Forever Chemicals, Forgotten People: PFAS, Regulation, and Who Gets Left Behind

I served as an aircraft mechanic in the U.S. Navy from 2016 to 2021. Back then, I didn’t think about what I was breathing in or standing in. I cleaned and maintained the aircraft. I handled fuel and washed gear. I stood around and dealt with materials used to treat and prevent corrosion and preserve the aircraft. That was the job. Nobody explained what those chemicals were, and nobody warned us about what they could do.

It wasn’t until those first few years after getting out that I learned and understood the truth. The chemical fluids we used and the foam we relied on, AFFF, is packed with PFAS — the same “forever chemicals” now tied to cancers, immune suppression, endocrine issues, thyroid disorders, liver damage, and entire communities getting sick. PFAS chemicals do not break down; they do not flush out. They sit inside the body for years. They linger in the soil for centuries.

The Hidden Dangers of Service

The military has known this. For decades, it was already understood how these toxic chemicals would affect service members, leading to illnesses and death. Veterans were diagnosed not because of age or bad luck, but due to prolonged exposure to AFFF, solvents, hydraulic fluids, degreasers, contaminated water on bases, and the occupational hazards we assumed were “just part of the job.” It was not until 2022 that many of these veterans received compensation. Under the PACT Act, we could finally access disability compensation or healthcare if exposure linked to a recognized condition.

But the PACT Act was not a bill that flew through the legislative process to uphold accountability and take care of those who answered the call to serve and protect our country. Before the PACT Act, countless veterans were denied care outright. Men and women who breathed in burn pit smoke every day in Iraq and Afghanistan came home coughing up black phlegm, developing rare cancers in their 20s and 30s, losing lung function, or collapsing from illnesses no civilian doctor could explain without linking it to their service record. The VA’s response was the same repeated phrase: “Not service-connected.” Families buried their kids while being told the military dust, toxins, jet fumes, smoke, and chemical cocktails had nothing to do with it. Veterans sat in waiting rooms with oxygen tanks, denied treatment for terminal illnesses because the science “wasn’t settled,” and the paperwork “did not prove exposure.” It took a generation of suffering, advocacy, and death for the government to admit what everyone already knew — burn pits and toxic exposure were killing us.

But it did not end there. History has shown us time and time again what happens when toxic exposure is left buried under bureaucracy. Descendants of Vietnam veterans still live with the consequences of Agent Orange — birth defects, developmental disorders, cancers, and illnesses passed down through no fault of their own. Families who were never in the jungle still carry the chemical in their DNA because the government refused to acknowledge the connection for decades. Children and grandchildren grew up navigating the fallout of a war they never fought, while their parents were told it was all “coincidence.” That legacy should have been a warning. Instead, it became a default pattern: delay, deny, and hope the generation that suffered dies off before being held accountable. Even with the passing of the PACT Act, the lack of accountability from our government regarding our healthcare echoes today. Not just for the blood of the men and women who served, but for civilians living their everyday lives. Communities near industrial sites, military bases, or manufacturing plants do not receive compensation. Instead, they get contaminated water, cancer clusters, and generational harm.

The Blood of Nearly Every American Contains PFAS

In the suburbs of Oakdale, Minnesota — just downstream of a 3M plant — a group of high school students and graduates became quietly known as “The Cancer Kids.” Among them was Amara Strande, who at only 15 was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer. She fought the disease for more than 20 surgeries and years of pain and treatment. She spent her last months testifying before lawmakers for a ban on PFAS chemicals. Tragically, she died just weeks before a law passed that would have limited the use of these forever chemicals in her state. This was not a military base or installation; this was a family neighborhood. These were students, kids on sports teams, friends walking the same hallways as they navigated their lives and focused on their future. A future they would never have due to the negligence of the 3M plant nearby.

Plants like this do not appear by accident. They require government permits, environmental reviews, and safety oversight. The 3M plant operated with state approval, even as internal documents (later revealed in lawsuits) showed the company knew PFAS were toxic decades ago. But regulators looked the other way, signed off on waste disposal, and allowed a factory producing industrial-grade chemicals to sit next to residential areas.

