PAT ELDER and Military Poisons
Pat Elder is an investigative journalist tracking how the military contaminates people and the planet. He is the Director of Military Poisons, an organization that focuses on the U.S. military’s reckless use of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in a host of products and applications on bases in the U.S. and around the world. Pat has written 400 articles on PFAS. Many may be found at www.militarypoisons.org
Pat’s focus is on documenting the harm caused by the U.S. military’s use of PFAS in fire-fighting drills. Besides this website, Pat’s articles appear on: www.worldbeyondwar.org, https://covertactionmagazine.com/author/patelder/, and
https://pfasproject.com/.
Since 2019, Pat has been focused on the understudied role of PFAS exposure from food, especially fish, the primary pathway to human exposure to PFAS. He believes there is too much emphasis on PFAS levels in drinking water and not enough attention being paid to the contamination of surface waters.
Elder and his associates have tested surface waters flowing from 50 U.S. military bases worldwide and have reported dangerous levels of toxins in the rivers. Pat has tested seawater, crabs, oysters, and fish and found unregulated levels of the cancer-causing compounds that are thousands of times greater than the levels allowed in drinking water. Many PFAS compounds bio-accumulate in aquatic life, poisoning the food chain.
Pat addresses the propensity of PFAS compounds to coat the banks of streams and rivers. He says the toxins are dried by the sun and lifted by the wind to settle in our lungs and homes as dust. Pat argues that the DOD dictates environmental policy in the United States in these matters to avert staggering financial liability for its environmental crimes.
Elder lives with his wife, Nell, in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, about two hours south of Washington, DC. Elder says he was deeply moved by the reporting of Tara Copp of Military Times, especially her June 19, 2018 report, Why women were told don’t get pregnant at George Air Force Base. Several hundred women who linked up through Facebook and served at George in the early 80’s, described miscarriages, hysterectomies, and reproductive health-related illnesses throughout their lives. Many had their medical histories redacted by the Air Force. PFAS is believed to be a culprit. Even today, George’s groundwater is contaminated with 5,396 ppt of PFOS/PFOA.
This was a turning point for Pat, who has focused on the issue ever since. “I realized the mainstream media was not identifying the military as the culprit. We must hold the military accountable."