David Feldman (3:00)

David Bruce Townsend has been a union member and leader for more than 45 years. He was most recently the Amalgamated Transit Union International Union organizer director. Previously, he was an international representative and political action director for the United Electrical Workers Union and he has held local positions in both the SEIU and ufcw. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Chris Townsend, thanks.

Chris Townsend (3:29)

Thanks for having me.

Ralph Nader (3:30)

Welcome back, Chris. You know, you've had a long career of criticizing mealy mouth union leaders who engage in smoke and mirrors instead of really going all out like the old union leaders in past decades used to. And the head of the AFL CIO recently, Liz Schuller, said about Trump, quote, they're slashing jobs, they're ripping up union contracts, they're cutting services. Trump's delivered on nothing that he promised we would say his scorecard is a failure. And she called the executive order of Trump to destroy union bargaining rights for 1 million federal employees, quote, the biggest assault against labor in our history, end quote. Shuler said, well, given that, Chris, you think that they would have mass rallies around the White House, they would have 24 hour vigils around the White House. You think that they would be far more militant around the country than simply joining rallies with signs saying hands off. You're talking about organized unions with staff, with resources, steel workers, auto workers, textile workers, federal employees. And you think they're really going through the motions. Give us your views on this, given the urgency of the biggest assault on labor by any American president in U.S. history.

Chris Townsend (4:59)

Yeah. Thank you, Ralph, and hello again. And appreciate you examining this series of questions because it doesn't get examined. And I'm going to start with an unlikely contrast, unlikely for me. You too, probably even our decrepit and bankrupt Democratic Party in its current balkanized condition, a mess, defeat, disarray, demoralization, even that organization, so to speak, is engaging in a version of an internal discussion about what is the new direction, perhaps what were the mistakes of the other directions. It's not a, you have your own opinions about it. I wouldn't see it as the same kind of examination of that crisis that I might have. But I'm not a Democrat. But I look at it from the outside And I think, okay, no such discussion happens in the labor movement. The number of public spokespersons or people who can gain some public time, who will actually thoughtfully critique anything that's going on in the labor movement is minute. And I find myself, I do a lot of things even as a retiree. This is year 46 for me in the labor movement and I'm still working 100 hours a week on trade union matters, but now as a retiree and as a volunteer. But I only do spend a few hours or a month perhaps thinking about changes in the labor movement or whatnot. I'm too busy dealing with the immediate battles organization, organizing the unorganized primarily. And I think this is maybe what really is lacking amongst broad numbers. Not all, all of this is somewhat, you know, there are exceptions of course in our labor movement today, but we have seen rise to preeminence. Notice that I didn't say elect because most unions the election process is very truncated. It's a formality. It becomes a selection process for many of these folks. Not all again, but we've moved up an administrative layer of labor leaders, time markers, folks who see their role as at best guiding the sinking ship, managing the decline, taking best care as they can think of of the members as their lives are destroyed as the employers move to liquidate us now Trump. And for decades, as you know, and probably most listeners know, the labor movement has been a punching bag for attack after attack after attack, including attacks from our so called Democratic allies. I remind folks at this time most of all I just did in an interview that I gave to the Monthly Review online magazine that the Democrats, through their conduct, their deliberate anti worker conduct have built the platform for Trump. They helped to create him in many significant ways. So here we are now dealing with what Shuler, Elizabeth Schuller Head of the AFL CIO I would argue the least qualified labor leader that I can think of maybe would find a few shop steward level folks thrust into the position with no great experience or preparation. But she is now decrying the awesome attack of the Trump administration regime.

Ralph Nader (8:17)

She won't do anything. The labor movement won't do anything the Democratic Party doesn't want done. Isn't that the main problem?

Chris Townsend (8:24)

Well, I would say we face several main problems. This is the problem. It would be simple if we only had one. We have a handful of, I would say equal in many ways exceeding the gravity of the political action crisis. Our subordination to the Democratic Party, our membership estrangement from the political process, the lack of any significant trade Union education of the rank and file other than a few cheap slogans. The current bus trip unfolding around the country with invigorating slogans like it's better in a union. Well, what I have been on a drumbeat for years and others, I'm not alone in this is that the crisis that we face is the crisis of our very existence. What the employers, private and public, corporate, have figured out and have purchased through their political and financial largesse is a system where it is far easier to subtract people from the labor movement through plant closings and the changes in the economic structure and the workplace structure. It's far easier to shrink the labor movement than it is to build it and grow it. And that's our job. No other force in the country is going to do the work of adding the many millions of unorganized toilers. I use the word toilers very carefully. That seems like an out of date. I'm speaking of a guy shoveling coal maybe 120 years ago. But go to the workplace today in the United States, toiling oil is really what we've been reduced to and increasingly so. So there's absolutely. I would indict the labor movement loudly daily that there is as yet no understanding that unless we go back out to the unorganized and take the spirit of trade unionism, unity, one for all, take on the employer, organize, defend each other, move forward, recapture some of this gargantuan wealth that we create each day on the job, unless that spirit is returned into an organizing wave or at least an attempt to do this, our fate has been sealed. And I think many of the forces on the political terrain, Republican Democratic Party, the officialdoms, the corporate folks, they just view us as something that it's a little bit longer it's going to take to strangle us. Don't worry, we've got it under control. We've got our hands around their throat. They're not going to push back, they're not going to resist. They're going to have an asinine bus tour around the country to take some pictures and give the appearance of some trade union leaders doing something about this crisis. This is unheard of. This thing that Sister Shuler mentions with the federal workers is all too correct. In one swoop, Donald Trump wiped away half a million union members by canceling the contracts and the dues check off of all of the federal unions.

