Artificial Turf is Full of Toxic Chemicals; Yet More and More Schools and Playgrounds are Using It – Children’s Health Defense 5/4/23

Source: ChildrensHealthDefense.org

The recent deaths of six Philadephia Phillies baseball players from the same rare and aggressive form of brain cancer sparked an investigative report by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The investigation led to the discovery of toxic PFAS chemicals — also known as “forever chemicals” — in the Monsanto-made synthetic astroturf installed at the old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia during the time the athletes played there.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of hazardous synthetic compounds widely called “forever chemicals” because they persist in people’s bodies and the environment for years on end.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s team — including investigative reporters Barbara Laker and David Gambacorta — bought samples of the fake grass that blanketed the stadium fields during the era when the players played on it and tested the samples.

Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories Environmental Testing found two turf samples contained 16 different types of PFAS. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame tested two other samples and also found PFAS.

The presence of the forever chemicals could potentially be linked to cancer that took the six players lives, Laker and Gambacorta said.

In an interview with award-winning journalist and author David Sirota, Laker said multiple studies — “two in China and one, I believe, in Italy” — indicated PFAS were able to cross the blood-brain barrier, and that the chemicals were found “not only in the brain but actually in brain tumors.”…

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