Barriers to Speaking Up: Forever Chemicals at 3M
- bennym40
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
The views and opinions expressed on this account are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of my employer. Any content provided is for informational purposes only and should not be considered or relied upon as professional advice.
In my previous post (Rats & Whistleblowers: Barriers to Speaking Up), I explored how organisations can discourage dissent and challenge.
This post builds on that by drawing on a 2024 investigation by ProPublica and The New Yorker(i). It higlights how individual and group dynamics suppressed concerns about PFAS - so‑called “forever chemicals”.
You may already be familiar with the story through the film Dark Waters: a large corporation develops a wonder-product, discovers its health risks, downplays or conceals those risks, inappropriately influences regulators, pollutes the environment, and makes a lot of money.
For those living under a rock, “forever chemicals” (PFAS, per‑ and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of over 10,000 synthetic compounds. They have been used since the 1940s to make products resistant to water, grease, and stains. They are called “forever” chemicals because they do not readily break down in either the environment or the human body.
Unfortunately, even if you have been living under a rock, you will almost certainly have been exposed to PFAS. They are ubiquitous, and they accumulate in both humans and animals.
The ProPublica/New Yorker article is masterfully written, and I would recommend reading that first if you enjoy a well‑told story. Spoilers ahead, as they say.
What 3M Knew about PFAS, and When
Internal documents and legal discovery show that 3M was aware of PFAS risks as early as the 1950s. Despite this, the company continued selling PFAS‑based products for decades while downplaying or concealing the evidence.
1950s: Internal studies showed PFAS were toxic in laboratory animals and could accumulate in human blood.
1960s: 3M scientists recognised that PFAS did not degrade in the environment, coining the term “forever chemicals”. 3M studies showed that even low doses of related compounds could damage rat livers.
1970s: Widespread human and animal exposure was confirmed, with evidence suggesting a cancer risk.
1980s: Animal studies showed PFAS damages the eyes of developing foetuses. 3M studies found tumours in animals and elevated cancer rates among 3M workers.
Cast of Characters
Kris Hansen: a chemist who joined 3M in the late 1990s
Jim Johnson: Hansen’s first manager and an early (and secretive) pioneer of PFAS research at 3M
Dale Bacon: Johnson’s manager, and later Hansen’s, after Johnson took early retirement
Jim Johnson's Story
Johnson began researching PFAS in the 1970s. One of his early experiments showed that PFAS bind to proteins in the body, allowing them to accumulate over time. He also claimed to have detected PFAS in blood samples taken from the general population in the late 1970s.
In the early 1980s, Johnson fed a 3M product to rats and found that PFAS accumulated in their livers, an indicator of how the chemicals might behave in humans. He recognised the seriousness of this for 3M, remarking later that “it meant they were screwed”, although he also claimed that at the time he did not believe PFAS caused significant health problems.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Johnson developed a mass‑spectrometry technique to measure PFAS in biological fluids and sent the resulting report to his manager, Dale Bacon.
Eventually, Johnson became tired of arguing with the few colleagues he felt able to speak openly with. In the late 1990s, he hired an external laboratory to measure PFAS levels in the blood of 3M factory workers. He knew the lab would also analyse blood‑bank samples for comparison, and that their findings would inevitably lead to PFSA finally being taken off the market.
As a final act, in 1997, Johnson tasked Hansen with something he had long avoided: systematically documenting the chemical's ubiquity using the techniques he had developed in the late 1980s. After passing Hansen's initial findings up the hierarchy, he took early retirement as the second‑highest‑ranked scientist in his division.
Johnson’s Experience of Challenging 3M Over Forever Chemicals
Johnson tried to work within the system. He argued that PFAS should not be used in products like toothpaste and nappies, and later that production should stop altogether. These efforts went nowhere. As he later put it, “These idiots were already putting it in food packaging.”
It became clear to Johnson that 3M’s leadership did not want to hear bad news about a key product. He believed there was a shared, unspoken understanding within the organisation that some questions simply should not be asked.
