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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are among thousands of man-made chemicals that can be found in food, water, clothing, and furniture. They are associated with multiple cancers, thyroid disease, liver damage, reduced fertility, asthma, allergies, and poor vaccine responses in children.
That’s why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced strict new limits on the levels of six PFAS in drinking water. This is the first time that authorities have passed regulations that limit the daily exposure to PFAS that many people in the United States receive by simply staying hydrated. The EPA is giving water authorities five years to test their systems, remove PFAS from the water and comply with the new limits.
“This is the most significant and difficult decision to protect drinking water in 30 years,” Ken Cook, president of the watchdog group Environmental Working Group, told reporters about the EPA’s new decision.
Scientists suspect that PFAS are present in the bloodstream of all Americans and are stuck there. Thus, these substances received the nickname “eternal chemicals”. It won’t break.
Carmen Messerlian, a professor of reproductive and environmental epidemiology at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health who studies PFAS, told Business Insider in March 2023, “Once they get into the body, they linger for a very long time.” Told.
How long they linger can be easily calculated using a chemical law called “half-life.”
In humans, half-life is the time it takes for the body to eliminate half of a substance from the blood, either by being excreted in the urine or absorbed by other tissues.
The half-life of a substance varies greatly from person to person, but studies have calculated average values. This study will show how much longer PFAS can remain in the blood compared to everyday substances such as toxic heavy metals and caffeine.
This means that even if you completely eliminate PFAS from your life (a feat that scientists say is virtually impossible), after four, seven, or even 10 years, your body will This means that only half of the chemicals are emitted.
That’s not to say that removing PFAS from the body is a lost cause.
After a lot of bad press about two of the most notorious PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), U.S. manufacturers phased out their production in the 2000s.
You can see the result in American blood. According to , from 1999-2000 to 2017-2018, blood levels of PFOA decreased by 70%, and concentrations of PFOS decreased by an additional 85%. data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This shows that if something is done and we stop using chemicals, we stop releasing them into the environment and their concentrations go down. [in our bodies] It should go down,” David Andrews, a senior scientist who studies PFAS for the watchdog group Environmental Working Group, told BI in February 2023.
Thousands of other PFAS are widely manufactured and used in products across the United States and around the globe.
From dental floss and menstrual products to food packaging and furniture, PFAS are present in the environment and throughout our bodies, from the day the chemicals are first manufactured, throughout the product’s use, and even after it is disposed of. It spreads.
Regulating six of these chemicals in America’s drinking water is just the beginning of the solution.
“We’re really just covering the tip of the iceberg,” Messerlian said.
“We need to stop these chemicals from entering food production lines, product production lines, and stopping their circulation in the environment,” she added.
Catherine Boudreau contributed to this story.