should you be concerned about pfas chemicals ......should you be concerned about pfas chemicals? -...

9/5/19, 10(28 AMShould You Be Concerned About PFAS Chemicals? - Consumer Reports

of 20https://www.consumerreports.org/toxic-chemicals-substances/pfas-chemicals-should-you-be-concerned/

These 'forever chemicals' are in our water supply—and in the body ofnearly every American

By Kevin Loria

April 08, 2019

A group of substances known as PFASchemicals are behind a variety ofeveryday conveniences that make ourlives a little bit easier.

They line pizza boxes and fast-foodpackaging so grease doesn’t seepthrough, form the nonstick coating onmany pans, make fabrics and carpetsstain-resistant, and help outdoor gearand clothing repel water.

Should You Be Concerned AboutPFAS Chemicals?

https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/harmful-chemicals-in-fast-food-packaging/



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If you live near industrial facilitieswhere these products are produced ornear places where PFAS-loaded fire-fighting foams are used, like airfieldsor military bases, these chemicals mayalso be in your water supply. And theycan travel far from the original site ofcontamination. Once PFAS chemicalsmake their way into water, they canalso be found in plants and animals,including humans.

PFASchemicalshave been inwide usesince at leastthe 1950s,and federalstudies ofthe U.S.populationhave foundthem innearly allpeopletested. At

high enough levels, some of these

https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/harmful-chemicals-in-fast-food-packaging/

https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/arsenic-and-lead-are-in-your-fruit-juice-what-you-need-to-know/

https://www.consumerreports.org/dietary-supplements/heavy-metals-in-protein-supplements/

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https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/heavy-metals-in-baby-food/

https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/PFAS_FactSheet.html



chemicals can have serious healtheffects, according to the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention (CDC),including decreased fertility, hormonalchanges, increased cholesterol,weakened immune system response,increased cancer risk, and growth andlearning delays in infants and children.

“PFAS are materials of which theaverage person should be aware,” saysJames Dickerson, Ph.D., CR’s chiefscientific officer. “CR has investigatedthe issue of chemical exposure for 80plus years. PFAS and similarcompounds have emerged assignificant potential risks that shouldbe mitigated.”

Recently, federal and state regulatorshave raised concerns about how manypeople are exposed to these chemicalsand whether or not current levels ofexposure are safe.

In February the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) announcedan Action Plan to better understandand address PFAS contamination. Soon

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects.html

https://www.epa.gov/pfas/epas-pfas-action-plan



after, CDC officials announced plans toexpand a program studying the PFASlevels in people near military bases,who may have absorbed high levels ofthese chemicals in drinking water. InMarch a bipartisan group inCongress introducedlegislation declaring PFAS chemicals ashazardous substances eligible forcleanup funds under the Superfundlaw. Later that month, anotherbipartisan group of senators andcongresspeople introduced a bill thatwould provide the U.S. GeologicalSurvey with funding to develop newways to detect PFAS and to conducttesting. And states around the country,including Michigan, New Jersey, andWashington, have all begun to takemeasures to limit or clean up PFAScontamination.

But there are still a lot of unknowns,including whether the PFAS chemicalsmost in use today are more or lessharmful than those used in the past.Consumer Reports spoke with anumber of experts to understand what

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0221-cdc-atsdr-pfas-exposure.html

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/PFAS-Exposure-Assessments.html

https://www.capito.senate.gov/news/press-releases/capito-bipartisan-group-of-senators-introduce-pfas-action-plan-legislation

https://www.stabenow.senate.gov/news/bipartisan-michigan-delegation-members-introduce-pfas-detection-act



exactly these chemicals are, wheremost of us are exposed to them, whythey may be risky, and what you cando to limit your exposure.

What Are PFASChemicals?There are more than 4,700 differentPFAS chemicals, or per- andpolyfluoroalkyl substances.

