable layer in the ground from all those cool firecrackers we set off in the 50s and 60s.
Good. Right? If the future archeologists are also a species born in this planet, that "should" help them avoiding our own mistakes.
If we over anthropologize things: perhaps geology is a way every gravitational well that can sustain life has to allow the complex life they produce to endure the errors caused by their earlier "attempts" at complexity...
And wtf is this? a story of how PFAS has finally propagated beyond our galaxy?
Oh, that makes sense now. My grandfather had 15 siblings and they all died before 75 years of age with the majority of them dead before 70. All lived in Parkersburg except for him and he's still alive because he moved out of Parkersburg in the late 60s to work at Lordstown.
1:44 The fact that courts would sooner prosecute Veritasium for "defamation" than prosecute these companies proves that we shouldn't be asking for justice. We should be forcing it. Jail time would be too lenient.
The thing is that police and the justice system is there to protect the 0,1% hyper rich criminal parasite class FROM USS !!!
The solution, Angry Person, is to fix the broken and corrupt justice system.
Unfortunately, the US doesn’t jail executives they only fine the company.
Defamation is civil matter and it is Dupont that would file suit against him, not the government.
Unless you live in clown world like New York, where the AG sues political enemies for civil torts where the alleged victim says they are not a victim.
If the courts won’t…. Somebody has too. We have too. Stand United, and love each other. Together evil can have no footing
As an environmental engineer currently designing and implementing systems to remove PFAS from our water sources, I truly thank you for bringing awareness to this issue. I have sent this to all my family and friends and suggest others do the same. If we cannot trust chemical corporations to manufacture their products responsibly, or trust our regulators to protect the nation's health, it falls to us, collectively, to demand change.
Thank you for all of the work you do ! You are truly making an impact in this world 😭❤️
Best of luck designing a PFAS removal system! This will be a critical technology in the near future.
Not all heroes wear capes
I have been singing this song since the movie Dark Waters came out in 2019.
Thank you for attacking the neutralization of the compound. We all know that filtration is not the answer and just contributes to the problem with a disposable medium.
As a lawyer, I can confirm there’s no way that WV farmer paid that attorney enough to read 60,000 documents. That attorney is a hero.
Pretty sure he got paid well enough after they won the case lol
That lawyer probably did the Mr. Incredible deep dive meme.
Hmmph.-- a Legal Couselor w/ a conscience.
That’s where pro-bono work comes in.
It's highly likely the Attorney was a fellow Neuro-Divergent. When we become obsessed with something, we become obsessed.... lol. If I got that buzz and then was dumped with that much paperwork, I too would be buzzing and wondering what they were hiding.
I would have also gone through every page, and even rechecked some pages a few time to verify.
Not crazy, just amazing minds who love details and get exited about seemingly impossible challenges.
Serious health concerns are spreading across areas hosting U.S. military bases, such as Okinawa, Tokyo, and Hiroshima, where blood tests have revealed extremely high levels of PFAS in residents—reaching as much as 110 times the safety standard.
The primary obstacle to addressing this contamination is the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Under this agreement, Japanese domestic laws do not apply within U.S. bases, and the Japanese government lacks the legal right to conduct on-site inspections. Even under the Environmental Supplementary Agreement signed in 2015, access to bases requires consent from the U.S. side, and in practice, such access is restricted to limited circumstances, such as "large-scale spill accidents
That is a serious problem
of course
As a chemist it never ceases to amaze me at how we continually find new, more creative ways to slowly poison ourselves. And the kicker is that these companies defer responsibility onto the public and private research groups so now instead of being forced to solve the problem themselves, they have millions of dollars in federal spending being sent to groups that could spend their time focusing on other topics. It’s the same fiasco with recycling and it’s maddening
For real. Why aren't they required to prove that their chemical disposal is safe, even if it takes 5 decades to prove? This reminds of the quote, "Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence".
And it gets easier now for the companies to get away with the EPA being gutted.
@fsnow55 Its so awful and all for the profit of the 1% wealthy and powerful that run these companies, and for their shareholders at the expense of the average person and consumer. Its beyond greed, its insane!!
I am not sure we can ask the company responsible to come up with a solution we could trust, if we dont already have any basis for trust..even if the company did make some solution the lack of trust would necessitate 3rd party validation anyway and as such the cost to the public is incurred anyway.
@hyperdrift-360 Back in the 50s/60s chemical manufacturing in Niagara Falls, NY shoveled their toxic waste into pits behind the plant. The only stopped when a new highway was built which overlooked them.
At that point, they just buried it at another location and then gave the land to the city to become a school.
Profit over all else.
