Aaron Goodman: Welcome to the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. I'm Aaron Goodman, host and creator of the show. I'm a longtime journalist, documentary maker, university instructor, and communication studies researcher, and I've lived with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, or MCS, for years. MCS is also known as chemical intolerance, toxicant-induced loss of tolerance (TILT), and idiopathic environmental illness.

The illness affects millions around the world. And the number of people with MCS is rising just about everywhere. Living with MCS means dealing with a range of overlapping symptoms, including fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating, muscle and joint pain, headaches, eye irritation, confusion, memory loss, rashes and more. 

Trace amounts of chemicals and synthetic fragrances in household and personal care products, pesticide, paint, construction materials, cigarette smoke, and more can spark a cascade of debilitating symptoms, and finding accommodation can be very complicated. Dismissed by healthcare providers, employers, and employers, even loved ones, many feel misunderstood, isolated, and invisible. 

This podcast aims to change that. We delve into the latest research and speak with all kinds of people impacted by MCS. You'll gain important knowledge, a sense of validation, and learn about navigating the realities of life with MCS. We also explore wider issues connected to toxic chemical pollution and how individuals and communities are pushing back against it and the harms it causes.

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of stories in the news about forever chemicals, or PFAS, and I imagine many of you have as well. So I wanted to know: what are forever chemicals, where are they found, and what can we do about them? I reached out to two researchers who specialize in forever chemicals and how they impact our communities—also, how some communities are coming together to tell corporations they've had enough.

You'll hear my conversation with Professor Daniel Renfrew and Professor Thomas Pearson. They're both anthropologists, so they work closely with so-called fenceline communities, which are close to industrial sites and face significant effects from toxic chemical pollution.

Daniel Renfrew is Department Chair and Professor of Anthropology at West Virginia University in the U.S. His research focuses on toxic exposures and environmental health, forever chemicals, lead contamination, environmental justice, and Latin American studies. Professor Thomas Pearson is also a Department Chair and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in the U.S. He specializes in environmental justice, social movements, applied anthropology, and disability studies.

Daniel and Thomas are leading a fascinating collaborative study focused on community responses to PFAS contamination in the Mid-Ohio River Valley and Upper Great Lakes region of the U.S. They’ve written two fascinating papers about forever chemicals, and I'll share links to these in the show notes.

So, in this episode, you'll hear me ask Daniel and Thomas about:

• The nature of forever chemicals.
• How forever chemicals impact human health.
• How fenceline communities are responding.
• Whether there’s hope that regulation will get tighter.
• Why people with MCS and others impacted by chemicals are often blamed for getting ill.
• And more.

[00:04:30] Aaron Goodman: I imagine you get a lot of requests to speak to folks, whether it’s podcasts or media or in public forums of many kinds. Why did you decide to talk with me on the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast? Because MCS isn’t your area of research. Why did you want to talk with me today?

[00:04:52] Daniel Renfrew: Well, we don’t research it. We’ve heard about it. We may be focused on certain chemical compounds, but we’re interested in the backdrop of the saturation of chemicals in everyday life. And so every opportunity we can get to discuss our own research, but also to engage in similar kinds of areas, is just value-added and fruitful.

[00:05:14] Thomas Pearson: Yeah, I’m very interested in engaging in conversations about how we make sense of the toxic fallout of our post-industrial society and thinking about that in terms of health. The topic of MCS—or just thinking about how communities acknowledge these potential hazards that exist or maybe have always been there but people hadn’t previously thought about them as something to worry about—is important. Often, there’s an event or something that triggers a new sense of worry or a new way of thinking about it, and exploring that as a social and cultural phenomenon really characterizes our world today.

[00:05:47] Aaron Goodman: Does your knowledge of chemicals sort of give you a sense of empathy or understanding for folks with chronic illnesses caused by chemicals?

[00:06:08] Daniel Renfrew: I think absolutely—greater empathy, or at least that’s what we aspire to. Most chemical exposures start out as contested illnesses, with a lot of scientific ignorance surrounding them. So I’m not one to doubt people’s claims of harm based on chemical exposure, especially considering what I’ve read about and understood regarding the history of chemical exposures.