The public was told everything was safe until children started dying. When the truth finally surfaced, no one went to jail. No agency apologized. The community was left to deal with the fallout while the same chemicals kept being produced somewhere else. Civilians do not have a PACT Act or anything equivalent to protect them from the same chemicals and toxins that veterans are exposed to. This gap between military coverage and civilian abandonment reveals something deeper: in America, exposure is collective, but responsibility is selective.

DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED?: PFAS in American Water and Recent Rollbacks

As I previously stated, the United States has known about PFAS toxicity for decades, yet the responsibility has always been slow, fragmented, and easily reversed. Even when progress is made, it is treated less like a responsibility and more like a suggestion. In 2024, the EPA finalized the first national drinking-water limits for PFAS — a historic step meant to protect communities just like Oakdale from further harm. These limits targeted six major PFAS compounds to near-zero levels. This should have marked the beginning of a turning point for the better.

Less than a year later, under the Trump administration, the EPA signaled its intent to pull back. Compliance deadlines were delayed. Protections for several PFAS chemicals were reconsidered or removed. Reporting rules for manufacturers were softened. Wastewater standards were set to be revised in ways that benefit industry, not public health. Environmental groups called it what it was: a rollback.

Because regulations and oversight have been reduced, it is harder to track emerging sources of PFAS. This includes hastily built modern infrastructures like AI server farms and data centers that use millions of gallons of water for cooling. The science cannot move forward when data is hidden. When the government steps back from monitoring, companies are free to claim there is “no proof of harm,” even when they helped engineer the silence underneath the constant roars of their data centers. When reporting requirements are weakened and wastewater regulations are softened, the absence of evidence becomes the evidence.

What’s at the Dinner Table: Safe to Ingest, Hard to Digest

The rollback does not stop at water systems or industrial discharge. PFAS have now made their way into pesticides, turning food production into another point of exposure. A Time Magazine report from November 2025 revealed that certain EPA-approved pesticides contained PFAS compounds, exposing farmworkers, soil, and consumers without their knowledge — much like how fellow service members and I were exposed to them in the military. These chemicals were not listed on the labels; they were not disclosed to the farmers who handled them daily. They were allowed into circulation through gaps in federal oversight. Rather than moving toward tighter regulations, the rollback climate made it easier for these chemicals to pass through the system undetected. When pesticides themselves carry forever chemicals, contamination is no longer an accident — it is built into the supply chain, from the field to the dinner plate.

In other words, we recognize PFAS is dangerous enough to spend billions cleaning military bases, but not dangerous enough to remove from pesticides civilians ingest.

We Have Been Here Before

We have seen this practice once before in the car-centric society that is the United States. Leaded gasoline was once defended with the same confidence that PFAS manufacturers use today. In the early 20th century, companies like General Motors, DuPont, and Standard Oil insisted tetraethyl lead was safe, despite scientists warning that the additive was poisoning workers and neighborhoods. Regulators were reassured not because the evidence showed safety, but because the only reports they were given came from the companies making the product.

In 1925, when the Public Health Service temporarily halted the production of tetraethyl lead after workers were dying or hallucinating insects in DuPont’s “House of Butterflies,” the federal investigation relied on industry-supplied data. The inquiry was framed so narrowly — focused on short-term poisoning, not long-term environmental harm — that the companies could argue there was “no proven public health emergency.” At the same time, research that did show the dangers of chronic exposure was buried inside corporate files or funneled through industry-funded labs like Robert Kehoe’s Kettering Laboratory, which for years told the government that environmental lead posed no significant risk. The absence of public evidence was treated as the absence of harm, and regulators accepted it because they were encouraged to look nowhere else.

Leaded gasoline stayed on the market for half a century not because it was safe, but because corporate science, narrow regulatory questions, and selective disclosure made it easy to call the danger “unproven.”

