Will “forever chemicals” make you sick one day?

PFAS can harm our health. Here’s what we can control about them — and what we cannot.

By Ananya Dash

Adam Nordell grew and sold wheat, rye, oats, corn, and other vegetables for years in his farm at Unity, Maine. But in 2020, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection tested his farm’s soil and water for potential contamination with PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, as he told the publication Civil Eats. They found extremely high levels of PFAS in his farm, making it unfit for him to continue growing produce.

PFAS, popularly called forever chemicals, lurk in almost everything we use in our day-to-day lives, including non-stick pots and pans, takeout boxes, and waterproof jackets. They contaminate the environment — water, air, and soil — and persist indefinitely, as in the case of Nordell’s farm. Eventually, PFAS, via consumer products and drinking water and food, make their way into our bodies.

“We don’t often find chemicals that never exist in the environment, created by humans, and then being present in the blood of almost everyone on the planet”, says Kyle Steenland, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

PFAS have become a public health concern. High levels of exposure to PFAS are linked to a range of health issues including cancers and high cholesterol. Countless guides on “How to avoid PFAS-containing products” exist on the internet today. But the advice on replacing PFAS-containing products with alternatives is not enough to reduce our exposure levels. Policy change is necessary to protect people from the lasting effects of PFAS in the environment. Imposing limits on PFAS levels in drinking water and phasing out non-essential PFAS products are ways to prevent exposure in the long run.

The Incomplete Fall of the PFAS Industry

PFAS are strings of carbon-fluorine molecules holding each other tightly with nearly indestructible bonds. Most of our understanding about PFAS come from studies of two common PFAS: PFOA (polyfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (polyfluorooctane sulfonic acid), which caught attention of the public eye due to a massive lawsuit. 

In the early 2000s, several livestock started to die mysteriously on a farm in West Virginia. It turned out that an industrial plant, named DuPont, released PFOA into the lake next to the farm, which was the source of drinking water for the animals. An environmental lawyer sued DuPont on behalf of the farmer, who noticed the deaths of his farm animals.

As a response to this lawsuit, an independent panel of epidemiologists — called thePFOA Science Panel — was mandated by the lawsuit to investigate the health effects of PFOA contamination in the population of West Virginia. The panel concluded that six diseases — including two types of cancer, thyroid disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and complications related to cholesterol and high blood pressure during pregnancy — wererelated to PFOA contamination.

“The two cancers and increased levels of cholesterol have been found in many epidemiological studies, making these the fairly consistent health effects of PFOA”, says Steenland, who also served on the PFOA Science Panel.

DuPont and Chemours, the spinoff company, paid $670 million to the farmer and other residents of West Virginia over damages from exposure to PFOA. But this lawsuit did not end the menace of PFAS.

New PFAS, Old Problems

Both PFOA and PFOS were phased out of consumer products in the U.S. due to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions in 2002 and 2015. But owing to their long chains, these two chemicals are extremely persistent. They are held tightly to each other and don’t break down in the body or the environment.

When companies could not use PFOA and PFOS, they came up with short chain PFAS with the promise that these new chemicals would be a safer alternative. “There’s this idea that shorter PFAS molecules would be less persistent in the environment and accumulate less in people,” says Amina Salanova, PhD, an environmental chemist at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, who studies human exposure to PFAS among other environmental pollutants.

Her group developed methods to measure the smallest PFAS molecules in drinking water and indoor dust, and in human blood and urine, to challenge the idea that smaller PFAS are safer. “To our surprise, we found these ultra-short chain PFAS in pretty much every sample and at the highest level” in the residents and their homes, she says.

Studies from Salanova’s group and others show that the short-chain compounds are persistent in the environment and can eventually have similar health effects as the older ones.

What can you do to reduce exposure?

Salanova emphasizes that PFAS builds up in our blood and unfortunately can accumulate over time to affect our health. Though only policy change and pressure from individuals can affect the continued presence of PFAS, there are things we can still do in our everyday lives.

A variety of consumer goods bring PFAS into our lives. Salanova says that dust is a major source of PFAS. Vacuuming our houses more often and opening the windows can reduce how much PFAS we come in contact with every day at our home. Then, she suggests taking a closer look at the chemicals listed in our cookware, cosmetics, and cleaning products and slowly replacing with PFAS-free options.

Using specific filters to remove PFAS can be effective if your area has a high level of PFAS contamination in drinking water, as drinking water is a major exposure source. But it’s important to remember that even if a person were to remove all sources of PFAS completely from their life, it doesn’t directly eliminate PFAS from their body.

You do not need to get your PFAS levels checked until you live next to a contaminated site or have persistent exposure from workplace such as firefighters do from their clothing. But if you have doubts, having a conversation with your doctor can go a long way in assessing your exposure levels and potential risks.