With all of the understandable health concern about some of the chemicals used by the military to fight fires at the Willow Grove Air Base as well as the closed runway at Johnsville near Northampton township the chemistry of PFOS and PFOA’s is important to understand.
It’s the fluoride that causes the concern.
Perfluorooctanoic acid aka. PFOA has been detected in the blood of more than 98% of the general US population in the low and sub-parts per billion (ppb) range.
The human health effects from exposure to low environmental levels of PFOA are unknown. Polyfluoroalkyl aka. PFAS chemicals and PFOA’s have extremely limited reactivity which means they are very, very stable. Finding measurable amounts of PFOA in serum does not imply those levels do or even can cause an adverse health effect according to the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. What happens if PFOA’s and PFAS’s are actually a benefit?
Consider: When your saliva has fluoride in it from sources like toothpaste or water, your teeth are able to take it in. Once in your enamel, fluoride teams up with calcium and phosphate there to create the most powerful defense system your teeth can have to prevent cavities from forming: fluoroapatite. It’s much stronger, more resistant to decay and fights to protect your teeth. the fluorine is a benefit…. A BENEFIT!!
Perfluorooctanesulfonates (salts of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, PFOS) are highly stable molecules. A stable molecule has a very, very difficult and hard time joining with any other molecule. It does not react. It’s better than having a piece of gold in your hand because gold can react with some things. Polyflouro’s can’t.
Chemistry has improved so much that smaller and smaller amounts of chemicals can be found. Finding one part in a trillion is rather routine for many chemicals. A trillion dollars is more money than anyone has. All of the actual dollar bills in America are less than 12 billion. One trillion is eighty three times greater than that. That’s a pretty small amount. Still, it has to be studied and determined what’s going on.
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