My special guest today is Alissa Cordner an Environmental Sociologist and Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at Whitman College which is in Eastern Washington State in the US. She has been working on PFAS since about 2014. She is the co-director of the PFAS Project Lab which is based at North Eastern University with Phillip Brown who is the other co-director. Alissa says "over the last 6-7 years we have been working on PFAS from a variety of social science perspectives, starting by trying the understand the social and scientific discovery of this class of chemicals and understand why they remain in such wide use, and production, and why they are such a ubiquitous contaminant, given that at least some actors have known for 50 years about their toxicity and exposure concern. What it is that has gotten us into this situation? We have worked on PFAS activism, trying to understand the rise of social movement activity related to PFAS and currently we are working on a number of projects and one of them is trying to understand the full and multifaceted costs of PFAS contamination." Today we discuss a commentary paper she and her team of experts have written called The True Cost of PFAS and the Benefits of Acting Now" which was published in Environment Science and Technology Journal on the 7 July 2021.

Today's episode of Talking PFAS is the Season Finale and the last episode for 2021. The podcast will return on the 25th of January, 2022. I will be taking a 3 month break to recharge my batteries, and then begin research and production of the next season of Talking PFAS, and I have some great guests lined up already. I hope in this extended break that you re-listen to some of your favourite episodes. I will also tweet some of my favourite episodes each month.

Episodes mentioned in today's discussion, or episodes which complement today's discussion, are Episode 2, 9, 13, 14, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 29, and I highly recommend listening for the first time or listening again to these.

A very big thank you to all my listeners since 2018, and a very big thank you to all the guests in this podcast. I hope you will join me again in Jan 2022. Kayleen Bell, Journalist.

Show Note Links:

“The True Cost of PFAS and the Benefits of Acting Now”

Alissa Cordner, Gretta Goldenman, Linda S. Birnbaum, Phil Brown, Mark F. Miller, Rosie Mueller, Sharyle Patton, Derrick H. Salvatore and Leonardo Trasande

. 2021, 55, 14, 9630-9633 Publication Date July 7, 2021Environ.Sci.Technol

Debra J. Davidson debra.davidson@ualberta.ca.“Evaluating the effects of living with contamination from the lens of trauma: a case study of fracking development in Alberta, Canada.”

July 28, 2017Environmental Sociology