Forever Chemicals - If You Don't Know, Now You Know I The Daily Show 

Hi I studied these chemicals for about three years now. This is not just a PFAS problem. This is a US chemical regulation issue. The US allows chemicals to be manufactured and used in consumer goods with an "innocent until proven guilty" attitude. It relies on self reporting of research conducted by the companies. If they find an adverse health effect of a product they make theyre supposed to report it to the EPA. This leads to companies just not conducting health studies. No one can conduct independent research on them because their chemical makeup is "confidential business information"... even to the EPA (this has to do with the EPA-Industry revolving door but thats a whole other issue if youre interested)! Best example out there of how US chemical policy fails the American people is Asbestos. DID YOU KNOW ASBESTOS IS NOT BANNED IN THE USA? You know it causes cancer, you see the ads on TV. Well The EPA had over 10 years and 100 pages of research supporting Asbestos causes cancer and due to the way TSCA is written, the EPAs role is not only to prove a chemical causes unnecessary harm to the American population, but it also puts the burden of proof on them to prove "banning the chemical is the least burdensome alternative". Ultimately the EPA was unable to prove banning asbestos use was the “the least burdensome means” when regulating against such risks and the courts ruled against them. Not only that, but PFAS is a large class of chemicals (hundreds of them exist). The big manufacturers of PFAS agreed to a voluntary phase out of 2 of the most common PFAS, PFOA and PFOS. This voluntary phase out creates two big problems. First, the company scientists simply move a few molecules around and technically it is a "new chemical" though it is still in the PFAS class. Second, without federal regulation on the chemical it severely limits the benefits contaminated communities can receive under the Federal Superfund Act (The law that is supposed to make polluters pay for the clean up of their pollutants). If a chemical was never deemed unsafe or banned by the EPA, how can the federal government force a corporation to be accountable for the cleanup of land contaminated with that chemical? This issue extends much farther than just PFAS. Anyways thanks for coming to my TED talk

Imagine being in flint Michigan and hearing this.. not only is your water terrible, it also has extra chemicals in it. 👍👍👍👍

Isn’t that what the Mark Ruffallo’s “Dark Waters” movie talked about the DuPont scandal?! By the way it’s a GREAT movie that everyone should see.

It’s Teflon. Watch “The Devil We Know” on Netflix. It’s all about this. It will make you angry, scared, and makes you think twice about how and where your food is cooked and packaged.

Watch Dark Water staring Mark Ruffalo. It's a movie about this subject exactly. Its disgusting what Dupont did and covered up.

Life was never intended to be this convenient and the silent choices we all make will be our legacy, good or bad

Is it bad to be stabbed by a metal spike? serial killer: There are lots of metals in our body.

This sort of story used to be on nightly news. Now it’s on Comedy Central.

I see he finally got around to watching Dark Waters...

I work at an analytical lab that tests water, soil, tissue for these compounds. If we ever see a blood sample come out clean we immediately rerun the sample to confirm. At this point we've all come in contact with PFAS

That Dupont lady will now haunt me in my dreams 😂😬

There’s a documentary on Netflix about this called “The Devil We Know”. Check it out.

Dow developed it. And, when they discovered that it was harmful to humans, their rationale for using the chemical regardless was that any alternative they might come up with, could be worse. That is a matter of public record.

I love how our country is doing way more about a virus, rather than something like Flints Water Crisis

PFAS can be broken down by certain bacterium living under optimal conditions. Provide more funding for research and development and we can solve this issue.

When someone says “we do not believe” it’s a MFin lie. Period. Btw everybody watch the movie “Dark Water” excellent film about this subject

When you live near flint and the gov starts talking about water standards

Woah, wait a minute! @5:47, that was in 2003, why is the government only doing something about it now!? Why am I only hearing about this now!? That was 17 years ago!

Learned about this from the movie “Dark Waters”. The world is crazy man! Who knows what else we’ll know about within the next ten years.

The fact that everyone has them is strangely comforting.

Because you could doesn't mean you should. Human beings are our worse enemies.

This was the subject of Mark Ruffallo’s “Dark Waters” movie! such an incredible movie, i recommend everyone to watch it !!

With all this toxic chemicals in the environment and insane medical costs and no universal healthcare, no wonder life expectancy in the US is the lowest among all wealthy nations, and it's even lower than many poor nations such as Cuba.