Ralph Nader (11:20)

The Economic Policy Institute had a report very well regarded group in Washington D.C. hundred ways Trump has hurt workers in his first hundred days. And it really is amazing when you see obviously he's blocked any increase in the minimum wage, which is seven and a quarter federal. Ridiculous. He's limited workers collective bargaining agreements if not trying to destroy them. He's wiped out the National Labor Relations Board firing its chair and doesn't even have a quorum to deal with labor management disputes. He's proposed rolling back the rights of more than 45,000 workers to TSA that monitor our airports. Imagine that nothing's off limits. He rescinded the good jobs executive order which was supposed to improve job quality for millions of jobs protected by recent federal public works or investments. He's terminated Department of Labor grants to fight forced in child labor. Imagine and promote workers rights. He took back an executive order on expanding registered apprenticeships and federally funded projects. He rescinded an executive order that gave almost 400,000 low wage federal contractors a living wage. He even gutted worker safety agency, the National Safety Health Research Group.

Chris Townsend (12:40)

I'll just blurt this out. We're only 15 to 20% into his term and this is the ghastly record of carnage that's been heaped on us. And again, it comes back to, I'm not surprised that bosses act like this. They're bosses. You know, for listeners out there, everyone has their own story. I went to work as a kid. I college, never entered into my life at all. I went right from high school to the workplace. It's the biggest dictatorship of all. News flash. The workplace in the United States is a damn dictatorship. Which is why I see such a key role in stimulating workplace rebellion called union organizing. That's what it is. There's no way to pussy foot around this, tiptoe around this. You're organizing workers to collectively challenge the unchecked, complete power of the bosses in the workplace. Whether it's public, private, it doesn't matter. And here we are now with a president who expresses a greater class consciousness than the labor leadership. Trump and his minions are not ambivalent about their class interests. They see us as the dangerous force that we are should we become activated. And yet at this point in time, we have a labor leadership. And again, there are exceptions. I want to say that. But the preeminent thinking going around, certainly animating this asinine bus tour that's going on around the country is one of administrative patience. Let's decry the evil and the unfairness. Let's have another lawsuit someplace. Virtually no mention of organizing the over 100 million unorganized workers. Now these forces in labor are very frequent to mention the public opinion polls that for my entire life have validated our existence by revealing that the vast majority of the working class would join a union and participate if it had the legal, actual right to do so, if it wasn't repressed and met with firings and mass repression from employers when it happens. So I guess for all of the listeners who may not know this, you know when Brother Nader, when you myself, when others decry the Democratic Party control the straight jack that the labor movement is. It's real. It's real in many ways. It's real. And this becomes part of the problem. The staffing of the AFL cio, the staffing of many of the unions, these are people who come through political consultants, Democratic Party, they come through the DNC, they recycle around. Come to Washington D.C. i'll take folks down to Capitol Hill and you'll see this staffing merry go round between labor and Democrats and all of the campaign machinery that's out there so that there's literally virtually no political thinking that goes on in the AFL cio.

Ralph Nader (15:22)

Give us the reading on Capitol Hill. Any light there, any progressive effort. You have Bernie Sanders, you have aoc, you have a growing core. Give us your reading on Congress.

Chris Townsend (15:33)

