Talk:Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances

Biased Source

Echoing the previous comment, the page provides a Table titled "Probable links to health issues as identified by the C8 Science Panel." The Table lists position papers that did not meet the quality standards for publication in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal, and thus were self-published by C8SciencePanel.org. C8SciencePanel.org is registered anonymously, but appears to be owned by a plaintiff's law firm with a financial interest in PFAS litigation. Wikipedia's editorial standards say that content "must be verifiable." The C8SciencePanel.org position papers are not verifiable. That Table should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.212.40 (talk • contribs) 21:15, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

That table was removed a while ago. --Leyo 22:17, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Vague tag-ism?

I strongly disagree with the necessity of hanging a "vague" tag on the sentence: Hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid abnormality associated with[vague] PFAS exposure. ...especially, as a citation reference is given for that sentence. The entire point of the article is that there are undetermined correlations without established causality or mechanism; connections have been documented without the exact nature of them being known. This, necessarily, falls into the territory of "vagueness". Therefore, there is no reason to cast doubt upon a simple, self-evident statement (one which has a reference) by hanging a "vague" tag on it. Discussion? rowley (talk) 04:04, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

These tags have been added by Beland. It seems to me that he is not an expert in the fields of epidemiology or medicine. --Leyo 09:23, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@Leyo: I don't think it's particularly required to be a medical expert in order to point out a phrase that is not clear to a general audience, but I do actually have a science background. Thanks for pointing out this thread, but it would be helpful to direct your comments to the merits of the text, rather than other editors. @Jmrowland: I don't have access to the referenced article, so I can't clarify whether the association is based on epidemiology that indicates a statistical correlation that may or may not indicate causation, medical studies that were testing PFOS as a treatment, or case reports from people who had just been accidentally exposed or something. "Significant" is also vague and subjective, so it's better to "show not tell" and give the actual number. Something like this would be less vague: "Epidemiological studies find the opposite response in humans; an exposure of X is statistically correlated with a Y increase in total cholesterol and a Z increase in LDL cholesterol." The rest of that sentence seems to assume that the relationship is causal, rather than allowing that correlation does not prove causation and saying something like: "If PFOS exposure actually causes higher cholesterol, this would indicate..." -- Beland (talk) 23:07, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, but my issue is with the wording, not the research. "Hypothyroidism is the most common thyroid abnormality associated with PFAS exposure" is not an especially vague statement. rowley (talk) 22:39, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

There is only one vague tag remaining (in section Hypercholesterolemia). Do you have access to the full text of doi:10.1080/10408440802209804 to check and to come up with a suggestion for rephrasing the sentence? --Leyo 13:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Corporate and federal government suppression of information

I have reintroduced a paragraph in this section [1] improving some content that had been removed in the past [2]. @Bon courage I see you reverted it simply stating "Primary sourcing". What do you mean exactly? The source is a high quality source as far as I can tell https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10237242/ and the sourcing should be appropriate per WP:MEDRS for that kind of information. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The publisher categorize this as an "Original Article", but PUBMED has it as a review. On inspection, it's a composite of both. So, the question is: is the cited material WP:SECONDARY in nature? Bon courage (talk) 19:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Of course: "It contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources". In this case the primary sources are the historical documents that they reviewed. It was published in a peer reviewed journal and is on PUBMED. So it is a reliable secondary source per WP:SECONDARY. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:54, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

They also "developed deductive codes to assess industry influence". And this "development" is original work (primary research). The review element pertains to determining document dating, so far as I can see. Bon courage (talk) 20:00, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The fact that a "novel" categorisation was used to classify the primary documents definitely does not make this a WP:PRIMARY source. The "deductive codes" refer to the categories they used to categorise the documents: Drawing on the work of Bero and White [37], we deduced six codes from the cross-industry strategies of manipulation that researchers previously established to see whether the same practices emerge among the PFAS industry.. The codes were for example: “manipulation of the research question to obtain predetermined results; funding and publishing research that supports industry interests; suppressing unfavorable research; distorting the public discourse about research; changing or setting scientific standards to serve corporate interests;" etc. They then used those codes to simply tag the documents they were reviewing to categorise them: We then analyzed the documents, coding for each of these strategies. This falls well within the scope of WP:SECONDARY. If you don't have further concerns would you self-revert? {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 20:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Bits are primary and bits are secondary, as for many sources. However looking with that in mind the bits you added seem to be secondary, so there is not an issue. Bon courage (talk) 20:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the self-revert. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 20:34, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Bloomberg Investigates

A new documentary that was released a few days ago may be considered to be mentioned in the article: The Forever Chemical Scandal | Bloomberg Investigates 77.58.7.44 (talk) 21:26, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Bioaccumulation and biomagnification

In my view, this addition would need to be condensed considerably. The text includes general information on bioaccumulation and biomagnification. --Leyo 22:54, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we prefer wikilinks to concepts like bioaccumulation and biomagnification. I don´t understand why the review (Houde M, Martin JW, Letcher RJ, Solomon KR, Muir DC (June 2006). "Biological monitoring of polyfluoroalkyl substances: A review". Environmental Science & Technology. 40 (11): 3463–3473) was removed; secondary sources are generally preferred in wp. Feel free to condense the text. JimRenge (talk) 08:49, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: College Composition II

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2024 and 11 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GregRR1 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Lindseybean28 (talk) 21:26, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Merge "Economic role" and "Estimated contemporary costs"?