While there is a very specific chemicaldefinition of PFAS, what’s important to

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3214619/

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know is that these substances haveunique properties that make themheat-resistant, able to repel water, andclose to indestructible. They havethese properties because of theextremely strong and stable chemicalbond formed between carbon andfluorine atoms, which is what makesthem useful for a wide variety ofindustrial and commercial products.

“Within this really big family ofchemicals, we have quite a bit ofinformation about just a handful, twoin particular—PFOS and PFOA,” saysLaurel Schaider, Ph.D., a researchscientist at the Silent Spring Institute, anonprofit that conducts research onthe health effects of environmentalchemicals.

Those two chemicals, which were usedfor a wide variety of purposes rangingfrom fire-fighting foam to creatingconsumer goods like nonstick pansand stain resistant textiles, are nolonger produced in the U.S., in partbecause we’ve learned quite a bitabout the negative health effects of



exposure to them. But Americans arestill absorbing these chemicals todaybecause they continue to be producedin other countries and because PFOSand PFOA produced decades ago lingerin our soil and water.

While we don’t know as much aboutother PFAS chemicals, they all havethis feature in common: The chemicalbonds that hold them together “don’tbreak down” under normalcircumstances, says Jamie DeWitt,Ph.D., an adjunct associate professorof biological sciences at North CarolinaState University. Because of that, shesays, some people call thesesubstances “forever chemicals.”

That’s why it’s especially important tobe cautious about using them, saysArlene Blum, Ph.D., the founder andexecutive director of the Green SciencePolicy Institute and a researchassociate in chemistry at the Universityof California, Berkeley.

In addition to lining packaging andcoating furniture and clothing, PFAS



chemicals are used in electronics,wires, and cables used to send data,and in the production of computerchips, among other things. TheFluoroCouncil, an industry group thatrepresents companies that produceand use PFAS chemicals, describesthem as “integral to modern life.”

But while the chemicals may benecessary for some of thesetechnological uses, experts andadvocates are concerned that we don’tknow whether or not present levels ofhuman exposure are safe, especiallyfor people in communities withdrinking water or food sources thatcontain high levels of PFAS.

Is Exposure to PFASChemicalsDangerous?There’s clear evidence that beingexposed to high enough levels of PFOSand PFOA is linked to an elevated riskfor a number of diseases, and experts



say it’s possible that other PFASchemicals could have similar healtheffects. But more research is needed—and it is unclear exactly what thethreshold is for exposure that causesharm.

Because continuous exposure to highlevels is what increases risk the most,however, people exposed throughtheir drinking water are a particularsource of concern, experts say. (Seebelow for information about waterfilters and other means of limitingexposure.)

These substances can build up in thehuman body over time. It takes threeto five years for concentrations ofolder PFAS chemicals like PFOS andPFOA to drop by half in the humanbody, according to the CDC. Newerreplacement chemicals leave thehuman body much more quickly—sometimes in days or even hours—butlike older chemicals, they don’t breakdown in the environment and cantravel great distances.

https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/PFAS_BiomonitoringSummary.html



The EPA doesn't regulate the presenceof PFAS chemicals in public watersystems, but that’s something that maychange, according to the Action Planannounced earlier this year. Thoughthe agency doesn’t take any regulatoryaction, it has publicly flagged watertests that show levels of certain PFASchemicals exceeding 70 parts pertrillion. But many experts think thatlevel is far too high—somethingsupported by the publicly releaseddraft of a new CDC toxicology analysisof PFAS. For example, New Jersey, oneof the states leading the way towardprotecting residents, has set far lowermaximum contaminant levels of 13 or14 parts per trillion for various PFASchemicals.

Much of the research that revealed theharm of elevated levels of PFOS andPFOA comes from an environmentalstudy of more than 69,000 people thatwas created in 2005 as part of asettlement agreement. That wassparked by a series of lawsuits in 2001and 2002 that accused the DuPont

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp.asp?id=1117&tid=237

http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/



chemical company of contaminatingdrinking water in the Ohio RiverValley.

