Documents reveal 3M was aware of PFAS risk for decades

by MinnPost staff 08/01/201808/01/2018

The Intercept digs through the internal 3M documents released in the wake of the Minnesota AG’s settlement with the company. Sharon Lerner reports: “News that the Environmental Protection Agency pressured the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to suppress a study showing PFAS chemicals to be even more dangerous than previously thought drew outrage this spring. … But the dangers presented by these industrial chemicals have been known for decades, not just a few months or years. A lawsuit filed by Minnesota against 3M, the company that first developed and sold PFOS and PFOA, the two best-known PFAS compounds, has revealed that the company knew that these chemicals were accumulating in people’s blood for more than 40 years. 3M researchers documented the chemicals in fish, just as the Michigan scientist did, but they did so back in the 1970s. That same decade, 3M scientists realized that the compounds they produced were toxic. The company even had evidence back then of the compounds’ effects on the immune system, studies of which are just now driving the lower levels put forward by the ATSDR, as well as several states and the European Union.”

You can watch the video and see what you think of ICE’s approach here. ThinkProgress’ Alan Pyke writes:

Carlos knew it was dangerous for him to go to the courthouse on July 26.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have dramatically stepped up their hunt for undocumented people, friends from his church-based social justice group warned him, even those who’ve lived in the U.S. for decades like he has.

But it was important to him to do the right thing. His dedication to inpatient and outpatient rehab, and the ample evidence of his beloved status in his community, had helped his lawyer convince a Minnesota judge that Carlos should be given probation rather than a jail term. Besides, Carlos figured ICE knew he was scheduled for a check-in with immigration officials just a couple weeks later, and he’d shown up consistently to those meetings for years.

Yet the second Carlos arrived in court with family members and his long-time church friend Catalina – each of whom ThinkProgress is identifying only by first name because of the community’s fear of reprisals from ICE and local cops alike – they knew something was wrong. Two unfamiliar, burly white men — the spitting image of some of the Minnesotans who’ve gone out of their way to hurl verbal abuse at Catalina in the past two years, she said – were in the back of the courtroom, watching Carlos closely as he stood next to his lawyer to listen to the judge’s ruling.

Moments after the gavel banged that day, Catalina told ThinkProgress, the two unidentified men in jeans and shirtsleeves braced her friend. “He didn’t say anything else. Just ‘Let’s go, Carlos,’ ” she said. “Carlos looked at him like, what are you talking about, I don’t know who you are.”

The important thing here is to punish the whistleblower. The Star Tribune’s Mukhtar M. Ibrahim reports: “The city of Minneapolis has hired an outside firm to investigate the leak of a draft report that detailed how police in some cases urged paramedics to sedate people with ketamine. … The St. Paul-based firm NeuVest will interview city employees to determine the extent of the breach, which will touch on all the staff members who had access to the draft report. The City Clerk’s office said state law gives it the authority to determine if the leak of the draft report has resulted in any breach of private data, which under state law could expose someone to a misdemeanor charge.”

This New York Times food section report on innovations in small grocery stores makes a stop at a self-service store in New Prague. Kim Severson writes: “… Two thousand miles away in New Prague, Minn., population around 7,600, Kendra and Paul Rasmusson have been inundated with inquiries from people equally enamored with their grocery concept: a store that is largely unstaffed. … The couple’s young daughter has epilepsy, and they discovered early on that a healthy diet could help her feel better. They couldn’t find enough local, organic items at the big-box store close to town, and the nearest co-op was 20 miles away. So, almost three years ago, they opened Farmhouse Market.”