I'll do that. And I think it is instructive. And I think like most of the conventional wisdom that the elites in both parties peddle, it's wrong. The anecdotal evidence that I see out there is that Trump had no mandate. He barely was elected. The disgust level with Harris and Biden and the whole history of how we ended up where we are sapped any enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket. So we find ourselves now with Donald Trump a second time delivered to us in many ways because of that Democratic Party misleadership. And he rules now for the last six months as a failing Roman emperor. I mean, this is not just off the wall analogy. This man is governing in a la Roman style, decoupling free debauchery, lurching from one to the next, turning on allies, making unlikely allies. It is just disregarding all decorum and whatnot. And this is his style of operation. Well, this is only just beginning. Now imagine where we might be a year from now or two years from now. But all of this happens. And the Democratic Party, as I had said, and I don't mean that as a compliment, and there's at least some internal discussion and debate about what the hell happened. How could we have bungled that election? How could we have lost to Donald Trump a second time. But again, in the labor movement, when there is virtually no debate, no discussion, I venture to say I'm banned for life from any participation in anything that the AFL does, only solely based on the fact that I speak up. I'm one of the most successful union organizers in political standards you'll ever run into. In terms of the numbers. I can demonstrate that, but that doesn't matter. Numbers don't matter. What matters is bootlegging loyalty to a corporate line or a Democratic party line. And it really is a sobering moment. Now, as to the question of what's going on out in the hustings, in the real world outside of the Beltway, I'm going to use an example from my home county. I consider Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, sort of my home county. I wasn't born there. My father moved us there from central Pennsylvania in 1964. Because in 1964 the little that I lived in Tyrone was collapsing. Even then because of this political corporate misleadership. My dad takes us down to Lancaster County. I grow up. Well, anyway, you won't find a more conservative stayed stuck in the in a time warp county than Lancaster county that in recent decades has become not just Trump supporters. In large measure, it's become religiously attached to a Donald Trump. It's very distressing to see many of the previously somewhat legitimate religious elements up there, Anabaptists and whatnot and many others, you know, just completely fall for Trump. That said, just a couple months ago in the what they call East Petersburg, it's on the west side of Lancaster county. In one of the special state Senate elections, a completely unknown Democrat rocketed to victory. I believe it's the 23rd district. His name is Malone. No one had ever heard of this guy. It was a sacrificial lamb put up by the Democrats, which they've always done in Lancaster County. And yet he rockets to a significant victory because why? Because huge numbers of working class people across the country, and most of all in that core Trumpist area have taken a few breaths and said, oh my, now we've elected a failing, dying Roman emperor who wants to sacrifice all of us for his lunacies. And in maybe in Lancaster county, it was his handling of agricultural policy, tariffs, his debased morality and whatnot. Oh, finally this pops through the surface and it's shown. Now, I deal with a lot of media like you do, and I have been sending every reporter national and international to that part of the world to say if this is an election that can be won. In the ensuing couple of Elections, even Democrats, let alone independent forces, should be rocketing, leapfrogging, pushing aside these degraded Republican elements. I mean, all the chemistry is here. Now the question is, will the Democrats or will independent forces? It's a different question. Would the Democrats recognize this? I doubt they will. And in terms of independent forces and brother Nader, you have great experience with this. All of the roadblocks that both parties will construct, the one thing they agree on is that all independent forces have to be extinguished. So where will we go in the coming elections? At this point in time, I'm not optimistic. Now, optimism isn't required here. I'm not wealthy enough to give up. That's the punchline for all of us as the working class, we're not rich enough to sit this out. Both parties are discredited beyond repair in different ways, sometimes similar ways. But the dilemma, and I see this in my movement, the labor movement, which is there's no belief that if they would win that they would actually do anything. We've seen the labor movement, working class people have seen again and again and again for decades now. Democrats winning, holding majorities and failing, and then keyword, refusing to perform by either challenging corporate power, going after it, or delivering in terms of what labor needs. And it comes back to new organizing. You know, we've had labor law reform stalled, going nowhere for 65, 70 years. And this is what prevents us in some measure from being able to grow and grow again. And the issue is, you know, how are we going to hold together at this point in time? We're talking about holding together a ragtag coalition just to prevent Trump from usurping all power at this point in time. These are breathtaking things to consider. But again, in the Democratic Party, it's bankrupt. It's bankrupt. And you mentioned a few of the.

Ralph Nader (21:38)

It may be, it may be bankrupt. But if the people organize, the unions organize on a compact for American workers and families, they'll see a winning issue. They'll see a winning issue enough to win in 2026. They're not all crazy.

Chris Townsend (21:52)

You know, of course it's early. We have elections, statewide elections in New Jersey and here where I live in Virginia, at the end of this year, November, there are going to be some local elections and whatnot. Then we'll have the big national congressional elections next year. But all I'm putting forward is, is that if the Democrats think that repackaging what they have is the minimum job that they have to do, it won't work.

Ralph Nader (22:16)

No, they have to make it authentic. But we don't leave it up to the Democratic Party. That's what all those union locals, that's what all the citizen groups, that's what all those people who are marching can make the issue from the bottom up. This is what we want. We demand that, period. Otherwise, you're gone.

Chris Townsend (22:33)

I'll conclude with this, maybe just as a quick aside at the end here. I see my mission as thoroughly destabilizing this decrepit, ossified labor leadership. And I have actually sort of shifted for a few weeks away from just a solitary focus on organizing the unorganized, but now factionally challenging people. How can this be? How can these two leaders of the AFL have no pushback? Where is the vitality in life within that executive council of the afl? I am a very unlikely guy to do that because I've never been part of that. And I don't live in that rarefied air. But I happen to know enough of it. And I just want to mention one thing, brother Nader, for you. You know, our friend Sean Fain at the Auto Workers is now, you know, the tide is turning against him. And I just want to mention that the role of our federal government in that, because there's a federal Monitor. That's an entire other discussion. How the hell does this federal monitor just sit there, paid for by the members of the union in perpetuity? We lived with this for 40 years with the Teamsters. Now we have a version of it here. And they're not ambivalent about whether Sean Fain would push back. All of us have an opinion about him or his pluses, minuses. But this is going to unfold in the next few months. And the old regime, with the full support of the Federal Monitor, is going to try to mount a comeback and take that union right back into the sewer, subtract them from whatever things they've begun to do. So anyway, that's just the story.

Ralph Nader (23:59)

No, we have to conclude. Keep on going. Chris Townsend, thank you very much.

Chris Townsend (24:04)

Okay, thanks very much.

Steve Skrovan (24:06)

We've been speaking to Chris Townsend. We will link to his work@ralphnaderradiohour.com up next, we're going to talk to investigative journalist Mariah Blake about how forever chemicals poisoned the world. But first, let's check in with our corporate crime reporter, Russell Mokhiber.

