“We’ve known PFOS was in the blood of the general population since 1975.” My 1998 interview with a senior 3M Scientist
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“We’ve known PFOS was in blood..since 1975.” My 1998 interview with a senior 3M Scientist
Interview notes available on MN AG 3M Exhibit List, #2534
Towards the end of 1997, I collected data indicating that PFOS, a PFAS compound made solely by 3M, was widespread in the blood of the US population. This discovery was a revelation for me and, I assumed, based on the response to my data, to everyone else at 3M. Several months later, in the late summer of 1998, I learned something that shook me at least as much: other scientists at 3M had reached the same conclusion I had…over twenty years earlier.
I met Dr. Richard Newmark, 3M’s most senior and most accomplished F/NMR (fluorine nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy) analyst, in the late summer of 1998. By that time, my team had been intensely focused on PFAS contamination for more than 6 months. Among other unsettling conclusions, we had confirmed the presence of not just PFOS but several other PFAS in the blood of the non-occupationally exposed population: homologues of PFOS and PFOA and metabolites of PFOS-based products [#2603]. Faced with several PFAS in human sera, I had scheduled a meeting to consult with Dr. Newmark to see if he could use his F/NMR to complement the data we had collected using mass spectrometry.
I made arrangements to meet Dr. Newmark in his office in 3M’s Building 201, a low slung brick building that was a warren of windowless corridors and thick-walled labs. When I found Dr. Newmark, before I even sat down, he stated with agitation, something like:
“I don’t understand why they are making such a big deal about this. We’ve known PFOS was in the blood of the general population since 1975.”
I was startled speechless by Dr. Newmark’s statement. Since telling my boss, nearly a year earlier, that we had found PFOS widespread in the non-occupationally exposed population, I had faced intense skepticism and disbelief from corporate leadership. My team and I had endured doubt, scorn and criticism from inside the company over our unlikely ‘discovery’. I had defended our work, repeated experiments and followed up on every challenge, no matter how scientifically implausible - anything to address the criticism. And now, just a few months later, a highly respected, senior-level scientist from a different division of 3M was telling me that he had confirmed the presence of PFOS in the blood of the general population decades earlier. He understood PFOS was in the blood of the general population in the mid-1970s, around the time I was starting first grade [e.g. #1123, #1145, #2534]. Dr. Newmark and I talked for 30 minutes about the analytical work he had conducted and the resulting conclusions. I took notes on our conversation.
Dr. Newmark told me about the academic team of Guy & Taves who had approached 3M in 1975 for help in identifying an organic fluorine compound they had isolated from blood samples collected from the non-occupationally exposed population [e.g. #1118]. Among other things, Guy & Taves shared F/NMR spectra they had collected after isolating and characterizing the organic fluorine compound from samples of human sera from blood banks [e.g. #1121] as well as their suspicion that the compound had industrial origins [e.g. #1142].
In talking with me in 1998, Dr. Newmark did not express any uncertainty about his conclusion with respect to the meaning of the spectra the academic team shared with 3M: the compound Guy & Taves had isolated from the blood bank samples was PFOS.
Dr. Newmark seemed anxious for me to believe his assertion - as if I would doubt his expertise. He explained elements of the F/NMR spectra that are characteristic of perfluorinated compounds in general and other characteristics that are specific to PFOS. Those characteristics, according to Dr. Newmark, made it obvious that the isolated organic fluorine was PFOS.
Dr. Newmark talked about an ongoing exchange between 3M scientists and Guy & Taves, who eventually published their findings, incorrectly proposing PFOA as the identity of the major organic fluorine compound [e.g. #1142]. 3M knew Guy & Taves’ conclusion was inaccurate [e.g. LINK - Appendix BB] although the company continued to support the erroneous notion publicly [e.g. LINK, LINK].
Dr. Newmark talked generally about work he conducted over the next few years, analyzing other blood samples [e.g. #1166, LINK]. During my conversation, I understood that Dr. Newmark was proud of the quality of the work he had done over twenty years earlier. He seemed indignant, even bitter, that his results in the 1970s had not derived the level of attention and action my results were driving in the late 1990s.
