Here’s What You Need To Know About Forever Chemicals

Prime Video offers the best in entertainment. This should be fun. Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista go completely down in the hilarious new action film The Wrecking Crew. Inbegrepen by Prime. Yeah, I'm pumped. Find the new Game of Thrones series A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. Based on the bestseller of George R.R. Martin. Look by being a member of HBO Max. So be brave, be just. So whatever you want to find, Prime Video. Here you look at everything. Abonnement is revised. In-house conferencing is 18+. Algemene voorwaarden zijn van toepassing. Right. So Raj, before we start with what we're doing wrong, I want to tell you that Benji, my partner, did something very right. He proposed over the weekend. Yes. Get it, marital bliss. I wanted to tell our listeners too, I feel like they're a family at this point. So I never thought I was going to get married. And as a queer person, I kind of was like, maybe marriage is a bad thing. I hear you. But it's come a long way and I want to be protected. I want to make sure if something happens in one of us. We can see each other in the hospital. All these things we wouldn't have thought we'd have to think about, but in our current world, we do. So yeah, he proposed in Mexico City. We were on a trip. He hired 11 mariachi people to come in and play Rihanna's We Found Love. That's amazing. Yeah, which is always like the song I said I would walk down the aisle to if I did get married. Okay, well, when you guys walk down the aisle, I can sing it. Oh, I would love that. You basically are the Rihanna in my life. Listen, I was fishing for that. You got it. Well, I am giddy, and I'm so happy you shared that with everyone because they love you guys, and they love you back. Thank you. Yeah, it's really special. Now that we got that out of the way. Speaking of forever. Yeah. I have something scarier to ask you. Are you doing forever chemicals wrong? Oh, my God. That's quite the transition. It is quite the transition. Till death do us part. I am not doing them right, for sure. I don't totally know where Forever Chemicals are lurking They just have the word forever in them Which is really scary when paired with chemicals I need to know more about them So I can try and do my whole Harm reduction thing because the stuff that I do know Is kind of scary What about you? Same thing this is one of those episodes where I know nothing I'm going into it totally blind And I'm curious about what we're going to find out I'm a little terrified But the whole point of this show is to do it better So once you know better, you do better. That's right. And I feel like that's going to happen today. And we're all going to go through it together. So let's go. All right. So we got Tasha Stoiber. She has a PhD and she is a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. We're get this. She researches contaminants in water, indoor air pollution, and chemicals in consumer products. Dr. Stoiber is the real deal. Let's go. Dr. Stoiber, thank you so much for being with us. We're so excited to have you. Thank you. Great to be here. Not excited to talk about Forever Chemicals, though. I do have to tell you, I'm like, the term Forever Chemicals is so daunting, but we are gonna, you know, our whole intention is to demystify. We need to know. Yeah. So can we start by just asking, what are Forever Chemicals, aka PFAS? So Forever Chemicals, or PFAS, P-F-A-S, I think most people might know kind of the brand names, things like Teflon, that's going to be in your cookware pans, things like that, or Scotchgard. People might remember Scotchgard from carpets in the 1980s. So most people, I think, are familiar with the kinds of brand names and products that these chemicals might be in. PFAS, per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or as you said, forever chemicals. These chemicals all have one thing in common is that they have these carbon and fluorine bonds in them. That's the commonality between the thousands of different types of these. And it's this bond that gives these chemicals their specific properties that makes them sought after in all of these different products. It gives them things like stain resistance, wrinkle resistance, nonstick. But it's also the reason that these chemicals are a problem and that they're building up in the environment is that they don't break down. And that's where you get that name forever chemicals. That's kind of terrifying. Yeah. When did these become a thing? I mean, I grew up in the 80s. I don't remember people talking about them, but I do obviously remember Scotchgard and Teflon and everything. When did we start to actually describe them as such and also start to freak out about them? Yeah, that's another good question. So these chemicals were made decades ago. They were made actually in about the 1930s. They just exploded in use in the decades afterwards in like the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. But what industry didn't reveal was that, you know, their own scientists and their own doctors knew that they were harmful. They knew that they were causing harm to workers. They knew that they were linked to cancer. They knew that they were linked to birth defects and that they were getting in the drinking water. but they kept this information from the public for years and years and kept making the chemicals and kept making the products and using this, you know, as a marketing tool to sell things to people and to make tons of money. The joys