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Good evening and a very, very, very Merry Christmas. I hope you're enjoying it by being surrounded with friends and family, a warm tree, good food, and thank you so much for tuning in. You could literally be doing anything else, but here you are watching Facts Matter on Christmas Day. Thank you. And I will in turn bring you something good. Usually during the holidays, I look through my old notebooks looking for stories that are important but that we might have missed during the year because the news cycle is just so tumultuous. Sometimes the news cycle is just so fast that even though a story might really be consequential, it does not get the coverage it deserves, even from me. And so today I will present to you one such story that I found in my research. In 2023, the U.S. geological Survey, which is a U.S. agency, it published a study, you can see it up on your screen showing that at least 45% of American tap water contains what are known as forever chemicals. That paper, it was the culmination of a five year long study conducted across the entirety of the US from 2016 up until 2021 and it found that these toxic forever chemicals were present again in at least 45% of the tap water coming out of the kitchen sinks or the bathroom sinks in American homes. Furthermore, what was perhaps even the more surprising revelation in this paper was that this was actually the first government study of its kind, which is mind blowing, despite the fact that forever chemicals have been known to be present in the waterways in America for the past 50 years. Now, somehow this type of a study had never been conducted before until the year 2016. In fact, according to the United States Geological Survey Survey, which is again the government agency behind this research, they wrote that quote, this study marks the first time anyone has tested for and compared to PFAS in tap water from both private and government regulated public water supplies on a broad scale throughout the United States. That is wild. And so today, let's dig into the details of their research together right after you take a super quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons so that this information can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. Thank you so much for that. Now to start with as I mentioned just a Moment ago, this five year long study was conducted by the U.S. geological Survey, a government agency. And the paper that they ultimately published, it had the following quote per and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances PFAS in United States Tap Water Comparison of Underserved Private well and Public Supply Exposures and Associated Health Implications. Now in this lengthy title they referenced PFAS chemicals which are otherwise known as forever chemicals. And these forever chemicals, which are found not only in the drinking water, but also in many, many other things. Cosmetics, dental floss, food packaging, among thousands of other products on the shelves, they have recently been found to be a lot more harmful than previously imagined, with various studies linking them to illnesses, cancers, reduced birth weights for babies, developmental challenges for children, among many, many, many other health problems. Now, the technical name for these substances for these chemicals is pfas, which stands for perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances. And I will highlight that pfas, it's not a single chemical, it's actually a large class of man made chemicals that have been manufactured and used in a huge variety of industries since at least the late 1940s. And I really do mean a huge variety of industries because you these synthetic chemicals, they are used to make everything from food wrappers to sunscreen, nonstick pans, makeup, hand lotion, dental floss, outdoor gear, smartphones, pesticides, the foam that's used inside of fire extinguishers, waterproof coatings for our clothing and our furniture, as well as literally hundreds of thousands of other products that are designed to withstand heat, water, grease and or stains. And so when you see a giant list of products like that, it becomes fairly clear that PFAS is not just one thing. It has many different forms and many different uses. In fact, There are over 9,000 different chemicals in the general PFAS family umbrella. But all those chemicals have two things in common. Firstly, they're all man made. And secondly, they all contain at the molecular level, a chain of carbon atoms bonded together with fluorine atoms. And the reason that this particular structure matters is because these molecular bonds between the carbon and the fluorine, they are so strong that they cannot be broken by water, they cannot be broken by enzymes from bacteria in the environment, and they cannot be broken by most other natural substances. Meaning that these strong chemical molecular bonds make it such that PFAS chemicals do not just naturally degrade in the environment, they stick around in, in the environment and also in the human body for a long, long, long time. And they're also very stable even when they're submerged in water, such that they can travel literally thousands of miles from their original source, let's say down a river, without being degraded. And that is exactly why people refer to them as forever chemicals. That's why they're called forever chemicals. Because once they're there, once they're in the environment, it's very hard to get rid of them. They don't degrade and they travel all over the place. And because the use of these PFAS chemicals, especially over the last probably 50 years, has really become so prolific, they are, as of today, found everywhere. They are released into the environment during the manufacturing process. They are disposed into the earth by being either thrown into landfills as garbage or incinerated. And so through those processes, they wind up in the soil, the water and the air. They also leak out of the products that they're in. And so, for instance, if you drink from a plastic water bottle that contains bpa, those chemicals are leaching both into the water supply, but also into your body. They also leak into the water. If you wash any clothing in a washing machine that has PFAS chemicals on them, like for instance, dress shirts that are advertised as being wrinkle free, when you wash them, those PFAS chemicals are going to the water. And then, because again, PFAS chemicals don't easily break down once they're ingested into our own bodies, they actually build up over time in our bloodstream. In fact, according to a separate study that was published by the CDC, over 99% of the American population has blood which contains PFAS chemicals. 