I love that you got an interview with Robert himself! I don’t know of any other lawyer who has done something as important and impactful as he has. Without him bringing the toxicity of the chemicals to life who knows how high the world wide contamination levels would be right now.
@JasonMayshack chromium
I highly recommend the movie Dark Waters (2019) with Mark Ruffalo as Robert.
Hero without cape.
@NonZenze I just watched that movie about 2 weeks ago. Such a good movie.
Micro plastic is probably worse.
Videos addressing public health are necessary especially now. Thanks for making it.
"Especially now." Exactly. People complain about the EPA and government regulations but those are the only things stopping commerce from poisoning all of us. Corporations can never be trusted to do the right thing if it adversely affects their bottom line and it nearly always does.
@jameshisself9324 That is capitalism for you. Everything for the shareholders. The shareholders don't know the details and the ones that know the details don't make the decisions.
Sad you only care when your TDS is activated.
@jameshisself9324 Americans DO NOT CARE...we are a nation of gullible fools
@jameshisself9324it blows my mind how many people are so deeply averse to regulations and watchdog government agencies. They are accountable to the public, have to be transparent and make their information publicly available, and are massively underfunded. I suppose it’s the decades of intense propaganda and lobbying by these companies, but the fact that people actually trust private companies that are only accountable to their shareholders no matter how many people are harmed, over public service employees is insane
My Grandma would tell my mom and especially when she was younger to never use teflon pans and I always would complain when I tried to cook with regular pans and told my mom why we don’t have the non stick pans and well my mom told me that Grandma would never have a teflon pan because she knew something was not right with the pan and it would smell weird when she first got one. Then around when the company got exposed my Grandma was absolutely right and my mom told me that the non stick pans have chemicals in them that can give you cancer. So I’m thankful from a very young age that my mom knew that nonstick pans were not safe to cook with just because of my Grandma not trusting how the non stick pans cooked with food.
Derek just casually dropping a horror movie
Except the horror doesn't stop when the video ends
And we're all living in it with no hope of escape.@gonun69
There’s actually a really good movie made about this particular subject that feels like horror movie called Dark Waters
The love story between corporate chemical companies and the US gov shielding their criminal behaviors runs deeper than this. The EPA largely exists to protect these companies from endless law suits.
Ok, let's don't speak about dioxins or acetone
" Dark Waters" is the massive movie with mark ruffalo that was released from the perspective of the lawyer who went after DuPont. Amazing watch
A very good movie indeed. Mark Ruffalo shines!
Wow! Thank you! 👍
I liked the old cartoons pirates of dark water, but I don't really see how the grufallo would fit in I am totally watching this!
@AmirArmada It just being on pots and pans is relatively fine unless every pan youre eating off of every day is majorly scratched up. Probably get indigestion or something.
In the case of Dupont and 3M, they were letting factory runoff get dumped straight into the surrounding environment, incouding the water supply. Honestly, even a food manufacturing company could prompt that sort of disaster if theyre regularly dumping toxic machine oils and etc. off straight to drinking pipes.
Companies that fail at envirnmental standards with these stunts can still have relatively safe consumer grade priducts, its just deadly for anyone living near or downstream the factory.
*video mentions relatively safety in consumer products near the end. Teflon itself is pretty safe, PFAS stuff on the other hand, you ideally dont want to eat those. So raincoats are pretty safe since you dont eat them, but you probably shouldnt be leaving food directly in them and warming it. We'd need pretty serious water purification plants to fix the water issue though.
@Meerkat628 I’d rather not have forever chemicals anywhere near my food and they put it on pot and pans…the level of greed is off the charts, they are bound to get scratched they are kitchen utensils
A video about how DuPont poisoned the planet, interrupted by an ad for DuPont's new revolutionary surface that will last for eons. The universe has a sense of humor.
Just saw your comment, yesterday I posted mine... in my case, it was an Ad break by Tefal. It took me a while to realise it was an Ad break, not part of the documentary!
😂
It will outlast you!
God... not "the universe": God ❤
@mtapabon god has a sense of humor? is that why he lets people starve and suffer on "his creation"?
This why regulations exist. Companies will take any and all short cuts for profit
>Sees title,
“oh this is gonna be good”
>grabs popcorn
….
>popcorn
“Uh oh”
Huh
Well yeah i see now :( im boutta pull my eyes out
@paladinkhanyou gotta watch the vid to understand
@paladinkhanmicrowaved popcorn is brought up in this video as a traceable source, while data still needs to be collected and processed, microwave popcorn is near the top of the list.
It’s mentioned several times in this video.
just make them in pan and they are much batter
I wonder if that applies to pressure cooker popcorn as well?
