Hello,
I was recently listening to a hearing of international chemical companies CEO at the french parlement...
Some very interesting exchange happened there where representatives will ask questions.
One representative asked about "returning some manufacturing to France" for "strategic reasons". This included molecules for medicine and some needed base products...
Later on, another representative (ecologist) talked about PFAS...
One of the CEOs answered (and I paraphrase) :
"Fluor is an element that forms VERY strong bonds and anything that has, or use Fluor is, or decays, for all intent and purpose, into a "forever chemical".
Fluor is present in over 40% of the medicine that we talked about earlier. And will be used in the manufacturing of another 20% of it.
As an ecologist, you want products that last. Fluor is one of the main components to make product last. Remove it and you get "low grade" plastics that decay faster.
We understand that PFAS are not good, but having them has a measurably huge effect through products that could not be done without them and through the quality improvements that they allow on other.
I guess our job is to make products that allow manufacturing of other products, your job as citizen representative is to find the balance between different conflicting needs and wants. In this meeting we are trying to give you the information that will help you understand what is at stake.
".
Interestingly enough, this answer was kind of candid in the delivery (the guy was an old school CEO who went up the rank), and really hit the nail on the head highlighting the difficulties of making such decision and I hope that, in Mexio as in France politician will take the time to think hard and long before deciding where to place the cursor.
Cyrille