That research found that people who’dbeen exposed to higher than normallevels of PFOA had an elevated risk ofhigh cholesterol, ulcerative colitis,thyroid disease, testicular cancer,kidney cancer, and pregnancy-inducedhypertension. Other studies in peopleand animals have shown that highenough doses of PFAS chemicals likePFOA can affect the immune systemand have toxic effects on the liver andother organs.

Are Newer PFASChemicals Safer?In 2006 the EPA asked eight leadingcompanies in the PFAS industry toreduce their use of PFOA by 95 percentby 2010, which helped spur thedevelopment of some newer PFASchemicals.

But the health effects of the PFAS

https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/fact-sheet-20102015-pfoa-stewardship-program



chemicals used instead of PFOS andPFOA are less known. As these newerchemicals accumulate in the drinkingwater in some areas of the U.S.,scientists and state officials are tryingto determine how they affect humans.At least some of them can beeliminated from the body more quicklythan PFOS and PFOA and may be lesstoxic, according to DeWitt—but theystill might cause problems, shecautions.

“Can we accept something that’s lesstoxic?” she asks, or “do we wantsomething that’s safe?”

A FluoroCouncil representative toldCR that the chemical alternatives thatcompanies have developed to replacePFOS and PFOA are indeed well-studied and safe.

The group says that these substanceshave been adequately reviewed byregulatory agencies and thatconsumers should not be concerned.New chemicals introduced after the2016 Toxic Substances Control Act

https://deq.nc.gov/news/hot-topics/genx-investigation

https://fluorocouncil.com/health-environment/scientific-studies/



have been reviewed by the EPA basedon reports submitted bymanufacturers. The agency hasreviewed hundreds of new PFASsubstances since the PFOA phaseoutbegan, but the experts we consultedcall for tighter regulation from the EPAon these chemicals because they saythe current review process doesn'tguarantee safety.

“New FluoroTechnology products arebased on different chemistry, and thisnew chemistry has a favorable healthand safety profile,” Rob Simon, aspokesman for the FluoroCouncil, saidin a statement. “It is critical toconsider actual exposure to a chemicalwhen assessing its safety. Any chemical—even water and oxygen—can be toxicif too much is ingested or absorbedinto the body … Unfortunately, thecurrent public discussion about PFAS,and about chemicals in general, hasdefaulted to a conversation about themere presence of a chemical—even atextremely low, barely detectable levels—rather than the safety of these

https://www.epa.gov/reviewing-new-chemicals-under-toxic-substances-control-act-tsca/basic-information-review-new



chemicals.”

Some experts, however, say there’ssimply not enough data to assert thatpeople exposed to these chemicals—atexisting levels—are not at any risk ofharm. “Because they have similarchemical properties [to PFOS andPFOA], there’s concern that [the newerPFAS chemicals] may raise similarhealth concerns,” Schaider says.

They also may be even more difficultto remove from drinking water, shesays. Filters that efficiently removePFOA and PFOS from water (seebelow) don’t work as well for newchemicals.

Plus, even if the new alternatives aresafer than PFOA and PFOS, thatdoesn't mean that chronic exposure tothem is safe, Dickerson says. It takestime for agencies like the EPA and theFood and Drug Administration toevaluate chemicals thoroughly. Andsome chemicals in use for decades areonly later found to be dangerous, hesays—after we have enough long-term



data to assess them properly.

With thousands of different PFASchemicals—hundreds of them in use—regulating or evaluating all of themindividually is basically impossible,says Schaider, who adds that manyscientists think we should regulatethem as a broad class instead.

How Can ConsumersLimit Exposure?You can't avoid all exposure to PFAS,and in many cases, you may notnecessarily need to, Dickerson says.But he says it's worth being aware ofyour exposure, especially for peoplewho live in places with particularlyhigh levels of PFAS chemicals, such asin the communities near military basesthat the CDC is now studying.

