Kris Hansen, pictured here in her father’s shirt, was a chemist in 3M’s environmental lab in the late 1990s when she was asked to test human blood for chemical contamination. The assignment led her to discover that a “forever chemical” called PFOS had seeped out of Scotchgard and other 3M products and into all of us.
Hansen’s bosses questioned her findings and suggested she was mistaken. But Hansen soon learned that another 3M scientist had found PFOS in the blood of the general public decades earlier. Told by her superiors that the chemical was harmless, she eventually filed the disturbing revelation away and moved on to other things.
After she learned that PFOS is in fact very harmful and that her employer had misinformed her, Hansen reached out to ProPublica reporter Sharon Lerner. What Lerner’s reporting uncovered was worse than either of them imagined.
When ProPublica sent 3M detailed questions about Hansen’s account, a spokesperson responded without answering most of them or mentioning Hansen by name. A 3M spokesperson also told ProPublica that the company “is proactively managing PFAS,” and that 3M’s approach to the chemicals has evolved along with “the science and technology of PFAS, societal and regulatory expectations, and our expectations of ourselves.”
