【文章标题】：How the Planet-Altering Disaster of “Forever Chemicals” Was Kept Secret
《永久化学品》如何成为改变地球的灾难并被长期隐瞒
【文章正文】：
Description
简介
We now know harmful “forever chemicals” are likely in the bodies of most people on earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long.
如今我们已知，有害的”永久化学品”很可能存在于地球上大多数人的体内。而早在数十年前，3M公司就清楚这些化学物质已渗入公众血液，却对此秘而不宣。一位3M科学家向记者莎伦·勒纳揭示了他们长期掩盖真相的手段。
Transcript
文字记录
Editor’s Note: “Paper Trail” is produced as an audio series. If you are able, we encourage you to listen to the series. This transcript has been lightly edited for style.
编者按：《蛛丝马迹》为音频系列节目。建议您收听原声版本。本文稿已进行轻微风格化编辑。
Jessica Lussenhop: So I know that you don’t know me. But you and I probably have something in common. It’s quite likely that inside you and me and almost every living thing on this crazy blue marble … is a little substance called … “forever chemicals.”
杰西卡·卢森霍普：我知道你我素不相识。但我们很可能有个共同点——在你我以及这颗蓝色星球上几乎所有生物体内…都存在一种名为”永久化学品”的物质。
I’m sure you’ve heard of them. These are the chemicals, invented by humans, coating products like nonstick pans. For decades, they were put in food packaging — like, they used to be on McDonald’s hamburger wrappers. They’re in mascara and firefighting foam. On couches, carpets and raincoats, to make them stainproof and water-repellent. And from those products and from factories they’ve spread … everywhere.
这类人造化学物质广泛应用于不粘锅涂层等产品。数十年来它们被添加在食品包装（如麦当劳汉堡包装纸）、睫毛膏、消防泡沫中，用于制造防污沙发、防水地毯和雨衣，最终从产品和工厂扩散至…每个角落。
Lerner: It’s become clear that these chemicals are actually in every state and in every country and in everybody.
勒纳：事实已证明这些化学物质存在于每个地区、每个国家、每个人体内。
Lussenhop: My ProPublica colleague Sharon Lerner is one of the many people who helped uncover this. Forever chemicals — also known as PFAS — are … forever. They don’t break down easily in the environment or in our bodies.
我的ProPublica同事莎伦·勒纳是众多揭露者之一。永久化学品（又称PFAS）具有…永久性，难以在环境或人体中分解。
Lerner: They have developmental effects, immune effects. Thyroid, liver, hormonal systems. Some cause cancer, kidney cancer, obesity. They bind to proteins in your blood, and they change how systems in your bodies work.
勒纳：它们影响发育和免疫系统，损害甲状腺、肝脏和内分泌系统，可能引发癌症、肾癌和肥胖症。这些物质会与血液蛋白结合，改变人体系统运作方式。
Lussenhop: By the time all this became public, people like you and I had been happily eating our hamburgers and lazing on our couches for decades with no idea those chemicals even existed or that they were getting inside of our bodies. But about 10 years ago, Sharon started reporting on a group of people who did know.
当真相公诸于世时，普通人已无忧无虑地吃着汉堡、躺在沙发上数十年，全然不知这些化学物质的存在及其侵入体内的事实。但约十年前，莎伦开始追踪报道知情者群体。
Lerner: And I spent a lot of time in those 10 years figuring out what the companies that put those chemicals into the environment and ultimately into all of us: what they knew about it while they were doing it.
勒纳：过去十年我耗费大量时间调查：那些将化学品排放到环境（最终进入人体）的企业，在实施过程中究竟知晓多少内情。
Lussenhop: She learned that 3M, the company that pioneered the production of these chemicals, knew that these chemicals were toxic for decades, since the 1970s, but they kept making them anyway.
她发现，作为永久化学品生产先驱的3M公司早自1970年代就知晓其毒性，却持续生产数十年。
Lerner: That’s what transformed, kind of, a tiny problem into a planet-changing disaster. It could’ve been stopped.