of capitalism. I know. And you know what? I kind of get it, right? Because they created this thing in a lab or these substances that made all of our lives easier. Like think about your eggs sliding off of a pan and you're like, yay, awesome. No one's at first going to be like, oh, what is this doing to us? What could this sorcery be? And the sorcery is Forever Chemicals. Can you tell us a little bit about how widespread they are? I mean, I feel like we've reached a fever pitch and people are like, oh my God, they're everything. They're in everything. They're in your shoes and your face. God alone knows. I don't know what to believe. How widespread are they at this point? They are extremely widespread and especially in consumer products. I mean, even in things that you might not expect, like cosmetics, for example, like dental floss, your leggings, like clothing, outdoor clothing, shoes, waterproof gear, things like that, as well as a lot of things in your home, like carpets, stain treatments on furniture, drapes, even like bedding and whatnot can have them in them. And so it's kind of exploded in all of these uses. But when you take a step back and you look at all of this, you don't really need to have all of these items in your home. You know, if you cook with a cast iron pan and you season it really well, it will last you probably your lifetime versus one of these Teflon pans that gets scratched up and looking pretty bad, you know, in like a year and then you have to replace it anyway. So, I mean, you know, they're used in all these products, but in a lot of cases, we just really don't need them. And it's just been used, like I said before, kind of as this marketing tool to sell people a lot of stuff that we really don't need. What are Forever Chemicals doing to our bodies? You know, you mentioned earlier that people who are working to create them are working in the plants that we're making them. We're getting cancer or getting sick. But so what are they potentially doing to all of us? And I want to add on by asking about the research about this, like, how do you guys know what it's doing to us? We know from studies with animals and also studies in humans. I can actually point back to, you know, one of the largest exposure studies that was done was looking at exposure of PFAS to a community in West Virginia where the original production facility was for PFOA. It's one of the largest exposure studies that took place and was required as part of a lawsuit in that community where they looked at nearly 70,000 people. They were highly exposed since there was releases of the chemicals from the production facility into the water, into the air. And so this was a unique community that had been highly exposed for years and years and years. And this was one of the original studies that found that linked PFOA, or you might see it referred to as C8. That's the number of carbons for that base molecule that people are being exposed to. And they found that it was linked to six health effects, including testicular cancer, kidney cancer, high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. And I mean, that was almost 15 years ago or so now. And there have just been evidence of study after study, hundreds of studies in both animals and people that have shown these links. And usually we study people, you know, at the population level and you look at exposure. There was just a very recent study that looked at a paper that came out that looked at a community that was upstream. They got their drinking water upstream of a highly contaminated site with PFAS. And they compared that to a community that was just downstream of that, that got their drinking water from downstream of that site. And so it's a really similar community. Everyone was in this three-mile radius of this contaminated site. And then what they found for the people that lived downstream of the site, there was much higher risk of negative birth outcomes as a result of this. either preterm birth, low birth weight, or even increased infant mortality. So, you know, we talk about PFAS kind of as legacy chemicals, kind of the original ones that we think about, PFOA and PFOS, but there are all of these replacement chemicals as well. They might look a little different they might have different chemical structures but they still have that same commonality in that they have the carbon and fluorine bonds and what we're finding is similar health effects as we study these replacements that they have some these similar health effects and and the whole class of chemicals they bioaccumulate And they're very persistent in the environment. That is diabolical. No, this makes me think of Erin Brockovich. Right. Which is one of my favorite movies ever. It's one of those movies when it comes on TBS, no matter what I'm doing, I sit down and watch it. Sure, yeah. And not to make light of what you're talking about, because it's obviously devastating for these communities. But I'm also wondering, I guess I have two questions. Let's start with the first one is that, so I can imagine if these chemicals are being dumped directly into groundwater or that kind of thing. Like high concentration. high concentration. But what have we found just from using, like, if I'm using a Teflon frying pan, how great of a danger is that if I'm using that twice a week? Or, you know, people who aren't being exposed directly to the chemicals from groundwater and huge concentrations, but are still obviously getting them from leggings or getting them from these other places. What kind of danger