By the late 1960s and the early 70s, independent scientists had produced overwhelming evidence that lead was accumulating in the soil, air, children’s blood, and even in the bones of average Americans. Pediatricians warned that even low levels of exposure caused neurological damage, learning disabilities, behavioral issues, and irreversible cognitive decline. Regulators finally began acting in the 1970s, not because of moral clarity, but because it was dragged away from it with all this mounting public pressure. The Clean Air Act of 1970 and the EPA’s 1973 ruling phased down leaded gasoline as a result of the backlash and the introduction of the catalytic converter, which does not function properly with leaded fuel.

Through lawsuits, political resistance, and aggressive lobbying, companies like GM, DuPont, and Standard Oil fought the phase-out for more than a decade, insisting tetraethyl lead was safe, despite the evidence. But by 1986, as the data kept mounting, the EPA accelerated the phase-out, and by 1996, leaded gasoline for on-road vehicles was finally banned in the U.S. What looked like progress was really a long-delayed course correction, one that only came after decades of irreparable harm.

The Contamination We Chose Not to See

PFAS follows the same pattern as leaded gasoline. Different chemicals, same behavior.

• A product or practice is normalized before it is understood.

• Early research is dismissed or suppressed.

• Communities absorb the cost in real time.

• Government lags in response.

• No one is held accountable.

  
  

Once you see that pattern, you start to notice it everywhere.

• 2008 Housing Market Crash

• Flint Water Crisis

• Tobacco Industry

• Opioid Epidemic

• Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Lobbying

• Segregation

  
  

You even start to notice how different governments choose to respond.

EU vs. US Regulation

The European Union has moved toward regulating PFAS as a class, not pretending each compound is an isolated problem. Their approach is simple: if something is persistent, bioaccumulative, and not essential, it should not be in circulation. The United States, meanwhile, continues to handle PFAS one chemical at a time, creating the illusion of progress without addressing the actual structure of the harm. If it helps industry, the government will tolerate harm to the public and avoid accountability.

What Can Be Done?

As of now, those who are truly protected from one of the biggest threats to our sovereignty are veterans under the PACT Act.

As for the rest of the population, the Environmental Justice for All Act tries to address this by focusing on cumulative impacts, not just single pollutants in isolation. It insists that communities already burdened by environmental harm deserve more than reactive policy. But even this is only a tool.

Legal recourse arrives after exposure. Law can acknowledge harm, but it cannot remove what is already in the water, soil, or body.

This is where patterns force us toward solutions, not sentiments. Grounding is not about comfort or unity. It is about recognizing that harm persists long after policy acknowledges it. PFAS does not leave the body because Congress finally names it. Lead did not vanish because regulators caught up. Communities live with these exposures for decades. That reality points to a conclusion we can no longer avoid.

THE UNITED STATES NEEDS UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

When I learned more about PFAS, I thought back to the nights working on aircraft, hands soaked in things I could not pronounce. I thought about my fellow service members who got sick. I thought about the communities who never enlisted but were conscripted into the same exposure.

Environmental harm is not evenly distributed, and neither is access to treatment. When exposure becomes widespread, medicine cannot be treated as a privilege or a market decision. It becomes infrastructure. The country already accepts that polluted water, contaminated soil, and chemical residues are part of daily life for millions. If that is the world we live in, then healthcare cannot remain conditional. A system built on reactive policy requires a healthcare system built on universal access. Anything less means repeating the pattern while pretending the outcome will be different.

Universal healthcare is not a political preference. It is the logical endpoint of everything the science already shows. If we are going to allow industries to shape the world we live in, then the people living in that world must have guaranteed access to the care that world requires. That is not optimism. That is math.

Reaction over Reflection

This solution may be simple, yet the pushback is always predictable. Every moment toward collective care triggers the same reactions:

“This is socialism.”

“I’m not paying for illegals.”

“Healthcare is a personal responsibility.”

“We can’t afford it.”

or the classic, “America already has the best system in the world.”

None of these statements address the actual evidence. They are all emotional reflexes taught to people who have been told that fairness and equity threaten their existence.

It’s like the saying goes:

“They would rather poison the well than let everyone drink from it.”

