The waterproof jacket that gets you through the rain, or those boots that allow you slosh through puddles with kid-like joy all have perfluorocarbons (PFC). PFC’s what causes the water to bead-up rather than soak through garments. While not a new addition to the list of toxic substances, it has been around since the 1950’s it is now causing concern because of its links to cancer and weakened immune responses. Mother Jones reports,
The makers of PFCs have been the subject of several blockbuster exposés—PFOA most recently made headlines as the culprit poisoning residents of Parkersberg, West Virginia. These compounds have a very long biological half-life—specifically, it takes our bodies more than four years to flush out half of the PFCs currently residing in our tissues. As such, the US Environmental Protection Agency warns that ‘it can reasonably be anticipated that continued exposure could increase body burdens to levels that would result in adverse outcomes.’