[00:06:30] Aaron Goodman: I want to dive into this topic at hand—PFAS, or forever chemicals. What is PFAS?

[00:06:38] Thomas Pearson: PFAS is a class of chemicals. The acronym stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. It’s a very large category of chemicals—sometimes you hear estimates of several thousand or up to 15,000 different compounds classified as PFAS. They have unique characteristics that make them very desirable from an industrial perspective.

They’re often found in products that waterproof various things. For example, they’re used as surface coatings for fabrics, clothing, and carpets to make them stain-resistant. They’re also surface coatings for food packaging to make them grease-resistant or help prevent them from deteriorating. Non-stick cookware, which is fairly common in most households today, also has a surface coating made from these chemicals.

[00:07:15] Daniel Renfrew: Yeah, I think you did a good job of characterizing that. Some of the compounds Tom’s talking about refer to the earliest PFAS, such as PFOA (commonly known as the Teflon chemical). In the Parkersburg, West Virginia area, they refer to it as C8. A lot of these chemicals go by different names, which causes confusion among communities, regulators, and the public.

PFOS is another of the original compounds—it was used for Scotchgard by the 3M Corporation in Minnesota. Another example is AFFF foam, which is firefighting foam used in airports, military installations, and industrial settings. It’s become one of the most ubiquitous exposures around the country and the world because it was used so much.

[00:08:07] Aaron Goodman: Do you think there’s more information about forever chemicals now? I feel like I hear about them almost daily. Is that just my experience, or are a lot of people hearing about them more and more? And if so, why?

[00:08:20] Thomas Pearson: That’s a great question. It’s only in the last 20 years that there’s been growing public attention and concern about these chemicals, but they’ve been around for decades. They originated during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. Later, they were applied to consumer products in the 1940s and 1950s, leading to a growing range of ways they entered consumer society.

For decades, the industries producing these chemicals collected information about their potential toxicity, release into the environment, exposure among workers, and potential health effects. But much of that scientific knowledge was kept behind closed doors. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that government regulators and others began to understand that these chemicals were widespread in the environment, drinking water, and even people’s bodies. The realization that they were potentially harmful came largely due to victims of contamination who began raising concerns in specific settings. They connected their exposure and health outcomes, pushing industry and regulators to take it more seriously. By the early 2000s, this began to expand public awareness, not just in the U.S. but around the world.

[00:10:10] Aaron Goodman: That’s very interesting. Personally, I’m really drawn to the idea of communities coming together to resist or push back against these issues. Are there any examples of that which come to mind?

[00:10:26] Daniel Renfrew: One of the origin stories is about a tenant farmer who had around 200 cattle die inexplicably. He started asking questions but couldn’t get answers. Eventually, it was discovered that leaching from a landfill, where DuPont had illegally dumped waste products laced with PFAS, was contaminating the stream the cattle drank from. This led to a settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars that funded the C8 Health Study.

The study, which was conducted in the first decade of the 2000s, involved almost 70,000 people tested for PFAS exposure. It established links between PFAS and seven negative health outcomes, including testicular cancer, kidney cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and high cholesterol. Since then, much more research has pointed to additional negative outcomes. That event set the stage for discovering PFAS hotspots across the country and the world, making it impossible for chemical companies to plausibly deny the connections between their chemicals and these health outcomes.

[00:11:31] Thomas Pearson: PFAS is often invisible—you can’t see it in water. However, one way it manifests visibly is as foam. When PFAS-contaminated water agitates in a stream, river, or below a dam, it can foam up. Foam can be naturally occurring, but in these cases, it’s often associated with PFAS contamination.

One of the reasons these chemicals are so persistent is their strong carbon-fluorine bond, which doesn’t break down naturally. That persistence makes PFAS incredibly useful industrially, but it also means they remain in the environment indefinitely. They’re mobile and travel through ecological systems—underground, on the surface, and even in the atmosphere. Once they’re in the environment, they’re nearly impossible to clean up, hence the term “forever chemicals.” Because of their widespread use in various industries and consumer products, we encounter them all the time—even in household dust, carpets, clothing, and other materials.