99%. In that same study, they also found that the degree to which you have PFAS chemicals in your bloodstream, basically how much of them are in your blood, it depends on various lifestyle factors, such as your diet, where in the country you live, what you're exposed to, both at home as well as work, and even things that seem rather innocuous, such as, again, the type of clothing that you wear, the type of dental flaws that you use, and things like that. Meaning that depending on your lifestyle as well as where you live in the country, you have more or less of these chemicals in your system. But everyone, or almost everyone, has some of them. That's because no matter where you live and no matter what kind of lifestyle you might subscribe to, it doesn't matter because you still need to drink water. And over the past 50, 50 years, these PFAs chemicals have really come to proliferate the water supply. Which brings us neatly back to that study from the US Geological Survey, which was published in the year 2023. What these US researchers did, again, shockingly, for the first time ever, was that between the years 2016 and 2021, they traveled around the country and they took water samples from 716 different locations. 269 of them were private wells and and 447 were public water supplies. And one of the reasons I'll mention why the study is so solid is because these researchers were not just testing the water within the wells or the reservoirs, but rather they were going into people's actual homes and grabbing the actual water that was coming out of the kitchen sink from the tap. And to that end, here's how the lead researcher of the study described their methodology. Quote U.S. geological Survey scientists tested water collected directly from people's kitchen sinks across the nation with providing the most comprehensive study to date on PFAS and tap water from both private wells and public supplies. And so then once these researchers had these samples in hand, what they did is they tested the water for 32 different types of PFAS compounds. Basically, PFAS is a large umbrella, and they tested for 32 different sub umbrella types of compounds within this water. And based on their samples, here's what they were able to find. Quote U.S. geological Survey researchers determined by modeling that on average at least one PFAS is detected in about 45% of U.S. tap water, meaning in close to half of all U.S. tap water, they were able to detect some type of PFAS chemical. The lead researcher behind this project, he added this quote, the study estimates that at least one type of PPAs of those that were monitored could be present in nearly half of the tap water in the U.S. furthermore, PFAS concentrations were similar between public supplies and private wells, which is also kind of wild because you would assume that maybe a private well would be different than a public water supply because it's separate. But I guess because of the water cycle, it doesn't really matter. These forever chemicals just travel everywhere. Now, within the pages of the study, the researchers actually published a map of the country. You can see it up on your screen right there, which showed their findings geographically. The green triangles represent private wells with pink PFAS detected, and the blue circles, they represent public water supplies with PFAS detected. And basically, as you can see, there is significantly more of these chemical detections in the eastern part of the country, especially in urban areas with heavier population densities. Whereas in the Mountain west, the water supply is actually pretty clear. However, if you happen to live in that western part of the country, don't celebrate yet, because given the fact that there are quite literally thousands of chemicals within the PFAS umbrella family, with many of them actually being undetectable with the current technology that we have, the findings in this particular study are likely only the tip of the iceberg, which is something that the US Researchers themselves acknowledge as a limitation. Here's what they wrote. Quote the PFAS markers that we were targeting are only a fractional indicator of the 8,000 plus potential PFAS, and the fraction of total organic fluorine captured by these targeted analyses is typically low in surf water. Potential detection of one or more PFAS in UI drinking water, combined with the insufficient amount of information available on current use ultra short chain compounds supports the continued need for point of use tap water monitoring, which is just a verbose way of saying you should probably test your own water at home. Now for one, if you would like to know where your particular water source fits into what these researchers discovered, I will throw a link to the study which has that map in it. You can find it down in the description box below. You can click on it and you can check on the map for yourself. However, the researchers did make a special mention that, quote those interested in testing and treating private wells should contact their local and state officials for guidance. Testing is the only way to confirm the presence of these contaminants in wells. And so along that line, I will throw some resources down into the description box below some additional resources where you can actually help find the correct person locally to reach out to in order to get your water tested for PFAS chemicals. It's never a bad idea to do it. It's better to know what the truth is so that you can act accordingly. And if it's really bad, you can always go ahead and at least consider getting a PFAS water filter. They're a little bit pricey, but in the long term they might be less pricey than having your family drink PFAS water for 330 plus years. Again, all those links will be down in the description box below, which is of course that description box right below those like and subscribe buttons. Both of which I hope you already smashed. But if you haven't, now's another opportunity to smash those buttons so that this content can reach ever more people and so that you will also get notified when we publish new episodes. And then lastly again, Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for spending your Christmas with us. I hope that you are in your physical environment, surrounded by your friends and family. And then, until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epic Times. Stay informed. Most importantly, stay free.