Around 1m people, including 13,000 youths, especially vulnerable because they can do little to protect themselves, co-author says
Nearly half of US prisons draw water from sources likely contaminated with toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, new research finds.
At least around 1m people incarcerated in the US, including 13,000 juveniles, are estimated to be housed in the prisons, and they are especially vulnerable to the dangerous chemicals because there is little they can do to protect themselves, said Nicholas Shapiro, a study co-author at the University of California in Los Angeles.
“We need to think about who is exposed and who has the least agency to mitigate their exposure – that’s why this is such a unique population,” he said. “We see the dehumanization of incarcerated people across the country, and these exposures are symptoms of that larger problem.”
Well, in some situations at least. In general you don’t really have a choice of water when you bathe or shower. Kids in school also don’t have a choice of water when they get thirsty in the middle of the day. People don’t really get to choose what water was used to make certain foods they buy from the grocery store, which can really come from anywhere. Or the water that livestock drink, which becomes part of milk and eggs and meat.
And when you can buy your own water, bottled water can contain PFAS anyways, either present in the source it was drawn from or added by the very container it shipped to you in.
Exactly why I said “allowed…” Very few people will have both the means and wherewithal to effectively reduce their intake of pfas.