[00:13:42] Aaron Goodman: Many listeners may already know about the hazards of buying clothes with waterproofing or chemicals. But is it a myth, or is it false hope, to think we can completely avoid PFAS? Is there anything we can do to prevent exposure?

[00:14:07] Daniel Renfrew: You can certainly take steps to reduce exposure by being selective about the consumer products you buy, but eliminating exposure entirely is a much harder question. The CDC estimates that 99% of people have PFAS in their bodies—that’s virtually everyone. To truly address this issue, we need to stop using PFAS in the production of goods.

There’s ongoing debate about essential use—while PFAS are incredibly useful, they’re also incredibly harmful. They’re used in lifesaving medical equipment and technologies, so we may not be able to eliminate them fully. However, we can reduce their use in consumer products and industrial applications. Progress has been made, but replacement chemicals touted as “safer” alternatives often turn out to be harmful as well. For example, GenX, a Teflon replacement, has caused contamination in places like Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the Cape Fear River Basin. It was promoted as safe because it’s less persistent, but studies have shown it’s still harmful.

[00:15:32] Aaron Goodman: In your research, you write about how corporations sometimes blame individuals or communities for adverse reactions to their products. This idea resonates with many people with MCS who are often cast as “exceptions to the rule.” Is this a way for corporations to sidestep responsibility?

[00:16:12] Thomas Pearson: Absolutely. Industries and corporations producing harmful products have a long history of using tactics to evade accountability, particularly financial accountability. Part of this involves downplaying or denying harm, amplifying uncertainty, and casting doubt on scientific findings.

For example, when the U.S. began regulating chemicals in the 1970s, many existing chemicals, including PFAS, were grandfathered in without proper scrutiny. It wasn’t until the 1990s and 2000s, when public concern increased, that the EPA pressured industries to phase out certain chemicals voluntarily. Even so, the industry replaced those chemicals with alternatives that weren’t thoroughly examined. Companies like 3M continue to downplay the health impacts of PFAS, amplifying doubt about the science to minimize their financial liability.

[00:18:06] Daniel Renfrew: These corporations often follow a predictable playbook when faced with scrutiny over hazardous substances. Along with denying harm, they also publish articles to discredit scientists who raise alarms. It’s a recurring pattern we’ve seen across many industries.

[00:18:28] Aaron Goodman: Many listeners with MCS are navigating incredibly challenging situations daily. Is there anything you’d like to share with them—perhaps not as comfort, but as encouragement?

[00:18:43] Daniel Renfrew: There is hope. All toxic and harmful chemical exposures have gone through a period of profound uncertainty, denial, and negation of harm. What it takes is citizen involvement and public pressure. Communities must push science, regulators, and the media to tell these stories and take action.

Your podcast is part of that crucial first step. It provides a platform for sharing experiences, building community, and fostering advocacy. That’s how real change happens—it doesn’t come solely from scientific discovery but through persistent public pressure.

[00:19:30] Thomas Pearson: I’d add that the social history of PFAS shows progress is possible. For example, as PFOS and PFOA were phased out, biomonitoring showed that human exposure to these legacy compounds decreased. This demonstrates that regulation can be effective when pressure is applied.

However, advocacy must be continuous. Communities need to keep pushing and fighting for acknowledgment of the problem. Keeping these issues in the public sphere and on policymakers’ radar is essential for progress.

[00:20:39] Aaron Goodman: You’ve been listening to the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. I’m your host and podcast creator, Aaron Goodman. The Chemical Sensitivity Podcast is by and for the MCS community. It’s generously supported by the Marilyn Brockman Hoffman Foundation and listeners like you.

If you wish to support the podcast, please visit ChemicalSensitivityPodcast.org. Your support helps us continue to make the podcast available and create greater awareness about MCS. Follow the podcast on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok. Thanks for listening.

The Chemical Sensitivity Podcast and its associated website are the work of Aaron Goodman, made possible with funds from the Marilyn Brockman Hoffman Foundation. The content, opinions, findings, statements, and recommendations expressed do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of its sponsors.