PFAS: The Forever Chemical Crisis in Your Water, Clothes, Cookware & Blood

0:03Darin Olien:Welcome to Super Life with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world. Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all. Get ready to start living your super life.

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2:42shows up in your clothing, in your carpets, in your bedding, and your children and your pets. We're talking about PFAS, yes? We're talking about PFAS again because you need to know this. It is a silent, dangerous compound that there's still rolling back regulations. So what do we do with rolling back regulations? We put pressure on them, but most importantly, we take steps ourselves. We don't want forever chemicals in our body. And this episode, I've talked about it in my Fatal Convenience book. I've talked about it in other episodes. If you want to check out my old episode with Dr. Chris Hansen, we dive deep on the history of them 3M testing, knowing about the dangers of PFAS.

3:29And today I'm sparked because my assistant is from this area and it's a growing issue in northwest georgia it was sparked by and i'll have the show in the link in the show notes by a frontline investigation called contaminated the carpet industry's toxic legacy it's out on youtube you can check it out and what it uncovers is a regional issue now i'm going to talk about a bunch of things here that is not just this area it's throughout the country virtually throughout the world 99 of us have it in our blood we just don't want to continue to accumulate this stuff in our blood so we need to know about it and we still can buy many many many things that have dangerous amounts of this forever chemical pfos pfoas there's thousands of different kinds of this stuff.

4:30But this frontline investigation just got me completely furious because of this carpet industry. The documentary centers around Northwest Georgia, particularly this city called Dalton, known as the capital of the carpet world. It is the carpet capital of the world, they say. For decades, a carpet manufactures and employs a lot of people. That's also important for employment, but not if it's dangerous. They have been given PFAS-based stain-resistant coatings. You can see why. Hey, you spill something on your carpet and it's stain-resistant. Cool, right? Not if it has a cost to you, your children, the workers, everything else.

5:22Well, PFAS is really good at its job. It repels water, it's resistant to oil, grease, stains, and in many cases, heat and sticking and all of that stuff in wrappers, containers, all of that stuff. Clothing, wrinkle resistant, water resistant, you name it. And quite largely, it is a miracle product. But in many things that we do in our culture, we push it out there and we don't do the proper testing. Or if we do, we don't tell anyone about it. Well, I'm telling you about it. This is real. This is important. And you need to know. PFAS does not break down. Let me share that again. PFAS currently does not break down.

6:10Now, there is some studies. I'm going to relay to you later in this episode where there is potential detoxification pathways and natural compounds you can take. But in the environment, in the waterways, in the soil, they have no way of detoxing this. Once it's in, it causes a whole host of issues. In this particular Frontline episode, the mills discharged wastewater containing PFAS into treatment plants not designed to remove them, so therefore they sent it down the river. Literally everything. Animals, humans, soil, bugs, insects, everything. A sludge was left behind. Biofilms was spread all throughout the farmlands as fertilizers as well because they didn't know.

7:09So they were taking that water in a river that should be safe and spraying everything. And cattle turned up dead and it's still happening to this day. That decision contaminated the livestock, the drinking water, the groundwater, the streams, the soils, you name it. Families drinking well water didn't know. So again, who's at fault here? Because the persistent synthetic chemicals were showing up everywhere. Some farmers lost significant land values, lost their businesses, communities were left in contamination, lasted for generations, health issues, cancer rates. Internal documents revealed manufacturers, 3M, DuPont, understood the persistence and the concerns decades and decades ago.

8:03Maybe as early as the 50s, certainly in the 70s, and reappeared in the 90s. Companies like 3M and DuPont were the producers of this PFAS compound. Again, if you want to check out the earlier episodes where I really dug into this with Dr. Chris Hansen, we dove deep. And while some legacy PFAS has been phased out, replacement compounds, as called short-chain PFAS, are still used to this day. Long form with more carbon chains, PFAS, was the ones that they identified as very, very bad for humans, the environment. So they created other ones. But again, those tests are not found to be safe, but they're still used.