Russell Mokhiber (24:21)

From the National Press building in Washington, D.C. this is your corporate crime reporter Morning minute for Friday, August 8th, 2025. I'm Russell Mokhiber. A Florida jury found Tesla was partly to blame in a fatal 2019 collision involving vehicle equipped with the company's driver assistance software, awarding the plaintiffs nearly $329 million in damages. It marks the first time a jury has awarded damages in a lawsuit related to Tesla's driver assistance features. That's according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The jury concluded the automaker failed to provide sufficient warnings or instructions for its Autopilot feature in the 2019 Tesla Model S and involved in the accident making the car unreasonably dangerous. Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled access highways, yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, said Brett Schreiber, an attorney for the plaintiffs. For the corporate crime reporter, I'm Russell Mulkheimer.

Steve Skrovan (25:21)

Thank you, Russell. Welcome back to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. I'm Steve Scrovan along with David Feldman, Hannah and Ralph. Our next guest is going to tell us about forever Chemicals.

David Feldman (25:30)

DAVID Mariah Blake is an investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Mother Jones, the New Republic and other publications. She was a Murray Martyr Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University, and she is the author of they Poison the World, Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

Mariah Blake (25:54)

MARIAH blake, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Ralph Nader (25:59)

Welcome. MARIAH and when you say they poisoned the world, that is not an overstatement. These forever chemicals, which we're going to define have found their way in every human being on earth and mammals and the natural world. This is a saturation chemical and it doesn't degrade and it just eats at people's health. And while your book has a lot of material on a small town in New York State whose drinking water was seriously contaminated by these chemicals and how ordinary citizens revolted, built a movement that spread around the country, and also got a standard to protect their own drinking water. You also talk about the history and how these chemicals found important uses in the munitions industry and in firefighting foam, for example, that are routinely deployed at airports. So let's get underway by asking you to define these forever chemicals. And then I'm going to ask you how has this cluster of chemicals escaped comprehensive attention for many decades?

Mariah Blake (27:11)

So forever chemicals, also known as per end polyfluoro alkyl substances, or pfas, are a large family of chemicals with some pretty amazing properties. So they're extremely resistant to heat stains, water, grease, electrical currents. They stand up to corrosive chemicals that burn through virtually every other material, including, in some cases, steel. And this makes them extremely useful, and as a result, they found their way into thousands of everyday products. On the other hand, they are probably the most insidious pollutants in all of human history. So they stay in the environment for hundreds of or even thousands of years. Those that have been studied are highly toxic, even in the most minuscule of doses. And they are literally polluting the entire planet, as you mentioned, including human blood and ecosystems in the remotest parts of the world. So I think the clearest example of this comes from a 2020 study of rainwater. A group of prominent European scientists looked at rainwater around the world and they found everywhere in the world, including the remotest regions, places like the Tibetan Plateau, the levels were high enough to endanger human health and the environment. So, for example, the levels were higher than the EPA's safety standards for these chemicals. The same is true of breast milk in many countries. So this is a global problem that affects every single one of us.

Ralph Nader (28:35)

Let's go to the question of what you call the cozy relationship between the chemical industry and the munition industry, where you say some of the worst contamination anywhere is around US military bases. What is the role of DuPont here? And what was the established principle by DuPont funded scientists who put off regulatory action as a result for many years?

Mariah Blake (29:01)

So there are a couple of questions in there. So what is the issue of how we regulate chemicals in this country? So dupont has shaped that deeply. The chemical industry has shaped our system for regulating potentially toxic substance. And in fact, it was a DuPont funded scientist who first articulated the principle that underlies our system for regulating toxic chemicals, and that is that they should be presumed safe until proven otherwise.

Ralph Nader (29:26)

The burden of proof is not on the producer or the seller of these companies. It's on the public at large, which doesn't have the resources to reverse.

Mariah Blake (29:36)

So under the main law governing chemicals in this country, toxic chemicals, all of the chemicals that were in existence when it passed were presumed safe and grandfathered in. And even new chemicals didn't have to be tested for safety. So as a result, and this is something I found shocking when I first discovered it, the vast majority of the 80,000 chemicals that are on the market in the United States today have never undergone any form of safety testing.

Ralph Nader (30:02)

These chemicals have functional uses. And in reading through your book, I recall a statement by Barry Commoner, the wonderful scientist and political activist who used to teach at Washington University. And he told me once that he is on the verge of writing a book making the case to abolish the petrochemical industry. I Said Barry. What do you mean abolish? He says yes, because its damaging effects are so vast, so latent, so much silent violence, so unsusceptible to regulatory action and time, that it vastly overrides any benefit. And he said, by the way, almost everything that the petrochemical industry can do can be substituted by renewable materials. Well, he never got around to writing that book, unfortunately. But your book illustrates in my mind the validity of what he's saying. Basically that you can't regulate piecemeal this industry. There are too many chemicals, thousands of, as you pointed out, unregulated together. The impact that they have as they mix with each other is not regulated. You have to look at it generically. What is your view of that?