His loyalty to the firm was one reason he did not push harder. He saw himself as responsible for protecting 3M from liability, and even implied in a ProPublica interview that he would conveniently “forget” details if asked to testify in court. Another reason was more basic: he did not want to lose his job.
Kris Hansen
Hansen’s Timeline
Hansen joined 3M in 1996 after completing her PhD. A year later Johnson asked her to validate results from an external laboratory that had detected PFAS contamination in human blood. In the weeks that followed, Hansen and her team ordered fresh blood samples from every supplier 3M worked with. Every sample tested positive for PFAS.
After reporting her findings, Hansen noticed a marked change in how she was treated. She came under increased scrutiny. She was accused of using contaminated equipment, and was even flown to an equipment manufacturer to repeat her tests.
As Hansen’s PFAS research continued, her relationships with some colleagues deteriorated. On one occasion, a colleague asked her to test several vials of blood. When the samples came back positive for PFAS, he ridiculed her, revealing that the blood had been taken from a horse. This was presented as evidence of flawed research, even though it instead demonstrated the ubiquity of PFAS in the wider food chain.
Hansen was eventually able to obtain blood samples that did not contain PFAS, but only where the blood had been collected before 3M began manufacturing their products. These results vindicated her equipment and methodology.
Hansen’s Experience of Challenging 3M
When Hansen presented her findings to the 3M Board, she was met with hostility and aggressive questioning: why she had undertaken the research, who had told her to do it, and who she had told about the results.
After the meeting her role changed. She was only permitted to carry out experiments explicitly requested by a supervisor and would be allowed to share the results only with them. Her new work largely consisted of analysing samples for studies designed by others, and she was instructed not to ask questions about what the results meant. Several members of her team were also reassigned.
Outside of work, the pressure continued. At a barbecue, one of the creators of Scotchgard, a major source of PFAS, accused Hansen of trying to undermine her colleagues’ work and destroy their careers.
Hansen trusted the assurances of 3M's medical director that PFAS were harmless. Her expertise lay in detecting chemicals, not in assessing their health impacts, and she did not feel qualified to challenge those conclusions. She later admitted that she may not have wanted to know the full truth. Her narrow role within 3M had shielded her from accountability for confronting the broader implications of what she had uncovered.
Lessons from the Case Study
This case closely aligns with the themes explored in my earlier post, “Rats and Whistleblowers”. It highlights the challenges of speaking up in organisations resistant to change.
Both Hansen and Johnson made what they saw as rational decisions to remain quiet. Each acknowledged that the fear of losing their job played a significant role.
Johnson raised concerns through formal channels and informal networks, but when he encountered resistance, he concluded that organisational inertia made meaningful change impossible.
Research on whistleblowing suggests that senior staff are more likely to possess sufficient social licence needed for effective dissent. As a result, they are either taken seriously or actively discredited, but not ignored. Johnson avoided this outcome for many years by demonstrating loyalty to 3M, until he ultimately took early retirement.
The same research suggests that junior staff are more likely to be marginalised, ignored and discredited – which accurately reflects Hansen’s experience. Two additional points stand out:
The role of silos
By compartmentalising knowledge, 3M created conditions that allowed employees to maintain plausible deniability. Hansen knew that PFAS accumulated in the body, but not what the consequences were. She could continue to see herself as a good person despite not pursuing her PFAS research further: she had followed formal processes, respected hierarchy, and deferred to senior experts who assured her the chemicals posed no harm.
Risk teams are uniquely placed to break down information silos. They should focus on identifying and investigating any internal reports that are ignored, sidelined or altered, including examining how Compliance and Internal Reports are edited before being finalised. There is unlikely to be any intentional deception, but this process can help the Risk team understand which ideas or performance issues the organisation is hesitant to openly acknowledge.
The importance of exit interviews:
Johnson remained loyal until he left the firm, at which point his individual identity became more important than his group identity. Exit interviews led by risk teams can be a powerful way to surface issues that have not previously been fully socialised.
I hope this blog sparks ideas and discussion. If you found it interesting, please share or connect with me on LinkedIn to contribute or provide feedback!
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