are we in? Yeah, that's another great question. I'm glad you asked it that way. And so exposure, it depends a lot on kind of who you are, what life stage you're in, and where you're living. As I mentioned before, some of the highly exposed populations are people that live next to a production facility or they work or directly are working in an industry. Those are some of your more highly exposed populations. Or I would also place in that highly exposed group firefighters since for a very long time, a triple F firefighting foam used PFAS. there are alternatives now that don't have PFAS in them, but this firefighting foam, you know, used at airports, at various facilities, and military bases, things like that, again, where that was used also led to kind of extreme levels of contamination. But then you also mentioned too, you know, what about everybody else on the other side? And so we have all of these releases from all of these different sources. You have industry, you have the firefighting foam, you have consumer products, which has led to kind of these slow releases from wastewater, from landfills, things like that. So we have low level contamination in a lot of different areas as well. It's pervasive in the drinking water of millions of Americans. There's a wide range of levels of contamination from highly contaminated to very low levels. And we are concerned about, you know, these lower levels of exposure as well, since they are also linked to health impacts, even at, you know, just very low levels in your drinking water. We're talking like parts per trillion, which is, you know, just a fraction of a drop in like an Olympic sized swimming pool, even smaller than that. these are linked to health effects as well. You know, for example, your immune system is one of the most sensitive parts of your body that can be negatively impacted by PFAS exposure. And just extremely low levels can affect how your immune system responds and, you know, produces antibodies, things like that. So we are concerned about these low levels of exposure. And as I mentioned, you know, it kind of depends on your life stage as well. Like, for example, younger children are more susceptible to exposures, carpets and rugs. Again, you know, a lot of companies are responding and phasing things out, and you can get more products now that don't have PFAS in them. But, you know, when carpets and rugs were treated with PFAS, you know, children, for example, if you're crawling around on the floor, kicking up dust, putting your hands to your mouth and whatnot, you know, their number one exposure route was the dust. And you might not think about that. But so it kind of depends, you know, do I live in a highly exposed area? Is my drinking water contaminated? Do I have small children? So So all of those exposure pathways might be a little bit different, kind of depending on who you are. But, you know, we are concerned about those low level exposures also. See, this is why at the end of the day, when it's like, do I want water or am I martini? I'm going to do the martini. I joke. Is my Brita filter doing anything to potentially help this? our organization does have uh an online tool that you can use to look up your drinking water to find out if you have bfas in your drinking water um it's ewg's tap water database um you can type in zip code or your utility and you can find out if there's contamination um and if there is you know one of the easiest ways to reduce that exposure is to filter your drinking water um a carbon filter is effective or a reverse osmosis filter is effective. But, you know, we get that question a lot if the Brita filter is, I mean, it can reduce some of the PFAS, most of the Brita filters. I know there's a couple different kinds and levels of the Brita filters, but kind of your standard regular conventional Brita filter, it will reduce some of it, but it wasn't designed specifically for PFAS. But there are other pitcher filters, for example, there are other under-sync filters that will work pretty effectively to reduce a lot of the PFAS in your drinking water. Your multi-stage carbon filter works pretty well. And reverse osmosis is the most effective. It can be a little bit more expensive compared to the other filter types, but the RO filters work really well to reduce PFAS. Oh, good to know. We got a bunch of questions from listeners about more specific places that they're worried about maybe finding them. So I think we're just going to go through some of them. Another one, I think people probably probably remember this a couple of years ago, everyone was freaking out about the black plastic spatulas or cookware. And there were all these articles saying if you have a black plastic spatula or spoon, like throw that out immediately. So specific. Yeah, the forever chemicals. Then other people were saying, actually, no, they're not bad. What do you know about it? Where have we landed? Should everyone be tossing out all those utensils immediately? This plastic issue is interesting because it is related. If you're using those Teflon nonstick coated pans in the kitchen, you don't use a metal spoon with that you use plastic. And so it's kind of this, it's kind of this double punch of exposure in the kitchen that you don't that you don't want. You know, if you're using a cast iron pan, like you use either a metal spatula or, you know, a wooden spoon or whatever. So there was a lot about these black plastic spatulas. And so the issue there was if they're made with recycled plastic, if you're thinking black plastic, like what