勒纳：正是这种行为将小问题演变成改变地球的灾难。这本可避免。
Lussenhop: Sharon wrote roughly 60 stories about forever chemicals and investigated: What exactly did these companies know, and when did they know it?
莎伦撰写了约60篇相关报道，始终追问：这些公司具体知道什么？何时知晓的？
But there was one question in all of her reporting that she never got an answer to: How did they keep it a secret for so long? No one inside 3M who knew the secret had ever agreed to talk to her. But then …
但有个问题始终无解：他们如何长期保守秘密？所有知情的3M员工都拒绝受访，直到…
Lerner: I got an email from a scientist, and she said she used to work at 3M.
勒纳：我收到一位前3M科学家的邮件。
Lussenhop: This person wrote that she had worked in 3M’s environmental lab in the 1990s, when she was a young scientist. And she had handled, quote, “highly sensitive data.” It quickly became clear that she had known something about forever chemicals long before the public did … but she’d never talked about it publicly.
这位1990年代任职于3M环境实验室的年轻科学家曾接触”高度敏感数据”。显然她早于公众知晓永久化学品内情…却从未公开谈论。
Lerner (reading): She said, I recently left 3M […] after a 27-year career …
勒纳（朗读）：她写道：“在3M工作27年后…我近期离职”
Lussenhop: And now, all these years later, she wanted to talk.
时隔多年，她终于决定开口。
Lerner (reading): I realized that the narrative I have is a missing piece of at least one strand of the story. I thought, “Hmm, intriguing.”
勒纳（朗读）：“我意识到自己的经历能填补故事的关键缺失”，这让我觉得”嗯，有意思”。
Lussenhop: How does a company with thousands of employees, thousands of human beings, how do they keep a secret this big for this long? A secret that affects the lives of nearly every living being on the planet. Maybe, Sharon thought, this former 3M insider could explain.
拥有成千上万员工的企业，如何将关乎全球生灵的重大秘密保守数十年？莎伦认为这位3M前员工或许能给出答案。
Lussenhop: I mean, how did it feel to pick up the phone the first time and call her?
首次致电时你作何感受？
Lerner: Well, I do remember feeling conflicted. You know, I assumed the worst, honestly. Not the worst, but I thought, “Well, here’s someone who knew this thing for 20 years and sat on it, and how can that be OK?” But I’m looking at my own response, which was “Dear Ms. Hansen, I am so happy to hear from you,” three exclamation points. “I would LOVE,” all caps, “to talk.”
勒纳：记得当时很矛盾。说实话做了最坏预设——虽非最糟，但想着”这人知情20年却保持沉默，这合理吗？“可看我当时的回复：“亲爱的汉森女士，很高兴收到您的来信！！！我非·常·乐·意交谈”。
REPORTING CALL, Sharon Lerner: Hello?
报道通话记录，莎伦·勒纳：您好？
REPORTING CALL, Kris Hansen: Hi, this is Kris.
报道通话记录，克里斯·汉森：你好，我是克里斯。
REPORTING CALL, Lerner: Hi, Kris, it’s Sharon.
报道通话记录，勒纳：嗨克里斯，我是莎伦。
Lerner: I mean, of course I was interested.
勒纳：我当然充满兴趣。
REPORTING CALL, Lerner: I could talk. I would be happy, if you wanted to talk for days, I would listen, you know …
报道通话记录，勒纳：我可以聊。非常乐意——哪怕您想谈几天几夜，我都愿意倾听…
Lussenhop: I’m Jessica Lussenhop. This is “Paper Trail.”
我是杰西卡·卢森霍普，这里是《蛛丝马迹》。
Lussenhop: As it turned out, Sharon and Kris Hansen, the former 3M scientist, did talk for days …
最终，莎伦与前3M科学家克里斯·汉森确实长谈数日…
REPORTING CALL, Hansen: Hey, Sharon.
报道通话记录，汉森：嘿，莎伦。
REPORTING CALL, Lerner: Hey, Kris. Is this still an OK time?
报道通话记录，勒纳：嗨克里斯，现在方便吗？
REPORTING CALL, Hansen: Yeah, it’s great. I just got
报道通话记录，汉森：很方便，我刚…