8:50The chemistry changed a little bit and they got around a bunch of stuff. So the carpet industry is a case study, but PFAS contamination is global. I need you to hear this. I've talked about it in length in the clothing industry with waterproof jackets, athletic wear, school uniforms, airline stewardess uniforms, yoga pants, outdoor gear. Let me just say that list again. If you are wearing these, you have potential exposure every day to PFAS. This is not to scare you. This is to inform you. Waterproof jackets, athletic wear, stretchy stuff, school uniforms, stewardess uniforms, yoga pants, and outdoor gear.

9:40Many have these fluorinated, 100 % chemically created, not natural coatings. Every wash cycle, it releases more and more of this PFAS into your wastewater of even washing these things. plus you wearing them what goes on your skin goes into your body so you can phase these things out you can phase these things out of your life cookware you know this already non-stick pans it still shows up to this day it still shows up to this day floral polymer chemistry that is creating these PFASes. Safer alternatives, ceramics, stainless steel. My favorite is this titanium pan from Our Place. It has no coating.

10:30Titanium, it's tested. That's my favorite. Stainless steel, cast iron, certified PFAS-free ceramics. These things you need to look for because as you cook, they go into your food, okay? Food packaging, fast food wrappers, all over PFAS. Microwave popcorn bags, hugely problematic. Grease resistant paper, direct ingestion exposure. This is even more. Cosmetics. Women, please. Mascara, stays on forever. Foundation, lipstick, all needs to be tested for these fluorinated compounds. environmentalworkinggroup.org, EWG, also has many safe products on there.

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13:02And they're not on the label. So yeah, you need to check labels on many things, but these things are not on the label. Is that a crime from my perspective? Yep, it is. Fire fighting foam. Well, we have a lot of fires in California and airports, military bases, worldwide use of PFAS-laden foam. And what does this do? You know, you want to fight a fire, but then you're contaminating yourself for generations. Like, what kind of sense does that make? It doesn't make sense. This is not one industry. This is a global supply chain problem. The health impacts on this is a growing concern. The United States Environmental Protection Agency shows, even though they're not regulating and they roll the regulations back over the last few years, makes me crazy.

13:48PFAS exposure has been linked to immune suppression, reduced vaccine response, thyroid disruption, elevated cholesterol, liver damage, pregnancy complications, kidney and testicular cancers. Come on. Nearly every American tested has measurable PFAS in their blood. Don't be alarmed. we do have it. But my, again, what I'm saying to you is become aware so the silent accumulation of this stuff doesn't affect you and your family as time goes by. This is a population level contamination, which is why I'm talking about it. I want you to take power back and eliminate these things from your life. Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich, I did a panel with her a long time ago.

14:39I want to get her on the podcast so anyone have direct access to her. I'm reaching out right now. She has known this and is involved in exposing the chromium contamination in California and has helped amplify PFAS contamination cases similar to the one in Georgia. She has worked with communities demanding transparency, testing corporate accountability. With her work, it reminds us that there are people fighting. We need to fight. We need to fight with our dollars. No more buying of this stuff. Phase it out of your life. What can we do? Personal level, first your water. So install a certified reverse osmosis water filtration system for drinking, washing your vegetables.

15:28And if you can get a whole house filter, do that. Get at least a filter on your shower head. activated charcoal activated carbon can help but ro is the more comprehensive approach and one of my favorites easy to purchase easy to use aqua true if you go to my website go to my link they will give you a great discount and i command that of my suppliers that i vet that they give you a discount. And if you have well water, test that water and also just to be safe, reverse osmosis that as well. Ask the municipalities. Again, Environmental Working Group has a list of some of the municipalities. Put in your zip code and you can start to see the contaminants in your area.

16:22But we need to ask and push back on these municipalities for PFAS data. They do not have the mechanisms to filter it out. That's just clear. Our household exposure. Avoid stain-resistant carpets and furniture. Avoid that. Budget yourself out of it. Do the best you can. Replace non-stick pans and cookware. Choose PFAS-free clothing brands. Please, please, please avoid microwave popcorn at all costs. I think the best microwave is the one that you don't have. Third, there is growing evidence and we need more and more studies. There is no miracle cure at this point. It's not like a heavy metal where you can do chlorophyll and detoxification protocols and lower your heavy metal counts.