"Do you enjoy chocolate cake and water?! Well, you dead now." 4:38

When he pronounced Pfass I literally spit out my taco. 😂😂😂

It’s like listening to the tobacco industry all over again. And the lead industry.🤮

Me: *casually reading the comment section* Everyone in the comment section: “WATCH DARK WATERS NOW, OR YOU BE PUNISHED FOR YOUR SINS.” Me: ok ok ok

I know this wasn’t part of the “Is This How We Die” segment, but is this how we die? 🤔

One sec, I need to apologize to the crazy street corner guys who said the water was poisoned

Love love love you Trevor! You entertain and educate us all at the same time. Love you man💜

My friend was heartbroken when his parrot died because it was on his shoulder while he was cooking with a nonstick Dupont pan. I thought he was nuts when he told me it was the pan, but I looked it up online and found out he wasn't just messing with me!

It'd probably help to include the nuance that the issue with teflon itself only occurs when it's heated too much (above 500 degrees fahrenheit). Most of the issues being discussed here are issues with the chemicals used to create teflon, which is why the problems they're looking at are with the water supply rather then the products actually using teflon. That's why the spin person can say teflon is fine.

My favorite news anchor!!!

My favorite Trevor show, i so much love " if you don't know, now you know" episodes

Nothing will ever happen to dupont over this. They are 1 of 6 major families who took over the manufacturing industry in America after world war 2. An supposedly saved us from the great depression.. altho arguments can be made that the 6 families caused the Great Depression to start with..

2:30 That monster is using a metal utensil in a nonstick pan!

I love Dupont thanks for Agent Orange, DDT and PCB as well.

Go see the movie call: Dark waters, that all begins

Du pints slogan since the 30’s was “Better living through Chemistry” they even sponsored a radio show dedicated to stories about scientists and inventors.

We have had an issue with this in our rivers in NC for years. We've been fighting to get of it. It's coming from all the industry upstream. Mark Ruffalo came here about it a few weeks ago before heading to Raleigh to discuss it in a forum there.

This makes me very curious from a chemistry standpoint. How do you clean these things out of the environment? It sounds like it might be hard to trap them if they resist forming bonds with most other materials. And then when you do, what do you do with them? Is there really no way to break them down? No chemical reaction that could be safely performed to break them up? It's a pretty interesting chemical conundrum.

This just in: tRump appoints head of Dupont as new acting head of EPA.

Bruh, DuPont needs to give everyone on planet earth reparations. I want whoever is the next President of the UNITED STATES to on day one pass legislation to make DuPont pay everyone on planet earth reparations.

And that is why we need free healthcare for all.

Seems the "greatness" Is seeping into every American body.

“Dark Waters,” still showing in lots of theaters. Mark Ruffalo produced and starred in this dark but excellent film. Go see it.

Scientists: You all will have have cancer through forever chemicals. No one: ... Trevor: that’s so romantic.

There is a movie that came out recently starring Mark Ruffalo called “Dark Waters” about DuPont and this very subject. It’s a great watch and I highly recommend checking it out.

Anyone else annoyed seeing that metal spatula on a non-stick pan?

😂😂😂😂"Guuurl, I wanna be your forever chemical 👽" damn trevor 😂😏

I encourage everyone to watch "Dark Waters." Amazing movie and even better message.

Wash the top of soda and beer cans before you pop the lid and drink and the same for any can before you open it . The detection of rodent contamination by black light is based on the phenomenon of rodent urine showing blue-white to yellow-white fluorescence when viewed under black light. The fresher the stain the more blue . Rodent urine is on almost every can you buy .

Well im sure that companies will fight the legislation to regulate eventually like that always do. I mean pesticides that harms kids got back in use.

these kind of shows give alitle hope to these dark dark days we live in...

Why do 50 people post first? Come on guys, the comments deserve better..

Before DuPont solves PFASs issue in my water pipe, I hope someone could fix the lead poisoning problem.

That Dupont commercial at the end is basically neoliberalism in a nutshell: socially liberal, but economically conservative/corporate.

Another reason our life expectancy is starting to go down. For the first time in human history.

Interesting, this was presented in a true story movie last year (2019) called "Dark Waters" with Mark Ruffalo. You should see the movie; some of it was like a Stephen King movie, the cows, the cows - meanwhile DuPont says, don't worry.