I asked him why 3M never discussed their PFOS conclusion with Guy & Taves. Dr. Newmark told me that 3M lawyers told them not to share the identity of PFOS outside the company [#2534]. Throughout our conversation, Dr. Newmark frequently seemed frustrated and disdainful of the deception he had felt forced to promote.
I conducted the interview carefully, unemotionally, quietly. I was afraid I would startle him into realizing he was sharing secrets he shouldn't and would stop confiding in me. I listened and probed gently, and I captured his confession in my notes.
We spent the second half of our meeting talking about my project (he was skeptical he would be successful but agreed to try) and about bike commuting between 3M and the suburbs (he was an avid bike commuter).
When I left Dr. Newmark’s office, I drove back to 3M’s Environmental Lab across town, both my head and my stomach churning. I immediately told my manager, Mr. Dale Bacon, what Dr. Newmark had told me. My disclosure to Bacon is etched in my memory: standing in my laboratory, talking in hushed tones, feeling like I was sharing a guilty secret that a few scientists had guarded for decades. When I told Mr. Bacon what I had learned from Dr. Newmark, Mr. Bacon didn't react except to ask: “He actually told you the lawyers told him not to disclose the compound?” My answer was yes.
Mr. Bacon told me to type up my notes on my interview with Dr. Newmark. Bacon was VERY clear that I was not to email them to him…just print out the notes and give him a copy. Document #2534 3MA10039277 is the result of Bacon’s request.
When I handed my notes to Mr. Bacon, I assumed he was hearing this historical disclosure for the first time, like I was. I assumed he was sharing the revelation with other executives so they could investigate further. I trusted him, as a company executive, to follow up and take action.
Both my assumptions and my trust were misplaced [LINK].
Several months later, meeting with the CEO of 3M and a handful of the company’s most powerful executives and lawyers, I brought up Newmark’s disclosures again. Like Bacon, the 3M executives did not respond to the secret; they did, however, quiz me on who had directed me to Dr. Newmark and with whom I had shared the outcome of the interview. Again, my trust in 3M’s leadership was misplaced, though I didn’t appreciate the extent of that betrayal until many years later. [LINK]
Dr. Newmark achieved 3M’s highest rank for a technical contributor: Corporate Scientist. He was inducted into 3M’s Carlton Society, an honor society for the company’s most successful innovators and collaborators. He’s now retired from 3M and says he doesn’t remember me or PFOS [LINK].
About 2.5 years after I shared my 1997 “discovery” of PFOS in the blood of the general population with my manager, 3M announced their intention to exit the business of manufacturing their perfluorooctanyl (aka C8) chemistry [e.g. LINK]. Approximately 2 years later (2002), they largely made good on this commitment. The commercial and environmental influx of the C8 chemicals, based on one of the most notorious PFAS and a suspected carcinogen [LINK], slowed dramatically (although other companies stepped in to begin manufacturing). I have my own theory about why 3M chose to respond to my data when they did - a topic for another day.
However, a more important question than why 3M finally chose to act in 2000 is this: how would environmental and public health have been affected if 3M had shared their data on PFOS in the general population and stopped production in 1980 instead of the early 2000s? Trying to answer that question is more heart breaking than thought provoking:
Outspoken PFAS critic Amara Strande dies from cancer; ‘We are not OK,’ former Tartan High School student says of Amara Strande’s death
Firefighters Face Alarming Occupational Risk from Carcinogen Exposure
Texas farmers say sewage-based fertilizer tainted with “forever chemicals” poisoned their land and killed their livestock
Pioneering Study Links Testicular Cancer Among Military Personnel to ‘Forever Chemicals’
Delayed discovery, dissemination, and decisions on intervention in environmental health: a case study on immunotoxicity of perfluorinated alkylate substances
Study links PFAS contamination of drinking water to a range of rare cancers
Notes about #2534: This document, available on the MN Attorney General’s site, is not currently attributed to an author, nor was it assigned a date. However, I am absolutely certain that I authored the document. It’s my understanding that #2534 surfaced during the discovery portion of one of the lawsuits against 3M.
Additional note: By the end of 1998, my 3M Environmental Lab team had identified 15 different PFAS in blood bank samples. [LINK, #2603] I wrote several reports about our work characterizing the different PFAS in humans and in animals in 1998 and 1999. 3M reported this to the EPA via an TSCA 8(e) filing in May of 1999.