And the irony is that in this country, they already have. Aside from lead, microplastics, refinery emissions, wildfire smoke, and groundwater contamination, PFAS is in our soil and our bloodstreams. This is a contamination so widespread, it doesn’t care about citizenship, borders, or who you think deserves care. Yet the same people who helped build this world where everyone is exposed are the first to argue that not everyone should have access to the healthcare required to survive that exposure. That is the core contradiction of privilege; the belief that you can poison the well and still control who suffers from drinking it.

Moreover, none of these claims survive contact with the numbers. The United States spends more on healthcare than any other high-income country. Recent data puts U.S. health spending at about 17.8% of GDP, nearly twice the average of other wealthy OECD countries. Per person, this is over thirteen thousand dollars a year. This is around double what peer nations spend, and we still have worse overall outcomes on life expectancy, preventable deaths, and maternal and infant mortality. This is not a system that needs protecting; this is a system that needs replacing.

When researchers model a single-payer system seriously, they do not find a financial apocalypse; they find savings. One major analysis in The Lancet projected that a single-payer universal system in the U.S. would reduce total national health expenditure by about thirteen percent. This translates to more than four hundred and fifty billion dollars saved every year while covering everyone.

Those savings come from things that do not show up in the slogans: simplified billing, lower administrative overhead, negotiated drug prices, and not using emergency rooms as primary care for people with no insurance.

Therefore, the “too expensive” argument does not hold. We already pay more for less. The math is not on the side of the status quo.

The “this is socialism” argument is not serious either. The U.S. already runs socialized programs when it decides they matter. Veterans get care through the Department of Veteran Affairs. Active-duty service members receive government-funded healthcare because the military understands that readiness requires universal access inside the ranks. None of that ended capitalism; it just proved that when the federal government decides a group is worth protecting, it knows how to design a system around them.

This fight is not really over economic feasibility. It is over who is considered worth that level of protection.

That is where the “I do not want illegals getting free healthcare” line comes in. It sounds like a policy concern, but underneath it is something older. It is the same reflex that led some cities to close and fill in public pools rather than integrate them after court orders said Black families had to be allowed in. Faced with a choice between sharing a public resource or destroying it, they chose destruction. The pattern repeats. Some people would rather keep a system that is more expensive and more deadly than accept a system that also protects people they have been taught to see as other.

You can see how different that is from how the United Kingdom responded to the crisis in the middle of the last century. During the Second World War, bombs were directly falling into British cities. Civilians were dying at home, not just on foreign battlefields. In 1942, while the war was still being fought, economist William Beveridge published a report that named five “Giant Evils” standing in the way of a society: want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. The report was not a thought experiment; it was a promise that when the bombs stopped, the country would not simply go back to the way things were.

Out of that report and that wartime experience came the postwar welfare state and, in 1948, the creation of the National Health Service. Britain became the first Western country to offer healthcare free at the point of use to the whole population. The logic was simple: If everyone shared the risk and sacrifice of war, everyone should share the security of care. The external threat at their doorstep forced recognition that health could not be left to private luck or private health.

The United States has faced external threats as well. The closest parallel is 9/11. It was our version of an attack on our home soil, a moment when the country claimed unity, sacrifice, and “never forget” as something sacred. And yet, even then, we did not build like the NHS. We did not move toward the true solution of universal healthcare, as it was apparent now that we all share the risk and should share in the security.

What we did instead was no small feat, although it was a narrow response. The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act passed. But it was not until 2011, ten years after the attacks. It created the World Trade Center Health Program and the Victim Compensation Fund, but even that care was temporary. Funding had an expiration date. First responders and survivors had to return to Congress again and again, sick and grieving, to argue that their lives were still worth treating.

By 2019, they were back in front of lawmakers because the fund was running out again. That is where Jon Stewart spoke on their behalf and said:

“More of these men and women are going to get sick, and they're going to die. And I am awfully tired of hearing that it's a 9/11 New York issue. Al Qaeda didn't shout death to Tribeca. They attacked America, and these men and women, and their response to it is what brought our countr