<story><title>3M Knew About the Dangers of PFOA and PFOS Decades Ago, Internal Documents Show</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2018/07/31/3m-pfas-minnesota-pfoa-pfos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sbjs</author><text>The more established, bigger, unethical companies will crush the &amp;quot;our products don&amp;#x27;t poison you!&amp;quot; competitors out of existence before they even get started. They will maintain their poison-happy monopolies. So without regulation protecting anti-poison competition, there will be no money in these alternatives, and the economy will remain unbalanced and literally deadly.</text></item><item><author>kungtotte</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s a given that it hurts the economy. Someone has to research, develop, and manufacture the non-toxic alternatives. How is that money not part of the economy?&lt;p&gt;Also, it doesn&amp;#x27;t make business that much harder &lt;i&gt;unless&lt;/i&gt; you built your business on being shady. See: the recent GDPR kerfuffle. For some it was just business as usual on May 26th.</text></item><item><author>fhood</author><text>Sad, but hardly surprising. It sometimes seems like every company in this position did similar things. Tobacco, Oil, CFCs, Leaded gasoline etc... I&amp;#x27;m sure I could come up with others if I looked.&lt;p&gt;This is why I don&amp;#x27;t understand many of the arguments against federal regulation. I know regulation hurts the economy and makes doing business harder. I understand. But most corporations will not self-regulate even when people&amp;#x27;s lives are at stake.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hammock</author><text>For those interested, in the outdoors industry (where fluorinated compounds are pervasive in waterproof coatings), there are a couple companies doing good:&lt;p&gt;Patagonia has switched to shorter-chain PFCs for many of its coatings (C6 instead of C8). They are also actively investing in research for alternative chemicals with adequate performance.&lt;p&gt;Nikwax, which sells re-waterproofing products, never uses fluorinated compounds and is a good brand to look for at the store.</text></comment>
<story><title>3M Knew About the Dangers of PFOA and PFOS Decades Ago, Internal Documents Show</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2018/07/31/3m-pfas-minnesota-pfoa-pfos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sbjs</author><text>The more established, bigger, unethical companies will crush the &amp;quot;our products don&amp;#x27;t poison you!&amp;quot; competitors out of existence before they even get started. They will maintain their poison-happy monopolies. So without regulation protecting anti-poison competition, there will be no money in these alternatives, and the economy will remain unbalanced and literally deadly.</text></item><item><author>kungtotte</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s a given that it hurts the economy. Someone has to research, develop, and manufacture the non-toxic alternatives. How is that money not part of the economy?&lt;p&gt;Also, it doesn&amp;#x27;t make business that much harder &lt;i&gt;unless&lt;/i&gt; you built your business on being shady. See: the recent GDPR kerfuffle. For some it was just business as usual on May 26th.</text></item><item><author>fhood</author><text>Sad, but hardly surprising. It sometimes seems like every company in this position did similar things. Tobacco, Oil, CFCs, Leaded gasoline etc... I&amp;#x27;m sure I could come up with others if I looked.&lt;p&gt;This is why I don&amp;#x27;t understand many of the arguments against federal regulation. I know regulation hurts the economy and makes doing business harder. I understand. But most corporations will not self-regulate even when people&amp;#x27;s lives are at stake.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rootlocus</author><text>&amp;gt; They will maintain their poison-happy monopolies.&lt;p&gt;They will because people will still buy their crap. There are plenty of lazy, misinformed, ignorant people who would do anything to keep happy-poisoning themselves, including fighting legislation meant to protect them.</text></comment>