来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2020年12月17日
Imagine that a small group of people coordinated the intentional manufacture and release of a lethal poison – and imagine they knew this poison had special properties that meant, once released into the world, it would be inevitable that it would make its way into the blood of virtually every person on the planet, even babies in their mother’s womb, and stay there, like a ticking time bomb.
想象一下，一小群人协调了一种致命毒药的故意制造和释放——想象一下他们知道这种毒药具有特殊的性质，这意味着一旦释放到世界上，它将不可避免地进入地球上几乎每个人的血液，甚至是还在母亲子宫里的婴儿，之后驻留在人的身体里，就像一颗滴答作响的定时炸弹。
Well, that “ticking time bomb” waiting to explode into serious, even fatal, disease is not a fictional device from some doomsday thriller; it is real, it is inside virtually all of us, right now. Tick, tick, tick.
嗯，这个“定时炸弹”等着爆炸成严重的，甚至致命的疾病，这不是什么世界末日惊悚片里虚构的装置；它是真实的，它现在就在我们每个人的身体里。滴答,滴答,滴答。
And we know exactly who is responsible. For a long time, powerful corporate interests succeeded in keeping this ongoing public health threat hidden from regulators, from scientists, and from the public. But it is now a matter of public record that these people knew the potential for harm and grave threat to human life, and continued anyway.
我们知道是谁干的。在很长一段时间里，强大的企业利益成功地将这一持续存在的公共健康威胁隐藏起来，不让监管机构、科学家和公众知道。但现在公众都知道，这些人知道潜在的伤害和对人类生命的严重威胁，但仍然继续。
This man-made poison, called PFOA, brought us the magic of Teflon, the convenience of non-stick, and an array of stain and water-resistant products that revolutionized our homes and our lives forever. Internally, top company scientists had been studying its toxicity for decades. And there had been alarm bells after alarm bells: cancer in lab animals; cancer in exposed workers; birth deformities in offspring of exposed lab animals – even, in babies of exposed workers. The unique properties of PFOA, and its close chemical cousin, PFOS make them incredibly persistent: they last for an unusually long time in our bloodstreams, where they accumulate. And they last virtually forever in our environment. That’s why they are dubbed “forever chemicals”.
这种被称为PFOA的人造毒药，给我们带来了特氟龙的魔力，不粘的便利，以及一系列防污防水产品，彻底改变了我们的家庭和我们的生活。在公司内部，顶级科学家已经对其毒性研究了几十年。警钟一个接一个地响起：实验动物身上的癌症；暴露工人患癌症；暴露于环境的实验室动物的后代会出现先天畸形——甚至暴露于环境的工作人员的婴儿也会出现先天畸形。PFOA及其近亲化学物质PFOS的独特性质使其具有难以置信的持久性：它们在我们的血液中存留异常长的时间，并在血液中积累。它们在我们的环境中几乎永远存在。这就是为什么它们被称为“永恒的化学物质”。
And the effects of this poison coursing through our veins can be devastating and wide-ranging. Scientists have confirmed links between PFOA exposure and a variety of serious diseases, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. And more recent studies are now raising concerns that some of these forever chemicals may negatively impact our endocrine system, our fertility, and our immune system – and possibly even the efficacy of vaccines. Frightening news, indeed, when we are all trying to fight off a worldwide pandemic and need our vaccines to be as effective as possible.
这种在我们血管中流动的毒药的影响可能是毁灭性的，而且范围很广。科学家已经证实PFOA暴露与各种严重疾病之间的联系，包括肾癌、睾丸癌、甲状腺疾病和妊娠高血压。最近的一些研究引起了人们的关注，这些永久性的化学物质可能会对我们的内分泌系统、生育能力和免疫系统产生负面影响，甚至可能会影响疫苗的功效。当我们都在努力抗击一场世界范围的流行病，需要我们的疫苗尽可能有效时，这确实是令人恐惧的消息。
So now, as we struggle to live through a once-in-a-century pandemic, there is, in fact, another global public health threat bearing down upon all of us, though few know of it or realize its risk. And this threat, unlike Covid-19, is of a scope and scale without precedent in human history.
因此，现在，在我们努力度过一场百年一遇的大流行之际，事实上，另一个全球公共卫生威胁正压在我们所有人身上，尽管很少有人知道或意识到它的风险。与新冠肺炎不同，这一威胁的范围和规模是人类历史上前所未有的。