Mariah Blake (31:17)

Well, I certainly think that the way we regulate chemicals in this country at the moment makes zero sense. You do see changes happening in response to the unique threat posed by these chemicals on a state level. And this is really in response to citizen activism. So a number of states are passing laws that have banned the entire class of chemicals. That is not how we regulate chemicals in this country. Normally. We normally regulate them one by one. But at this moment, 30 US states have passed at least 170 laws restricting PFAs, including 16 full or partial bans on the entire class of chemicals and consumer goods. And you have another 200 plus states that are weighing regulations. Even deep red states like Texas, Oklahoma, Montana are weighing crackdowns. And Europe is also weighing a class wide ban on PFAs. So I think one of the most interesting dimensions of this story is that it has given rise to this powerful citizen activism movement and they are driving real change. I think that is moving us closer towards turning off the tap on these chemicals. And also I think they are a beacon. They show us how we could potentially regulate other classes of chemicals in ways that better protect the public health. And that means what I mean by that is regulating chemicals as a class because there are classes of chemicals that are known to be harmful. There's a vast body of science showing that BPA and other phenols are harmful.

Ralph Nader (32:53)

Just for terminology purposes, you and others refer to these cluster of chemicals as pfas. And you have three chapters that reveal the manufacturers have been secretly studying the impact of PFAS on human health and the environment since the 1960s. Yes, and covering up their damning findings. So you do deal with the COVID up. But fast forward to today. The chemical industry is defiant and they own the Trump regime. So you have big business and big government opposing the citizen Movement and state actions around the country. And one of the techniques the chemical industry uses, as you point out in your book, they poisoned the world. Life and death in an age of forever chemicals is, in your words, they pick apart the science tying lucrative products to disease. And you expose how DuPont and other companies use these tactics which they taught the tobacco industry how to use to avoid regulation. Explain that.

Mariah Blake (33:55)

Well, I think it's worth pausing to just discuss the industry cover up and the specifics of it. So industry, the main manufacturers of these chemicals, 3M and DuPont, have known since the 1960s that they were toxic. They have known since the 1970s that they were in the blood of people all over this country, including in areas where there was no known source of exposure. When they discovered that these chemicals were in the blood of virtually every American, it set off a panic inside the industry. And they started really intensively studying these chemicals, pfas. They quickly discovered that they didn't break down in nature, that they had a devastating impact on lab animals. So in one case, Griem tested them on monkeys, which it shows because they're more biologically similar to humans than lab rats. The study had to be aborted early because all of the monkeys died. Griem and dupont did similar research on their own workers. They found that that these chemicals were linked to kidney cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, organ damage and immune suppression, as well as birth defects. So in the 1980s, Dupont began monitoring the pregnancies of workers in its Teflon factories to determine whether this chemical of specific PFAS caused birth defects. And it discovered in fact, that it seemed to. So two of seven pregnant women who gave birth during the course of the study gave birth to children with facial deformities, very similar to the facial deformities that 3M had discovered in rats exposed to these chemicals. So industry withheld this information for decades. And the only reason it eventually came to light is because a family of West Virginia farmers who had sold DuPont some acreage for a landfill and had their cows die off afterwards, sued the company. And that really exposed this breathtaking cover up involving a specific forever chemical known as pfoa. But really, I think that is when the world became aware that this class of chemicals existed. And at that point the EPA began scrutinizing DuPont. And then, yes, it and 3M, the two main manufacturers, both deployed these tobacco industry style tactics to manipulate the science to control what went in the scientific literature. And that delayed regulation by decades or it helped to delay regulation.

Ralph Nader (36:30)

Let's go to Congress. There's been activity, believe it or not, listeners in Congress, not definitive, but they haven't been totally tone deaf on it. Tell us what's been going on with the Congress. Hearings, legislation, proposals, and the role of the chemical lobby in blocking any kind of comprehensive deadline mandated action against these chemicals around 2018.

Mariah Blake (36:54)

And you know, when this, this citizen movement really started to gain steam, partially because people during that period were learning their drinking water was contaminated. So at this point, nearly half of all Americans are known to be drinking water that's contaminated with these chemicals. But that was not the case until relatively recently. And I should say that that is certainly an underestimate because a large share of public water supplies in this country have not been tested. But when you had people start to demand action from their members of Congress, and I'm talking about people of every imaginal background, firefighters, farmers, factory workers, suburban moms, pastors, people of all classes and political backgrounds. In 2018 or so, you had a huge volume of legislation that began cropping up in Congress. And this was bipartisan legislation during the first Trump administration. And it looked like a lot of these bills were going to pass as part of the must pass military spending bill, but most of them got stripped out at the last moment. And that was due largely to industry maneuvering. 3M in particular, put together a front group called the Responsible Science Policy Coalition that took internal industry science and packaged it into briefing materials. So this group was ostensibly an independent organization that went around lobbying Congress and downplaying the health effects of these chemicals. And that and industry lobbying seemed to be incredibly effective in killing most of this legislation. Now, I should say that because these chemicals are used in so many products, there were a lot of powerful industries that were lobbying against legislation, including the oil and gas industry, which uses PFAs and fracking, the American Waterworks association, because some of these laws would have put a financial burden on water utilities. So the fact that they're so ubiquitous actually makes them harder to regulate.