has black plastic in it, old TV cases or electronics cases, and if that type of plastic is recycled, what they were finding was flame retardants that were added to those electronics were now being found in your black plastic spatula. Oh, God. And there were some discussion around it because I think there was a calculation error in the paper and whatnot, but it didn't change the conclusion at all, is that you probably don't want to be using plastic in the kitchen for a number of different reasons and that eventually it's going to melt. And there can be, you know, leftover chemicals from whatever the plastic in its previous life, whatever that plastic was. So they were finding flame retardants in these black plastic spatulas. We generally recommend to, if you can, you know, try to phase out that plastic in your kitchen as much as possible. Try to stick with cast iron, metal, glass, stainless steel, things like that. that's generally the way that you want to go to try to avoid those plastics because eventually it's going to break down in the heat and you know I don't think I've ever seen a plastic utensil that's that's looked like it was in good shape after you used it in the kitchen yeah so definitely like opt for like your your wood or or metal spatulas and utensils in the kitchen all right so when in doubt pull your wood out like raj loves a little rhyming couplet to help remember especially if it's like kind of dirty yeah i use wooden spatulas okay good to know that that i'm doing that and for a purpose right okay what about our clothes um we talked a little bit about the leggings um jillian asks are there pfas in my clothes are there particular fabrics i should avoid. There's some talk about leggings. And then I am interested, you said that PFAS can have effects on reproductive health. So, you know, anything that's like going near your cooch, like if you have one, including sanitary items, you know, like tampons and pads. Tell me a little bit about those. Like, should we be worried about leggings that are touching you very closely and other things like that? Yeah, that's another great question. And I know that There was a study done a few years ago that looked at, I think, levels of fluorine in leggings. And as I mentioned before, performance wear, synthetic fabrics, again, for that wrinkle-resistant, kind of stain-resistant, PFAS was added to clothes to maintain those qualities in performance wear, athletic wear. The good news is I think going forward is that we have a lot that happening at the state level in terms of trying to get PFAS out of consumer products It would be great if more was happening on the national scale and at the federal level, but a lot of states... Good luck with that, my friend. A lot of... But what we can point to is that a lot of states have gone forward with trying to get PFAS, you know, as I mentioned before, out of all like some of these places where we really just don't need it. And one of them is textiles. California and I believe New York also have passed laws kind of going forward of getting rid of PFAS in textiles and clothing. In the meantime, you can, you know, definitely look for those words if something is marketed as like stain resistant or wrinkle resistant and research your brand. And like I said before, the level of awareness, I think, is really skyrocketing. And as people become more and more aware of this and finding out about them, they don't want them in their clothes. They don't want them in their items. And when in doubt, you can always buy just pure cotton leggings that don't kind of have those performance attributes also. It's it's I mean, we hear this on the show all the time. This idea that like you have to do a little research. You know, you have if you care about something, it might take a little more time and energy, maybe a little more money. But usually it's worth it. But I think a lot of us have such crazy lives. And also we kind of assume, I think, not smartly that like these companies aren't going to hurt us and our government isn't going to hurt us. You know, and if it's for sale, then it must be OK. And like we know that that's not true. Another one I want to ask about during the pandemic, I lived alone. It was very lonely. And so I would do these little things to sort of like cheer myself up. And one of the things I loved was like a scented candle. It like made my place so cozy. And then I was watching some morning show. It was like Good Morning America or something. And they had this expert on and she was like, anytime you light a scented candle, you were releasing chemicals into your apartment. They're so bad for you. literally chemicals plus flames equals death. And I was like, I can't even have scented candles. It's like one of my greatest joys, lighting a candle. So what do you think about scented candles in terms of like, what's happening? Can we have them? Or are you going to steal our joy? That's another good question. And I definitely don't want to steal anyone's joy. I want there be joy and happiness and coziness in your home. And again, I think it's just a part of that awareness again that, you know, that's the whole reason we're talking about this. And it's just great for people to be aware. You can't shop your way out of every exposure, but in a lot of cases, you can make better choices. So for candles, for example, what you would want to look for is something like a natural beeswax candle and make sure that the wick is just like a plain cotton wick and it doesn't have a metal center. Something, you know, like something that you might find at like a farmer's market or something like that. some, you know, where it's just like natural beeswax. And then you get away from, I'm not sure about PFAS specifically, but you get away with some of the harmful VOCs that are associated with the commercial wax that's used in, you know, some of the regular mainstream candles. So you want to look for that beeswax candle and one that has that plain, just cotton wick and something that's not metal. So I think you can still have your candle and still make your place cozy, but just opt for one of those types instead of one of your other mainstream candles. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, I think you can still have your candle. Thank you. I do like the idea of, and I do love a farmer's market, so I'm not opposed to going there. Some things are marketed with the word clean on them. Yeah. And I hate to bring it back to like more genital really things, but I want to just bring it back. Yeah. Like Brandy's question about tampons and pads. A lot of them are marketed as clean. Right. Does that mean anything to you, Dr. Stoibert? Yeah. So again, a lot of these marketing words like clean, natural, there's not a lot of weight behind that. And that's why it's better to look for independent third-party certifications. Tampons, for example, I'm glad you brought us back to those. Some tampons did have detected PFAS, but there are a number of brands out there when tested did not have PFAS. So again, if that's what you're concerned about, you just have to double check and see if your brand has been tested or not. Organic cotton, that refers, you know, that's the cotton part of the tampon. There are other parts of the tampon, but the organic just refers to that cotton. So that may not ensure that it's PFAS free, but you just want to check to see if they have tested. And then if they have that data, then you can say, oh, this, you know, this brand doesn't have it. I'll stick with that brand. Yeah. That seems like one that is worth checking in on. Like those are directly going inside of you. your body. Yes. You know, speaking of things you put in your body, I, as I understand it, PFAS is not in most of our food. But I did hear that it's in there are PFAS in seafood. Can you tell us anything about this? Yeah, so PFAS. And again, a lot of people think about, I think they think first thing off the top of their head is drinking water. I should be worried about my drinking water and make, you know, make sure I have a filter and whatnot. But we can be exposed to PFAS from these other routes. And another major exposure route is food. And it depends on, you know, again, who you are and what you're eating, if that is your major exposure route. But yes, PFAS can be in fish. But don't despair too much because, again, there are different choices that you can make. So freshwater caught fish tends to have a lot higher levels of PFAS. So this is an issue for people that fish in lakes and streams and especially in areas that have higher population levels. That translates into, you know, more releases to the environment. And then that's going to build up in the freshwater fish. So freshwater fish are especially vulnerable to PFAS. So this is terrible, Dr. Sturberg, because I don't want to buy farmed fish. So I always go to Whole Foods and when the, what's the non-farmed or whatever fish is on sale, I'm like, yes, I'm so healthy. Like, can I have anything nice? Yeah, so grocery store fish, if you look at the comparison, it did tend to have lower levels, but you can also buy marine fish, like fish that were in the ocean. Those types of fish tended to have lower levels of PFAS. and again the grocery store fish if you know making that comparison the levels were much lower so yeah so I mean that is a choice for some people you know just kind of recognizing you know some people do fish and that's their main source of protein again it's it's kind of this disproportionate exposure you know some people can make that choice to shop at the grocery store others can't. But grocery store fish did tend to have lower levels when compared to freshwater. Are there any other foods that tend to be problematic or to have high levels of them? PFAS can also be found in food packaging. So your, you know, packaged foods, processed foods at the grocery store. You know, one of the behaviors that has been shown to be linked to lower levels of PFAS is those that cook more meals at home. And if you are eating more kind of takeout food, food in takeout containers, that can also have an impact on the PFAS levels in your body. As I mentioned before, though, the trend is that more states are taking action and they're definitely taking action on PFAS in food containers. So there, again, a number of states are phasing out or prohibiting PFAS in these single-use containers. So we're on the right track, but that's not, again, it's not across the board. So you can try to cook at home more and kind of as much as you can. Try to choose, you know, whole foods and, and, and move away from packaged foods, you know, whenever you can make that choice, because it doesn't make a difference over time. You know, when Noah feels overwhelmed, he says this thing, he's like, I'm just gonna walk into the ocean now and never come back. But you can't, because it's forever chemicals everywhere. Yeah, no, I know. I guess a question I have to that I was just thinking about is like, Is there a way to know how many forever chemicals you have in you or if it's a concern? Like, are we testing it? Can you