I live in Dordrecht, The Netherlands next to the DuPont factory, it is now rebranded to Chemours to make it harder for lawsuits to stick. A few years ago we got told it isnt safe to swim in the water in our city, which everybody has been doing for over 60 years! DuPont has known this wasn't safe for decades. The higher ups in these companies are the biggest criminals in the world!
CHEMOURS, JE KANKERMOEDER❤
How do you say “Luigi” in Dutch? 🤔
@RC-qf3mpPretty sure it would just be “Luigi” but I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down…
It's not just rebranded to Chemours, that's the shell corporation to dodge liability.
As someone who had a kanker moeder, likely because of Chemours, this is the only acceptable use of the term
Chemours de moeder van kanker
there is an EU proposal for a ban of PFAS chemicals, but pressure from companies are strongly pushing for an incomplete prohibition which is frustrating! The timing of this was great. Did not feel like an hour
Yep Problem is that so much relys on these chemicals now that it's not easy to change.
There arent any good alternatives that are proofen to work as required - that will take another decade..
Well sometimes perfect is enemy of good.
Ban it from cooking and drinking water related stuff and make it expensive in most other stuff.
@SorbusAucubaria All we have to do is ban it from being used in food containers, but teflon cookware is still fine. Also regulate the companies that dump their sewage into public water, this is the real issue, the dumping of wastewater and dumping of chemicals into landfill instead of responsibly disposing of them.
Wasn't it banned in 2021? with only products containing them where they are irreplaceable
Ban PFAS , but let the migrants pour in! You have to watch out for the "trucks of peace" plowing through streets, but hey, at least there's no non-stick pans anymore...
Corporate greed will destroy world
the fact that this started being used around the 40s/50s and its JUST NOW getting the attention for being toxic is so alarming. these companies really just get away with whatever, huh?
not whatever: forever
Many of us knew about fluoride and avoided it like the plague that it is. When so many people stopped thinking and researching for themselves, and settled for being spoonfed by money loving corporations, governments, media moguls, and other world leaders through "tell a vision" society started picking up speed toward annihilation.
I agree with you that these companies can get away with anything but this has been news since like the early 2000’s…
@markzepp481so you never heard about the lady who killed all her pet birds in the 70s from Teflon in the cooking pans?
Makes you wonder whalt else is out there that we currently dont know about and is slowly killing/poisoning us
So basically, it boils down to:
1) invent a chemical you know is poisonous
2) drop it everywhere
3) pretend it’s not toxic/you don’t know/I don’t know/whatever excuses
4) let it cook and be studied by the general public
5) have the same conclusion that it’s poisonous
6) tweak and repeat.
Oh, and make a profit from that fraud, ofc.
Edit: +wonder why general public doesn’t trust corporate science anymore.
Its worth pointing out that it is not clear that PFAS chemicals are specifically harmful. Even in this video there is a lot of talk about how they are everywhere but nothing about millions of people getting sick from them.
capitalism
@jeff-u3x7r It was clearly said. What are you talking about?
@jeff-u3x7r base on what i see, and the video show... it is clear that they are harmful, just not how much.
@jeff-u3x7r bro missed out on the bit where its caused health problems and increased risks of cancer 💀
Here in Belgium, there was a big PFAS pollution incident. 3M in Zwijndrecht contaminated the entire neighbourhood. So, if you live close to that, get yourself tested.
Hey, as a firefighter I want you to know that I really appreciate the work you put into this. We’ve recently discovered that we’ve been lied to or at least misled by chemical companies for decades about the PFAS in our protective gear. We are all fighting for regulations and research into protective clothing that does not contain PFAS but it’s been an incredible struggle.
As for foam, thankfully the foam used by most municipal fire departments does not contain PFAS and has not for years. The foam we use for house fires and other natural material fires (wood, vegetation, etc) is PFAS free and has been for many years. But the foam used by airports, fuel tank farms, industrial fire companies, etc is heavily PFAS based. Basically anything used for fighting large liquid fuel fires. Some places used to use PFAS foams for things like car fires, but my department and many, many others have stopped using this “Class B” foam simply due to the PFAS risk.
If anyone feels like helping please write your legislators and tell them that finding alternative materials to protect firefighters and alternative materials to make foam for large fuel fires is absolutely critical and should never be considered a partisan issue. It’s ridiculous to me that removing substances that have contaminated literally everything on earth can be a political issue, yet here we are.
Really appreciate you sharing this - hearing directly from firefighters adds so much weight to the conversation. The PFAS issue is disturbing, and it's wild that finding safer alternatives is still such an uphill battle. Thanks for speaking out and helping push this forward.
And we vote for people who want to continue to deregulate corporations.. You know, because money is more important than people, that's their philosophy
This comment should be pinned by the channel.