Ralph Nader (39:02)

The amazing thing is the families of all these lobbyists have got these chemicals in their own bodies, their own kids, their own infants. I mean, don't they crank that into their daily mission as to how they're going to confront efforts by citizens around the country to ban and regulate these chemicals. I mean, how oblivious can you be? These oil and gas executives and lobbyists in Washington, their own families are being contaminated. Have you ever had an exchange with them on this?

Mariah Blake (39:31)

I haven't, and I struggle to understand the mentality. There was one person I interviewed for my book who Gave me some insight as to the perspective of executives. And this was a lawyer for the company that's responsible for the pollution in Hoosick Falls, New York. And that company is Saint Gobain. And he wound up becoming a whistleblower. And I asked him, what are these executives thinking? Because, yes, their own families are affected. And he said, what I was witnessing, what he was witnessing was something he described as a generational passing of the box. So they know these chemicals are harmful. They know that there's potential legal repercussions of producing them and dumping them in the environment. But their thinking is by the time the consequences come home to roost, they will be retired in the Hamptons. And that is the closest I've come to understanding the mentality of the people who are continuing to produce these chemicals and put them out in the environment and the lobbyists who are fighting to avoid the regulation of these chemicals. But really, it's a bit of a mystery to me.

Ralph Nader (40:42)

Here's a practical question for our listeners that some may be asking right now. What do they do? They can drink water out of their faucet, or they can drink water from underground wells like Berkeley Springs in West Virginia and elsewhere. And bottled water is sold in all the supermarkets. Overwhelmingly, it's sold in plastic containers. So what would you advise our listeners to do? Take it out of the faucet and put it into a filter? Activated carbon? Or if they want to buy their water from springs, what do they do about the plastic bottles that contain the water?

Mariah Blake (41:21)

That's a really good question. I just want to point out that the people are exposed to these chemicals in a lot of ways. So the main route of exposure for most Americans is food. Our food supply is heavily contaminated with these chemicals. We're also exposed through consumer products. So they are in lipstick, lotion, personal care products, diapers, children's clothing. They're in everything.

Ralph Nader (41:43)

What kind of food?

Mariah Blake (41:44)

Imagine all kinds of food. So for decades, the EPA has been encouraging farmers to spread sewage sludge over their land as fertilizer. And recently it has come to light that this fertilizer is highly contaminated with pfas. And in fact, there are farms out there that have levels of contamination that blow away any factory town out there. Some of them are organic farms where this sludge was spread two or three owners ago. But it also gets into the food chain through other routes. So, for example, fish tend to be highly, highly contaminated. One study of locally caught freshwater fish around the United States found that eating even a single portion of can increase your blood level as much as drinking heavily contaminated water for an entire month. So that said, there are ways that people can protect themselves. And I would say when it comes to drinking water, the best option is just to filter your tap water with a system that is certified to remove pfas. Under sink. Systems are a great option. They're relatively affordable. You can avoid buying products that are marketed as waterproof, grease proof and stick stain resistant. I would also advise people to use natural materials for cooking and food storage. So glass, stainless steel, wood utensils, those are all great options. Limit your consumption of fast food and popcorn because the packaging often contains very high levels of pfas. And avoid eating locally caught freshwater fish.

Ralph Nader (43:14)

What sort of diseases are being linked? I know one is kidney cancer. What sort of diseases are being linked.

Mariah Blake (43:21)

To various cancers including kidney and testicular cancer, infertility, obesity, thyroid disease, diabetes, reduced iq, immune suppression, life threatening pregnancy complications, and they've also been shown to hinder fetal development. The list is very long, but those are some examples.

Ralph Nader (43:41)

Let me ask you a fundamental question. Back in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Thomas Alva Edison, Henry Ford, the first some said the president of Harvard University at the time, they all got together confronting the rise of the chemical industry at the time and they made a point that just about everything that the chemical industries producing hydrocarbons, they were all hydrocarbons. Coal, oil, gas, can be produced by carbohydrates like the products grown on our farms that are degradable and safe. And guess who won out? Well, the chemical industry, DuPont, Dow Chemical, they just overrode those caveats and a way to substitute safely for these dangerous hydrocarbon based products. And of course the industry wanted to make money and they made money by burning coal, oil and gas. They didn't make money by growing crops on the farms that could be used as substitute materials. And the farm lobby was not organized at that point to counteract the rising chemical industry. Do you see any discussion about substitute renewable degradable technology here?

Mariah Blake (44:56)

Yes, quite a bit. So PFAS are actually not hydrocarbons but fluorocarbons. So they're a combination of fluorine and carbon which together form the strongest bond in chemistry. So they have some special properties that other materials don't. And there are certain uses, there are certain applications that we have not yet discovered natural materials that can do what they do. And one of those is lithium ion batteries. So fluorocarbons are used to coat the cathodes and we do not yet have a non toxic biodegradable Substitute. But for the vast majority of uses, there are substitutes out there. And we're discovering that because as I mentioned, there are all these state level bans and an EU ban on the entire class of chemicals. And as a result, manufacturers are having to go through their entire supply chain and figure out where these chemicals are and if they want an exemption. Some of the state level laws exempt uses that are essential to the health, safety and functioning of society. They have to prove that they're essential and also that there are no substitutes yet available. And we're discovering that for the vast majority of applications, there are substitutes available or substitutes are being developed. There are lots of cases also where these chemicals are used, but they're used in makeup and lotion and cleaning products. They're used wantonly, they're used in ways that don't justify putting these chemicals into the environment. So yes, yes, there is a major conversation happening about substitution, substituting natural materials or biodegradable non toxic materials. And there are in many cases already materials in existence that can be used in place of PFAs.