17:12This we don't know yet. However, there is some emerging research that shows that oat beta-glucan fiber may modestly reduce PFAS blood levels. Fiber itself, Fiber is the number one anyway. More than protein, increase your fiber by 35 grams per day at the bare minimum. Regular blood donation reduces actually. Obviously, you don't want to give PFAS blood, but just the act of having your body replenish hemoglobin and blood reduces your PFAS levels. There was a firefighter clinical trial that showed that regular blood donation actually reduced firefighters' blood level PFAS. And there is ongoing research around the microbiome and the fortification of the microbiome.

18:10So these are real strategies to help reduce exposure and help them release out of the body. There's also some studies around mycelium and mushrooms, things like this that need to be further supported to get this very contaminated molecule out of your body. This is where we move beyond fear. Again, just thinking about money. I'm gonna go off on a tangent for a second. If you don't understand how you're managing your money, if you don't focus on that, then you become a victim of, of I just need to make more, make more, make more, and then you're in this kind of victim mentality. If you turn this episode off and just go, I don't want to deal with this, that's fine, but it is dealing with you.

18:56So everything in life, it's easy to blow off, but if you're willing to face things as they come up, that's the power. That's your superpower. We need to go beyond the fear. We need to have awareness and then make other choices. I don't have fear because I've created my environment in a way that I have natural fiber clothes from industry of all nations. That's where I spend all my money on clothing because it's clean. There's no PFAS. It's organic. It's plant dyed. All of that stuff. Over time, I make a little more money. I buy some more clothes and I just keep adding that way. That's how we do this.

19:39get a water filter, reverse osmosis, change a water filter every six months. This is important. This is a way that we can push back. And yes, internationally, we need to address this persistent pollutants. Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is a website you can go to to learn and understand some of the international treaties addressing some of this problem. And I have it in the show notes. Some PFAS are listed, many are not because they're in the thousands. Support organizations like Environmental Working Group, get on their mailing list, get on their testing. They are independent and they're pushing for PFAS-free solutions and many other solutions.

20:27National Resources Defense Council have constant updates on PFAS and these forever chemicals. Many other websites I have also in Europe, European chemical agencies. You can check in on that, on what's going on in Europe. In the U.S., the United States Environmental Protection Agency, they do have articles on PFAS. We just need to push them so we can contact them and say, hey man, there is no amount of safe with any of this stuff. So whatever amount they deem is safe, there is no amount of this stuff that has been proven safe. Demand for drinking water standards to increase. So this is bigger than the frontline carpet issue, but this is a big one.

21:19It's bigger than clothing. It's bigger than cookware. This is about redesigning our chemical romance that we have. and we need to enter that world. We need to take those actions. PFAS shows us what happens when innovation outruns safety, period. But awareness is rising. Your awareness today has risen. You sharing this episode with people that you love, please take time right now. Share it with five, 10, 100, 1 ,000, 10 ,000 friends right now. This isn't about me. This is about the information. That's where we can push on regulation. If you don't buy these things, industry changes. Communities organize and things change.

22:11Super Life, this podcast, is about empowering you. It's not fear. It is about standing up for literally us all having a Super Life. Clean water, clean soil, clean products, clean food. This is not supposed to be luxury. This is the foundation of our freedom, our sovereignty. There are foundations for our human health. And this is a fight we can absolutely win. I've mentioned this before, but good friends of mine have created a company called Tarim Labs, and they've already infiltrated the fast food industry with clean algae-based BFOS solutions. Yes, they've blown apart the chemistry and made it benign to the human biology and still have the performance at scale.

23:03So I'm telling you, we are winning. But I need you to know, share this episode, test your water or just get an RO system, demand transparency, support science-based reforms, because forever chemicals should not define our future. So, I'm passionate about this because this is not right. And what we can do is make better choices. That's why I'm bringing it up so that you have the choice. That you can create a safe environment in your home to start. And then we work together as a community. Coming together in common, human, safe ways, we all win. And we push back on big industry. Okay? Make some choices today.

23:52Seriously. Check out all my links. Go to the Superlife Marketplace. We have solutions for you and find them. And if you have more solutions, please let me know. Tag us. Let's support this reform of chemicals that are not good for all of us. Peace. Power. Superlife.