We still don’t know all potentialsources of exposure, says Schaider,and it can be particularly hard to knowhow much your food sources havebeen contaminated by these

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1509934

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/PFAS-Exposure-Assessments.html



chemicals. But there are certain formsof common exposure that experts sayyou can avoid.

Check your drinking water. “Themost dangerous way that people areexposed to PFAS is through drinkingwater,” says Don Huber, director ofproduct safety at Consumer Reports.

Between 2013 and 2015, the EPArequired that water systems test for sixPFAS chemicals. If you have a publicwater system, you can check yourannual water quality report from thoseyears and see whether your levels ofcertain PFAS chemicals exceeded theEPA's advisory level. You can alsocheck data from the EPA testing resultsor look at this map created byresearchers from the EnvironmentalWorking Group and NortheasternUniversity based on that data. The EPAdoesn't currently require routinemonitoring for PFAS, but some statesdo. Contact your local water utility tosee whether there's ongoing testing forPFAS chemicals, which can also becalled PFCs.

https://www.epa.gov/dwucmr/occurrence-data-unregulated-contaminant-monitoring-rule#3

https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/2017_pfa/



If your home is not on a public watersystem, you can have your watertested. To find a certified lab, contactyour local health department or theEPA.

Consumers who learn that their waterhas high levels of PFAS chemicals in itshould consider installing reverse-osmosis filters, says Huber, which arethe most effective at filtering them out.Carbon filters that can be connected tofaucets or installed where water entersyour home are also effective, especiallyfor PFOA and PFOS, says Schaider,though they may not work as well forsome of the newer alternativechemicals. At times states have advisedresidents to drink bottled water untiltreatment is available.

Minimize use of stain-resistantfabric. It may be worth choosingcarpet and furniture brands that don'tuse stain-resistant or water-resistantcoating on fabric, according toSchaider.

Beware of certain food packaging.

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/safe-drinking-water-information

https://www.michigan.gov/pfasresponse/0,9038,7-365-86510_87156-469641--,00.html

https://www4.des.state.nh.us/nh-pfas-investigation/?page_id=171



Fast-food packaging and microwavepopcorn bags often contain PFASchemicals, according to DeWitt. “Froma precautionary point of view, I think itmakes sense to minimize our use [ofthese products],” says Schaider.

Think big picture. Consider how youcan reduce your overall exposure inways that will have the most significantimpact, Dickerson suggests.

Certain products are easy to replace,DeWitt says, such as a type of dentalfloss that was recently discovered to bea source of PFAS. But she says that forher, the water-resistance in outdoorgear, for example, is worth somepotential exposure.

Dickerson says that products likenonstick pans shouldn't shed PFASchemicals when they're used accordingto manufacturer specifications, butdon't overheat them, scrape themexcessively, or put them in adishwasher if they're not meant to becleaned that way. (CR’s cookwareratings indicate when nonstick

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-018-0109-y

https://www.consumerreports.org/products/nonstick-cookware-sets/ratings-overview/



cookware is PFOA-free, but thesenonstick items—unlike stainless steel orcast iron cookware—probably containother PFAS chemicals.)

While it may not be possible to removePFAS from all consumer products,some companies have taken steps inthat direction. Ikea started to phaseout stain-resistant PFAS chemicals in2009 and says that all of its textileswere PFAS-free by 2016. H&M says thatsince 2013 it has had a ban on PFASwithin apparel, shoe, and householdgoods departments. And Schaider saysthat in many cases, alternatives areavailable—such as PFAS-free foodwrappers—and consumers can pushcompanies to use them.

There are still plenty of unknowns, shesays, including how much we absorbPFAS from food sources. Making someof those unknowns public would be akey step.

“I’d like for people to know what typesof products contain PFASs and thatthere are alternatives that are out

should you be concerned about pfas chemicals ......should you be concerned about pfas chemicals? -...

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