Ralph Nader (46:44)

Well, that gets to the real heart of the problem. That's a generic remedy that we should pay much more attention to. Now. The heart of your book, you said, is the Hoosick Falls, New York narrative. This tiny town, Hoosick Falls, H O O S I C K Falls. And you describe in many pages in the book what you call the moving story of a group of small town residents who took on some of the world's powerful corporations at great personal expense and wound up scoring some remarkable victories. Can you give a brief narrative about what you thought was such a hopeful resurgence of what you call citizen scientists?

Mariah Blake (47:24)

It's a pretty remarkable story. And actually when I set out to write this book, I had written an article about the Parkersburg, West Virginia case that I mentioned. And I really thought that was going to be the focus of my story. That and the history of pfas. I thought that would be the focus of my book. But as I began researching my book, and this is eight years ago, stories about Hoosick Falls began cropping up in the media. At the time, nobody had even heard of pfas. And there was only a few communities anywhere in the country that were known to have PFAS drinking water contamination. But this community had discovered that the drinking water was contaminated. And as you mentioned, it only came to light because this local insurance underwriter began to suspect that the drinking water was contaminated after his father died from kidney cancer. And so he tested his own drinking Water. And he discovered that in fact the water was highly contaminated. The levels he detected were about 100 times the EPA's current safety standard. And he thought he would just take the information to the mayor and that the mayor would take it from there. But that's not what happened. He ended up spearheading a fight against several giant multinational corporations and government agencies to get his community clean drinking water. And one of the things that I love about Michael, and that really struck me when I first met him, is that he is the least likely activist you can ever imagine. So he's clean cut, he drives the BMW suv, he's never taken much interest in politics or environmental issues. The first time I met him, he told me he got his political news from espn. And yet he had become this really remarkable advocate. And other community residents had joined the fight. There was a local doctor, very beloved figure in the community, who had detected unusually high rates of rare aggressive cancer among his patients before being diagnosed with cancer himself at age 41. There was a young mother who had put everything she had into a dream home for her family, only to discover that the private well was heavily contaminated with these chemicals. That her family had blood levels on par with DuPont factory workers. There was a high school music teacher, conservative evangelical Christian, who was devastated to discover that his breastfed 2 year old daughter had had blood levels that were 30 times the national average. And these were people very much like Michael. People who had never taken much of an interest in politics, who spent their lives trusting that there were systems in place to protect them. And now that trust had been shattered. But rather than becoming cynical or resigned, they fought like hell to protect their families. And along the way they, they discovered these hidden strengths that turned them into really remarkable advocates. So Michael had this incredible talent for maneuvering behind the scenes.

Ralph Nader (50:13)

They testified for Congress, didn't they?

Mariah Blake (50:15)

They testified for Congress, both he and Emily. Emily Marpe, the young woman whose private well was poisoned. She was a teen mom, high school education. She developed a command on the science that blew me away. And she became a very powerful spokesperson. They all lobbied Congress. Both she and Michael testified before Congress and they were remarkably effective advocates. So the high school music teacher, he wound up becoming mayor and he turned things around for the village.

Ralph Nader (50:44)

What is the population of Hoosick Falls and where does the drinking water come from?

Mariah Blake (50:49)

So it is 3,000 people, and the drinking water comes from groundwater wells that are right next to the plant that manufactures Teflon coated fabric.

Ralph Nader (50:59)

We're talking with Mariah Blake, who's the author of the very compelling book, they Poisoned the World, Life and Death in an Age of Forever Chemicals by Crown Publishers, a major publisher. And it's doing very well around the country in terms of sales. Can you tell us how people can contact you, give you their dire situation? Perhaps in their community people can reach me.

Mariah Blake (51:25)

My email address is on my Instagram page. And just to connect with me via Instagram or Facebook, I just want to mention in terms of the Hoosick Falls story, you know, Michael and the doctor that he was working with early on, the beloved community doctor had a list of goals that they set out in 2015 for their community. What they wanted in terms of getting the community clean drinking water and medical monitoring for the diseases associated with pfas. And as of this year, they have achieved every single goal. And they've also shaped state legislation and federal legislation.

Ralph Nader (51:57)

We understand the power of civic action here in your book out of Hoosac Falls, New York. Let's go to Steve. Question for Mariah Blake.

Steve Skrovan (52:08)

Mariah, what are the Montreal Protocols?

Mariah Blake (52:11)

So the Montreal Protocol was an agreement to phase out chlorofluorocarbons. These were the gases responsible for the ozone hole. And it was remarkably effective. So a bunch of countries signed on to the protocol and we were able to phase out the majority of CFCs. And as a result, the ozone hole is on its way to recovery. So I believe within the next two decades, it will disappear entirely. And I think it's more importantly, it is one of the clearest examples of effective environmental regulation, of actually regulation that addresses a severe environmental threat and that.

Steve Skrovan (52:53)

Is successful and it can be applied to pfas.

