The PFAS Project and Toxic Docs
Toxic Docs has always seen itself as part of a larger environmental health community. We freely provide our resources to those looking to house documents on environmental health and to take advantage of the tools we’ve developed or that are coming down the road.
Today, we’re pleased to announce the addition of more than 6,000 new documents on Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS). They were compiled by the PFAS Project based out of Northeastern University’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute (SSEHRI). It is spearheaded by Phil Brown, Lauren Richter, and Alissa Cordner. You can learn more about them at www.pfasproject.com!
Among other activities, the PFAS Project has held a national conference and published papers on regulatory policy. In conjunction with the Environmental Working Group, it has also begun a mapping project to track PFAS contamination across the country.
The documents we have uploaded are in a Special Collection entitled “PFAS Project (SSEHRI, Northeastern University”) and under Toxic Substances category “PFASs”). You can get to them through our Advanced Search. Or just click here.
The materials include toxicological reports on PFAS-containing products and private corporate memos on product safety. Some documents date as far back as 40 years, allowing one to trace transformations of PFAS knowledge over time.
Image: 1981 DuPont/3M document on effects of C-8 in rats
The PFAS Project collection joins materials generously shared by investigative reporter Sharon Lerner, a friend of Toxic Docs who has also collaborated with PFAS Project/SSEHRI researchers. You can read more about Lerner's work and materials here.
In the coming weeks, we will spotlight documents from these new materials on our blog and improve electronic sorting and classification of them with new tools we are developing.