Standard Grant: Perflourinated Chemicals: The Social Discovery of a Class of Emerging Contaminants

这个项目调查了全氟化合物(PFC)的社会发现，这种化合物是危险的，但在工业生产中被广泛使用。它们是一类不同寻常的化学品，具有广泛的、低水平的消费者暴露、重要的潜在气候变化排放，以及暴露在高污染水平下的已确定的受污染社区。具体地说，该项目将审查限制全氟碳化物使用的科学、监管和宣传行动。它使用了一种社会发现的方法，这解释了人们对以前没有意识到或了解得很少的社会问题、疾病、状况、环境危害或其他社会现象的日益增长的认识。将全氟化碳作为一类化学品进行审查，拟议的研究将调查非专业意识、科学研究、政府参与、媒体报道、诉讼和倡导的出现。该项目的结果将使人们更好地了解为什么缺乏关于大多数正在使用的化学品的风险的数据。在其他关于化学品的社会科学研究之后，这项工作可以通过确定和分析延迟和不完全限制危险化学品的后果，鼓励在化学品监管方面采取更谨慎的做法。它还将有助于减少有毒物质和绿色化学，它将通过向科学、倡导、政府和职业团体传播研究成果，直接使公众意识受益。这项研究将强调化学品制造商转向更安全的化学品的必要性。本项目将提供对全氟碳化合物的透彻理解，作为对新出现的污染物的案例研究：如何使用和监管它们，科学和活动家如何对这些污染物做出反应，以及为什么某些组织选择关注全氟碳化合物的问题。这将有助于通过比较特定地点和无处不在的化学暴露，从社会学上理解人们如何与受污染的环境相互作用；通过认识到风险的起源如何在不一定降低风险水平的情况下发生变化，从而有助于风险社会学；以及关于如何创造、传播科学知识并将其用于政策的科学研究。该项目将有助于越来越多的关于化学政策的社会科学研究，从而能够对不同的关于化学的社会科学研究进行比较。这项研究在将这些更广泛的化学品政策问题与对受污染社区的特定地点研究相结合方面也具有重要意义？经验。该项目要解决的研究问题包括以下几个方面。全氟化碳的危险是如何在20世纪70年代被发现，并在21世纪头10年重新被发现的？重大污染事件对全氟化碳的认识、监管和研究有何影响？倡导禁止或管制在工业生产以及家庭和消费品中使用全氟化碳的人有哪些成功和失败之处？企业PFC生产商、监管机构、科学家、受影响的居民、环境卫生组织和学术科学家使用哪些相互竞争的方法进行风险评估和风险管理？

General Audience Summary This project investigates the social discovery of per-fluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which are hazardous yet widely used in industrial production. They are an unusual class of chemicals with significant widespread, low-level consumer exposure, important potential climate change emissions, and identified contaminated communities exposed to high levels of contamination. Specifically, this project will examine scientific, regulatory and advocacy action to restrict the use of PFCs. It uses a social discovery approach, which explains the growing awareness of a previously unrecognized or poorly understood social problem, disease, condition, environmental hazard, or other social phenomenon. Examining PFCs as a class of chemicals, the proposed research will investigate the emergence of lay awareness, scientific research, government involvement, media coverage, litigation, and advocacy. The results of this project will provide a greater understanding of why there is a lack of data about the risks of most in-use chemicals. Following on other social scientific studies of chemicals, this work can encourage a more precautionary approach in chemical regulation by identifying and analyzing the consequences of delayed and incomplete restriction of hazardous chemicals. It will also aid in toxics reduction and green chemistry, and it will directly benefit public awareness by disseminating research findings to scientific, advocacy, governmental, and occupational groups. This research will highlight the need for chemical manufacturers to move toward safer chemicals.Technical Summary This project will provide a thorough understanding of PFCs as a case study for emerging contaminants: how they are used and regulated, how science and activists respond to these contaminants, and why certain groups choose to take up the issue of PFCs. This will contribute to a sociological understanding of how people interact with a contaminated environment through a comparison of site-specific and ubiquitous chemical exposure; to the sociology of risk, by recognizing how the origins of risk can shift without necessarily decreasing the levels of risk; and science studies about how scientific knowledge is created, communicated, and used to inform policy. This project will contribute to the growing number of social science studies on chemical policy, allowing for comparison across different social science studies of chemicals. This research is also significant in combining those broader chemical policy issues with site-specific research on contaminated communities? experience. Research questions to be addressed in the project include the following. How were the dangers of PFCs discovered in the 1970s and re-discovered in the 2000s? How have major contamination episodes impacted the awareness, regulation, and research related to PFCs? What have been the successes and failures of advocates for banning or regulating the use of PFCs in industrial production and in household and consumer products? What competing approaches to risk assessment and risk management are used by corporate PFC producers, regulatory agencies, scientists, affected residents, environmental health organizations, and academic scientists?