3M spent more than 50 years telling governments its firefighting chemicals were safe while its own internal documents warned of birth defects, organ damage, and environmental contamination — and now Australia is demanding $2 billion in damages for the cleanup.
Court filings in Australia's federal court lay out in 1,600 pages how 3M sold per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — the "forever chemicals" now linked to cancer, reduced kidney function, fertility problems, and lower birth weight — to the Australian military while assuring officials the products were "non-toxic" and "biodegradable." The company's own records tell a different story. This is what regulatory capture looks like: a corporation poisons people for half a century, and the system only responds after the damage is baked into the soil.
The Australian government's lawsuit targets contamination at 28 defence bases where 3M's aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, was used for decades. Commonwealth lawyers allege 3M should have known no later than 1973 that the products were potentially damaging to the environment and human health. The gap between what 3M told buyers and what it knew internally is staggering.
According to The Guardian, court documents show that in April 1981, 3M barred women "of child bearing potential" from working at its Alabama plant "so they will not be exposed to a type of fluorochemical that can cause birth defects in rats." Yet company brochures provided to the Australian government as late as 1973 declared the products "non-toxic" and "non-irritating" to humans, would not harm grass, were biodegradable, and were "not expected to adversely affect the ecology of receiving streams in the vicinity of its use."
The Australian government had been attending demonstrations of AFFF products as early as 1967 and 1968 — the same period 3M's brochures claimed the products were safe. Purchasing began in 1972, after 3M Australia offered large quantities at a reduced price. When the federal government explicitly asked 3M in June 1983 whether AFFF had "any harmful environmental effects," the answer apparently wasn't forthcoming.
The Australian Defence Department began phasing out PFAS chemicals only in 2004. Three key PFAS chemicals were banned in Australia just last year. More than 14,000 PFAS compounds remain in circulation — chemicals that persist in water, soil, and the human body for extended periods. Some, including PFOA, one of the chemicals now banned, have been identified as cancer-causing in humans.
The lawsuit is the largest legal claim ever brought by the Australian government.
The question isn't just what 3M knew and when. It's who in the regulatory apparatus on multiple continents knew it too — and why it took governments a half-century to act while citizens drank contaminated water and worked in contaminated buildings.