Military families & communities near bases have been worried about this for years, too. It’s also used to fight aircraft fires, so when firefighters trained with it, it got into the water supply, because so many bases didn’t take precautions to contain it. The Army stopped using it in the ‘90s. The Air Force & Navy continued, until enough of their firefighters ended up with cancer.

I"m surprised the EPA is taking any position in this political environment.

We can’t even make home cooked foods anymore.

people refuse to wake up

Impressive how comedy can make you laugh even when you are dying 😂😂

DUPONT: Chemicals and Cancer for everyone Audience: Whoooooooooooooo

Who was that once said " money is the root of ALL EVIL " smart person

FIRST CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT IS NEEDED FROM ALL AMERICANS

Hearing of PFA Chemicals, I'm now very thankful for the "Trinkwasserverordnung".

So, these PFAs are everywhere ... already? And I'm still alive? Pass the chocolate cake and water, folks. I gotta get my coronavirus immunity up.

PFAS is in the water in my city because we are located near a former dump site. 3M had to pay the state of MN almost $1 billion because of it. My friend’s daughter got a brain tumor from it. They have closed 7 out of 12 wells. It’s still in the other wells but they tell us the levels are “safe”. We have to buy bottled water for everything we do. Vote for people that will protect people and the environment y’all even if that means the price of your non-stick pan will go up by $1.00.

Screw teflon... Iron properly used, is no-stick!

I see Trevor finally saw the movie 'Dark Waters'

the "F" in the chemical formula clearly stands for "forever"

At least we can laugh through all this pain thanks to people like Trevor😂😂😂😂

You guys should watch the new mark Ruffalo movie " dark waters "

You know what, at this point ... I will just enjoy this life as much as I can, stop worrying and just hope by God's grace I live to see 70 in good health 🙏🏾

"like-oh... CAnCeR"

I have an extraordinarily difficult time believing that the companies that profit from making things that benefit people's lives can't take the time to test them properly to identify all the hazards they produce.

Got some lyrics for my girl now; “I wanna be your PFA”

My mom wont stop using Teflon. I tried to explaining no one listens. Trevor is right People are willing to look over death from cancer VS having to scrub egg residue from steel pans.

"We do not believe there are any adverse health effects." "Is that a good thing to have it in your blood?" Honestly, if you ask a stupid followup question, you'll get a stupid answer... No one is saying that its presence in the bloodstream is a good thing.

WMUR on The Daily Show? Never thought I would see that.

Is it bad to get shot? Murderer: There is lots of lead in our bodies

EXCELLENT coverage, Trevor and team. Thank You.

This is what the movie Dark Waters is all about.

The number #1 Lesson I learnt growing up: You can never, under any circumstance, trust anything that comes out of the mouths of corporate representatives defending the product that their corporation produces. They are per definition interested in portraying their product in the best light possible; the truth is only of secondary importance.

Lesson learned: never underestimate conspiracy theorists ever again.

Lol that ad idea is awesome

Never thought Trevor was the kind of guy would date a Stacy.

This wasn't even talked about until Mark Ruffalo's new movie Dark Water 2020. Now it's everywhere

And this my friends is how everything works. Chemicals, illnesses & years of BS govt info affects us all so we may as well get along. One❣✊🏽

This video made me really hungry with all the talk of food.

So we feed the Orange Dotard chocolate cake to accelerate his demise...o.k. Also, if you cook your eggs w/butter in a stainless steel pan(like I do), then soak the pan in hot water for about 15 mins., the residue does come off easily. You're welcome.

the ones making it should be forced to submit a blood test. You know if they don't have it then they kept away from it on purpose knowing full well the dangers while lying about it.

Chemicals, Genetically modified food, and air pollution! The modernization with Wisdom..

if your wealth was built at the expense of life and health of others, you owe the survivors every single dollar and then some.

If you travel to the US, don't drink the water.

Thank you Daily Show. The chemicals we are ingesting, absorbing, breathing in are so scary. Thanks lobbyists and congress!

I'm just imagining NON GMO, ORGANIC, NON FAT, GLUTEN FREE, NON PFAS products now. Are we ever getting a break from this?

When the buying stop the killing stops. I no longer use Teflon since 4 years ago but There’s still demand for non stick pans In other countries. Pfas is still used in many household appliances and synthetic fabric