Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commmonly called PFAS, are about 12,000 chemicals, nearly all found in nature, and since the 1940s, a handful have been synthesized for use in various products. Beginning in the 1990s, trial lawyers and the environmental groups they run have targeted them, using correlation, to suggest they cause human harm.
No science studies have found any risk but products are often pulled from the market due to perception rather than reality. The Obama administration removed 'preservatives' from vaccines because his party overwhelmingly believed they were linked to autism, a belief many Republicans now share, while food companies removed Bisphenol A, BPA, from products because activists claimed they were an 'endocrine disruptor.' (1)
No one got any healthier but Manwich got a little more expensive. Once you add up the increased costs for 80,000 products that states like California create when they force odd Proposition 65 'may cause cancer' warnings, it is no surprise young people think previous generations had it easier. We did. We didn't let anti-science activists dictate policy - but we let those they grommed among our generation get the reins of power.
A new paper suggest medicine could get rid of PFAS completely. Despite having a degree, Prof. Dr. Michael Müller of the German Environment Agency believes all of science is wrong and he is right and PFAS should be removed from products like medicines.
Alternatives are available, the paper notes, and that is true. When you have a guaranteed government job, cost does not matter but for everyone else a higher cost with no benefit other declaring victory over "corporations", and that is all these alternatives provide. They loisted 111 active pharmaceutical ingredients for human medicines and 28 for veterinary medicines and say 87 percent of the human ones and 65 percent of the veterinary medicines could use alternatives.
They invoke the usual stuff about potential ecological impacts - none known over the last 80 years - and that they last, which they see as a problem. That is the whole point. If you want a medicine to stay effective, you don't want it to degrade. But worrying about PFAS is believing in homeopathy. If you choose to spend money on the notion that a drop of a chemical in 250 Olympic-sized swimming pools, you can, but you can't change science and health policy just because you invoke the supernatural in your own life.
The paper is timed to influence the European Chemicals Agency effort to place an EU-wide restriction on PFAS. Yet PFAS will still be everywhere, because 11,993 of them are found in nature.
"Per- or polyfluorination is not strictly necessary,“ notes fellow activist Dr. Dirk Messner, but that simply reveals they do not understand the cost of anything. Reverse osmosis water filtering is an expensive scam, it is going to prevent no disease, because PFAS have not, cannot, and will not cause any.
Scientists hate when people speak in absolutes but that is why science loses so many fights to activists. And why politicians have declared they'd love to find a one-handed scientist.
Citation: Johanna Greinke, Petra Mußler, Gerd Maack, Martin J. Hug, Michael Müller, Gunther Speichert,
Per- and polyfluorinated active pharmaceutical ingredients: Overview and alternatives, Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy, Volume 52,
2026, 102416, ISSN 2352-5541, DOI: 10.1016/j.scp.2026.102416
NOTE:
(1) BPA actually binds to estrogen about 1/20,000th as well as birth control, so you have to believe in homeopathy to believe it is doing anything harmful. A cup of coffee changes your hormones, making it an 'endocrine disruptor', so the whole effort seems to be a financial grift.