Public pressure is required when the system is in complete denial and that denial endangers everyone on the planet.
Veritasium, please pin this comment.
What about the foam used for electric car battery fires? Is that the same as the airport stuff?
What about the foam used in the Palisades fire?
Imagine spending your entire life dedicated to saving your cows and there’s just some big billionaire trying to hide that it’s their fault not only poisoning cows but everyone else. Wow my trust is non existent now
You had trust in this government?
why do you think the gov sent all our factories to china? they dont have any environmental protections at all. and they then give massive kickbacks to the politicians to keep it all legal. china now is contaminating the entire world and oceans with more toxic chemicals than the US ever did.
Companies routinely do shitty things and only stop when either people or the government step in to fight them. So I was 0% surprised that it took this long.
@ST1TCHM0UTH 😂
you trusted billionaires, corporations, and world governments before this video? oh my sweet summer child you have a lot of history and current events to learn about
The dedication of that lawyer who went through all those thousands of documents is absolutely insane. We really need more people like that in the world.
I'd gladly do that at $250 an hour.....matter of fact, I'd read them over once more to make sure I got it right.
Document review is one reason lawsuits can cost so much money. A trained human needs to review all these documents, even if it's not an attorney, and that costs a ton of money.
True, now the lawyers just have to demand that the factories stop dumping the chemicals into the watershed.
now to think if had died for whatever reason midway or after, chance are all of stiff would have been still covered up
Нужно больше таких людей? Так станьте сами)
This is still happening with a very popular brand endorsed by top television chefs, one specifically. Something Clad is the brand.
I work in the field of refrigeration and let me tell you this: The PFAS problem will only become worse. The chemical industry is pushing synthetic refrigerants and trying its best to delay any regulatory legislation or the mass adoption of environmentally save, natural refrigerants like CO2. Virtually every car build for the European market since 2015 is using R1234yf - a synthetic refrigerant which eventually degrades into TFA (trifluoroacetic acid), once it leaks into the atmosphere (no A/C system is 100% leak tight!). When TFA is washed out of the atmosphere by rain and mixes with groundwater, no natural process will ever get it out again and it will slowly accumulate in the food-chain. In first studies, TFA has shown to have harmful impacts on human and mammal health (damagin fertility, liver-toxicity, harmful impact on embryos) European public health will see the effects first and they will be *non-reversible*. In the end, thousands of people will get sick or even die from this... silently, without public outrage, because it will be burried in statistics.
The US still has a small chance to steer the boat in the right direction. Most American cars use the refrigerant R134a. It is nowhere near as bad as R1234yf in terms of TFA. But being a strong greenhouse gas (1400 times worse than CO2), it will most likely be replaced at some point - hopefully with a natural refrigerant. But frankly, I doubt it... most people neither know, nor care what type of refrigerant is in their car's or home's A/C. And if I have learned one thing, following this topic for almost 20 years... the immorality and corporate greed of the chemical industry knows no bounds. Same goes for politicians... saving a few thousand jobs in the chemical industry within their term carries a greater weight than protecting the health of future generations.
yiekes!
Thats shocking, what about cars before 2015. Are they dangerous to use AC?
@leeross8648 No, at least not as dangerous in terms of the above described TFA problem. Cars homologated in EU before 2015 mostly use R134a, a hydrofluorocarbon, which is still the most common refrigerant in vehicles worldwide. It was replaced when EU legislation limited how much global warming potential (GWP) a refrigerant was allowed to have. While it was, from an enviromental point of view, the right call to replace it, they replaced it with a class of refrigerant that (as we now know) slowly and steadily poisons the planet forever. If you know the history of refrigerants, this is isn't the first time something like this happens. But unlike the hole in the ozone layer, TFA in our water won't magically go away.
@kqsqI just don’t understand the logic behind how the EU bans something, the replacement is worse and the EU says “eh you tried!” and just shrugs?
If this stuff is horrifying, EU should be up and arms about it too no?
This lawyer is a hero. He takes his job very seriously but also uses it for other’s safety!
I wonder how long it took him to sift through all of those documents. Surely he had help?
🙏🏻🖤
@veritasium - 2025-05-14
Go to https://groundnews.com/Ve to see through media misconceptions and get all sides of every story. Subscribe to save 40% off the unlimited Vantage Plan access through our link.
@sankhajitdas2848 - 2025-05-14
okkkkkkkkkkkk
@ashukun - 2025-05-14
7 hrs???
@vizender - 2025-05-14
I love the new schedule for videos
@emmanueladeleye6479 - 2025-05-14
WAZZZUHHHHH
@ChaosEnginegGTA - 2025-05-14
Came early today