How PFAS Began: Inside the Manhattan Project’s Chemical Legacy

How PFAS Began: Inside the Manhattan Project’s Chemical Legacy

The story of “forever chemicals” often begins in the headlines of the last decade — contaminated water systems, cancer clusters, corporate cover-ups, and a growing sense that something invisible has seeped into every corner of modern life. But the crisis didn’t appear overnight. Its roots stretch back nearly a century, to a moment when chemists racing to build the world’s first atomic bomb stumbled onto materials unlike anything the world had se…