The sections "Economic role" and "Estimated contemporary costs" partly cover the same topic. What about merging the contents in a section called "Socio-economic role"? 195.176.112.14 (talk) 20:14, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Both sections (as such) do not exist anymore. --Leyo 18:49, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Presence in Fertilizer

Which section does this go under? ‘This is Chernobyl’: Texas ranchers say ‘forever chemicals’ in waste-based fertilizers ruined their land Hcobb (talk) 18:49, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Examples

Other than Teflon, that list isn't particularly meaningful to a non-chemist. Maybe list common products that contain these chemicals? 57.135.233.22 (talk) 13:38, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Unsupported statement in the article

Under the subheading of United States in the section titled "Concerns, litigation, and regulations in specific countries and regions" this statement is made: "but the Republican Party, supported by the U.S. chemical industry filibustered the bill.[24]"

I read the article linked as support for this statement. It mentions filibuster once and does not state who did the filibuster. Txantimedia (talk) 07:54, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

The quote from the article is "All legislation aimed at regulating toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” died in the Democratic-controlled US Congress last session as companies flexed their lobbying muscle and bills did not gain enough Republican support to overcome a Senate filibuster." It doesn't say that there was an actual filibuster. I take it to mean if there was a filibuster, there was not enough Republican support to overcome it. So I agree that the wording in the article should be clarified. Nowa (talk) 21:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Even if well-sourced, the factoid may not merit inclusion in this article. It's not really about PFAS themselves. I don't know if this type of political information is appropriate for this article. (It doesn't sound like it belongs in an encyclopedia.) Drsruli (talk) 03:36, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

You raise some interesting points. I agree that the article doesn't need a note about US legislation that didn't pass back in 2021. If we can get someone to second this point, then I'm in favor of removing the paragraph. Nowa (talk) 12:32, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, not necessary for this article. Should also be removed from intro section. Gahundle (talk) 20:18, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Inconsistent - PFAS vs. PFASs

Article alternates between using PFAS as plural and PFASs. Should be standardized throughout. I see there was previously a RfC on this topic that did not lead to any changes. I am partial to "PFAS" without plural s, as that seems to be more common in literature (and it's what the group I work with uses, so that helps). Whichever way it goes, a decision should be made and article updated to reflect that. Gahundle (talk) 00:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Leaning towards using PFAS. There are more instances of that being used over the other version, and I haven't seen any instances where PFAS was used to refer to something in the singular. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Even the OECD in its revised definition (doi:10.1787/e458e796-en) uses "PFAS" as a singular: […] any chemical with at least a perfluorinated methyl group (−CF₃) or a perfluorinated methylene group (−CF₂−) is a PFAS.
"PFAS" is even sometimes used in singular, when actually the plural is meant, e.g. Where PFAS is found at levels that exceed these standards or If PFAS is detected in your water. When using "PFASs", nobody would use "is" instead of "are". Furthermore, I've seen it several times, that people mistake "PFAS" to be a single chemical, similar to similar-looking acronyms such as PFOS, PFOA etc. This wouldn't happen if "PFASs" was used.
Initially, "PFASs" was used. A few years ago, there was a shift towards "PFAS". Recently, there has been a shift back to "PFASs" by Organisations such as the UN[3] (incl. Stockholm Convention), OECD[4], but also in the scientific literature.
For the reasons stated, I do strongly prefer "PFASs" (with plural-s). --Leyo 21:32, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Condensing sections: adverse health outcomes, regulatory concerns, remediation

These three sections are pretty bloated. Health outcomes I think can be reduced to a single paragraph, rather than 7 subheadings. Same idea for litigation and regulation: there are quite a lot of details about litigation from individual US states that I think the breadth of this article does not warrant. Much of this can be condensed, removed, or moved to an article specific to PFAS litigation/regulation. The section on remediation needs a rewrite; it's not organized, it's unclear which technologies are in use and which are under research, or how well developed any of them are. I'm planning to start tackling these when I get a chance, but wanted to give people a chance to weigh in (or beat me to it!) in case there are any strong feelings about any of this. Gahundle (talk) 03:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

analytical methods

The following paper could be useful to improve and update the section on analytical methods: Closing PFAS analytical gaps: Inter-method evaluation of total organofluorine techniques for AFFF-impacted water, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hazl.2024.100122 194.230.145.139 (talk) 23:59, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Nomination as a vital article

I've nominated this article as a level 5 vital article here. -1ctinus📝🗨 20:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)