go to the doctor and get a forever chemical test? Or if you don't have the high levels where you're getting cancer or something like that, do we just have no idea what's going on inside of us? If people are interested in their levels, there are test kits that you can purchase that will tell you your levels. It is a little bit difficult to say, you know, on an individual basis that these levels translate into, you know, specific health outcomes, things like that. It's easier to say that at a population level, but there are guidelines for clinicians based on PFAS levels in your blood and what you might want to screen for based on those levels kind of going forward and recommendations based on, you know, are you in that 90th percentile? do tend to have lower levels. So there are recommendations based on different ranges of PFAS in people blood If we find out that we have high levels in our bodies is there anything we can do about that Like is there a way to flush Or if you like really worked hard to not expose yourself more at some point would they you know disappear from us Or are they forever chemicals forever in our bodies, too? And I want to add, I've heard that you pee them out. So if you can tell me if we pee them out as well, that would be very helpful. Yeah, so it depends. It really depends. It depends on the type of PFAS. Depending on which type you've been exposed to, they stay in your body for different amounts of time, sometimes decades, sometimes on the order of months, sometimes on the order of days. It depends on the type. But what we've seen, especially on the community level, for example, national biomonitoring data, when they do compare levels, you know, from decade to decade or over time, a lot of these legacy older types of PFAS that have been voluntarily phased out by industry, those levels are dropping in people. So we know that over time, the levels do go down. And, you know, interventions, for example, if a community has installed treatment, if they install drinking water treatment, and they measured levels in people's bodies and people's blood over time, before and after that treatment, after a number of years, the trend is that PFAS will go down. So we know that there are things that you can do, as I mentioned before, not you can't avoid all exposures, but there are things that you can do to reduce some of those bigger exposures, you know, whether that's using a drinking water filter, or trying to cook at home more, swapping out things in your kitchen, things like that. A lot of those different behavioral changes, they can reduce those levels. Okay. So we are flushing them out at some level. Right. I mean, over time, they do leave your leave your body. Women, for example, since we do lose blood over time. Overall, again, if we're, you know, just comparing population level, you know, women sometimes tend to have lower levels in men, since we are losing blood at certain points. There are ways that they are leaving our body, but they do kind of, but it's slowly, it's incrementally and over time. Wow, uterus for the win. definitely the one good thing you guys are always talking about the patriarchy and like here we go dr storber and i are reversing the patriarchy one period at a time and i'm just over here filled with forever chemicals just scanning plastic so sad wow i feel like i got smarter and more scared at the same time yes this is a good question from kristen i feel like this sort of sums up what we're all feeling. She said, is there any point to me trying to control them or is it probably too late? Should I just live my life? What do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, I think people should definitely live their lives. Definitely. Again, when we want to, when we think about these, when we think about chemical exposures, this is the health effects are related to exposure over time. Oftentimes it's, you know, a number of years of exposure. But at the same time, it's good to know that there are these really small things that you can do that actually do make a difference. Like things, one of the things that I like to recommend since it's just, it's so easy is that washing your hands before you eat can greatly reduce chemical exposures in your body since things, you know, like flame retardants and other things, they stick to dust, they get on our hands or whatnot. And then when we eat, we're exposed to it. So, you know, especially for kids and whatnot, if you're washing your hands before you eat, it's reduce, you know, not only germs, but some of these chemical exposures as well. It's such an easy thing to do. Or something like frequently vacuuming and dusting in your home. Again, chemicals in your home products, they don't stay there. They are shed out. They tend to deposit in dust around your house. So get out your vacuum, vacuum fitted with a HEPA filter, vacuum as much as you can dust as much as you can easy things like that do make a difference when it comes to chemical exposures you know who's gonna love that my partner Benji he owns seven vacuums I think we've talked about this on the show before no he loves to vacuum so he's just gonna be even more excited that you just gave him a good reason to vacuum even more vacuuming is very psychologically satisfying to me yeah so I understand especially if you have an animal and you just see the hair get sucked up. