In response, the Trump administration, which was otherwise bent on cutting regulation, unveiled a detailed plan to “aggressively address” PFAS contamination. Congress began weighing bipartisan PFAS legislation. Mr. Hickey was called to testify before lawmakers, along with a Virginia man who had been born with serious facial deformities, a youth ministry director from North Carolina, an Army veteran from Colorado and a rural Michigan woman who reportedly has the highest PFAS ever detected in a human.

Many PFAS activists focused their efforts largely on institutions that, historically at least, tended to be less polarized and more responsive: the courts and state governments. Firefighters can be exposed to high levels of PFAS on the job and have unusually high rates of certain cancers that have been linked to PFAS. In some states, firefighting unions have dispatched their members to lobby for bans on PFAS-based firefighting foam, partly by sharing stories about their own battles with cancer or losing co-workers to the disease. As a result, at least 15 states have banned the use of these substances, which until recently were a staple at firehouses, airports and military bases.

In Maine, farmers led the charge. After an investigation revealed that sections of rural land were polluted with PFAS from sewage sludge, growers came together to lobby for a ban on using sludge as fertilizer. Adam Nordell, who was forced to shut down his vegetable farm because of contamination, later took a job at the nonprofit group Defend Our Health, where he has rallied Maine farmers behind legislation, including a near-total ban on PFAS in consumer goods.

Even before the PFAS bans take full effect, manufacturers are being forced to provide regulators with detailed information about how they’re using these chemicals. For a growing number of companies, this information is such a liability that they are giving up these substances. At least 40 major retail chains with $1.7 trillion in combined annual revenue have committed to eliminating or reducing forever chemicals in their packaging and products. Among them are Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, Target, McDonald’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Home Depot.

Some chemical manufacturers are abandoning PFAS, too; 3M, which owes more than $10 billion for PFAS settlements so far, has announced it will quit producing the chemicals by the end of 2025, citing mounting regulation and pressure from investors. Other chemical makers are getting similar pushback.