Mariah Blake (52:56)

Well, I argue in the book, I mean, I mainly make the case that the Montreal Protocol was only possible because market forces were shifting in a way that encouraged manufacturers to be willing to phase out these chemicals. And in fact, so dupont was also the main manufacturer of chlorofluorocarbons. And once the market reached a point where it was more lucrative to produce the replacements than to produce chlorofluorocarbons, DuPont actually lobbied for a more aggressive timeline for the phase out of these chemicals. And that is how the world was able to reach this agreement and implement it so successfully. And I make the case in the book that we are approaching a similar tipping point with PFAs, or we could be approaching a similar tipping point with PFAs. Because you have this combination of state level legislation restricting PFAs, you have a tidal wave of litigation. So there are at least 15,000 lawsuits against manufacturers. And as a result of this large swaths of the economy are voluntarily migrating away from PFAS. So 3M, the world's largest manufacturer, has announced that it will quit producing them by the end of this year, which is huge. Forty major retail chains with more than $1.7 trillion in sales have announced that they will phase them out or eliminate them from their supply chains. And we're talking huge companies. Apple, Amazon, Home Depot, 7, 11. The list is quite long. And so as a result of that, I think we are reaching a point where the economic incentive shifts enough that finding replacements is so lucrative that continuing to use these products presents such a huge liability, because now consumer brands are starting to get sued for using these chemicals in their products.

David Feldman (54:39)

David so the John Birch Society is slowly becoming normalized. More and more cities are actually banning fluoride from our drinking water, not fluorine. And you write that fluorine is an element known as the devil's gas, whereas fluoride, for our teeth is an offshoot of an ion of fluorine. So why is it okay for fluoride to be in our water but not fluorine? And how do we get the John Birchers to care more about the fluorine in our water than the fluoride?

Mariah Blake (55:15)

That's a good question. I mean, the thing is that, yes, fluoride is just a fluorine ion, and fluoride is extremely toxic above a certain dose, but scientists have discovered that lower doses are active of our teeth. Now, I think that's a very good question. Why are people like RFK concerned about fluoride in our water, but not these fluorinated chemicals that are known to be extremely harmful? And I would love to see. I would love to see the Maha people and Kennedy embracing this issue, because I think it's one that Republicans and Democrats alike care about on the grassroots level, and it's one that affects us all. But I don't know why, why they have chosen to care about fluorine and not pfas, except for that the fluorine debate goes back decades, and PFAS have really only registered on the radar in the last, I'd say, five, six years.

Ralph Nader (56:12)

We're out of time, unfortunately. We've been speaking with Mariah Blake, the author of they Poisoned the World, Life and Death in Age of Forever Chemicals. These are examples of the silent violence of corporate production. And silent violence is often secret violence. And it's very hard to expose, compared, say, to street crime, which is why corporations get away with so much without having to be confronted by the rule of regulatory law and substitute materials for their harmful products. Thank you very much, Mariah, and may you reach millions more people with your practical advice about how people can protect themselves and get state action. Until we fire the Trump administration, which has now collaborated with these chemical companies in many destructive ways harmful to the health of all Americans, regardless of whether they voted for or against Trump. Thank you.

Mariah Blake (57:11)

Thank you.

Steve Skrovan (57:12)

I want to thank our guests again, Chris Townsend and Mariah Blake. For those of you listening on the radio, that's our show. For you podcast listeners, stay tuned for some bonus material we call the Wrap up featuring Francesco de Santis with in case you haven't heard, a transcript of this program will appear on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour substack site soon after the episode is posted.

David Feldman (57:32)

The producers of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour are Jimmy Lee Wirt, Hannah Feldman, and Matthew Marin. Our executive producer, Alan Minsky.

Steve Skrovan (57:40)

Our theme music, stand up, Rise up, was written and performed by Camp Harris. Our proofreader is Elizabeth Solomon.

David Feldman (57:46)

Join us next week on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Thank you, Ralph.

Ralph Nader (57:51)

Thank you, everybody.

Mariah Blake (57:55)

Stand up, step up.

Chris Townsend (57:58)

You ought to step out.

Ralph Nader (58:00)

Rise up, arise up. I know you want to rise up.

Chris Townsend (58:04)

Stand up, stand up. This is John Crumshow with a special politics or pedagogy education report. We're back again with Dr. Freddy Perez. He is an optometrist who has been involved in the Lions Club for many years. I wanted to ask about the testing that you do at schools here in California.

Dr. Freddy Perez (58:43)

It's been mandated that children, by the time they enter first grade, which would be at the age of six, they should have an eye exam because it's very well determined that the lack of good quality vision impairs a child for learning. So if you can't really see words, you can't see objects, it's very difficult to make the connection and be able to learn. So consequently, one of the things that we rely on as part of our service to the community is to provide screenings to children at the elementary school level. Some schools have the resources to do that through private means, but a lot of the schools don't. A lot of the schools, even public school, don't have those kind of resources. So the lions come in and fill that void. We have special machines that are very portable and we could bring them and do one classroom, two classrooms, four classrooms, all one classroom at a time. And it's very, very quickly done. We could do screen a child in about 15 seconds. In about 15 seconds. So if we have them coming in, so most of the time that we spend.