3M’s ‘Forever Chemicals’ Crisis Has Come to Europe

3M is at the center of a major political scandal in Belgium, where the company produced PFOS from 1976 to 2002, after a fight over a tunnel project in Antwerp revealed extraordinary levels of toxins in the water, soil, and people near its factory.

The contamination was exposed last year, and has resulted in a criminal probe into the company, a parliamentary commission that’s hauled ministers in for questioning, and a public outcry over the potential health risks to tens of thousands of local residents.

At the end of October, the government of the Flanders region ordered 3M to shut ...