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like the, you know, what you're talking about is the theme of my life, which is harm reduction. Yeah. Like we're not going to stop living or having fun or enjoying A, B and C, but like having this knowledge is very helpful to me. Like if I can just shave off 10% of danger, I think it would be very helpful. Yeah. And that will add up. I think that's great. I love these tips. I love washing your hands. I mean, I remember when the pandemic happened too, everyone was like, wash more. It seems like we should be washing more in general. So I love that. Love cleaning more. Any other tip that we haven't gone through besides, you know, eating more at home that you think people can do starting today, starting right now, that actually is going to help limit their exposure? One of the first things that you can do is just to be aware. That's the first step, just for people to know where they might be exposed, what types of products PFAS might be in. That I think is key because then it kind of gets you thinking about things. So awareness definitely is key. And as I mentioned also before as well, is just looking for those terms like something that's stain resistant or wrinkle resistant. Often that's linked to PFAS added to that product. So if you can avoid those terms right off the bat, or if that just kind of gets you thinking, that's key also. So it's really important for that awareness. And I think just overall, the consumer awareness leads to this larger movement and push from people overall for change. and that you know that that starts with all of us um and when you have that when you have people saying hey you know i don't want this in all of my my products um companies take notice and i mean when you have this kind of at the community level and people pushing for this also um pushing their policymakers um that's also when things happen too i don't want this in my drinking water nobody does what are we going to do about it? Let's invest in drinking water treatment. There's a lot of benefits there. I will also say anything that says it's wrinkle resistant is a lie. I've bought that stuff before. I have to iron it anyways. So just get out your iron and buy the cotton shirt or whatever. Sweat wicking is another term that really freaks me out. It's okay to have your sweat on your clothes. Where does it go? Unwicked sweats. I don't like it. I learned a ton and I'm less freaked out than I thought I was going to be. I'm pretty freaked out right now, but I feel like it will, like my palms are sweaty, but I feel like it will. We need to wick it away. I'm going to wick away. I hate that so much, but I feel empowered ultimately. So once my anxiety tamps down a little bit, I think I'm going to definitely kind of rejigger some things in my house. Because we've got tips to do it better. That's the whole idea of the show. See, it all comes full circle. Tasha thank you so much for being here it's been great yeah absolutely thanks so much alright you guys it's time for better in five these are our top five takeaways from this episode okay the first one is forever chemicals were designed to make our lives easier but they're actually now found to be linked to some pretty serious health conditions number two you can look online to see the levels of forever chemicals in your water supply and it's probably not a bad idea to get a water filter no matter what the level is. Number three, you can't shop your way out of every problem, but there are buzzwords to look for that indicate forever chemicals are present in your clothing, for example, such as stain resistant and wrinkle resistant. Right. Number four, washing your hands and vacuuming are two simple ways to limit your exposure. Hear that, Benji? And number five, research is your friend. becoming more aware about forever chemicals is the first step to limiting them okay noah were you doing forever chemicals wrong yeah absolutely number one because i wasn't really thinking about them number two i admitted i love a scented candle and i definitely was not getting like the beeswax organic one from the farmer's market expensive um but you know what i loved about this episode is that Tasha wasn't scaremongering. You know, she didn't come in here and say, like, everything you're doing is wrong. You're full of chemicals. You're going to die tomorrow. And I think that's sort of what I was afraid she was going to say. I love that she gave us really practical ways that we can start doing things better. Literally, the minute we get off camera, we can wash our hands. We can vacuum. We can get less takeout, whatever it is. That felt really useful to me. Yeah, I don't respond well to fear mongering also. So she was very empowering and I appreciate that. Yeah, because you just shut down otherwise. Yes. What did you think? I was definitely doing all of this wrong. Especially, I'm very attracted to those buzzwords on workout clothing in particular that are like sweat wicking, whatever resistant. And now I'm like, maybe I should work out in like a burlap sack. I already snagged a man. That's never going to happen. We both know that. I will find middle ground is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe some cotton. You know. Yeah. Anyway, as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better. Love you guys. Am I Doing It Wrong? is a co-production between HuffPost and ACAST. Our producers are Eve Bishop, Carmen Borca Carrillo, and Malia Agudelo. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutter. Special thanks to HuffPost's head of audience, Abby Williams. Head of video, Will Took. As well as Kate Palmer, Marta Rodriguez, and Terry D'Angelo. And we're your hosts, Raj Punjabi Johnson. And Noah Michelson. you