New Studies Trace PFC Pollution

The study compared detection of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in public drinking water with PFAA serum concentrations for 1566 California women

A series of new, peer-reviewed studies connect the dots from the pollution sources, to drinking water supplies, to women’s blood, and bolster earlier findings that these chemicals can harm the immune systems of fetuses exposed in their mothers’ wombs. Perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, are used in Teflon, Scotchgard and hundreds of other products.

A study published today in Environmental Science & Technology Letters points to military bases, airports, industrial sites and wastewater treatment plants as the major sources of PFCs in drinking water.

PFC pollution from industrial facilities has long been known, but the new study found that drinking water contamination, detected by nationwide tests mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency, correlates strongly to military and civilian airports' use of firefighting foams.

“During fire-fighting practice drills, large volumes of these toxic chemicals wash into surface and ground waters and can end up in our drinking water,” said Arlene Blum, co-author of the study and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute. “Such toxic and persistent chemicals should only be used when essential, and never for training. There are non-fluorinated fire-fighting foams that should be considered for use instead.”

EWG collaborated on the study with researchers at Harvard University, the Green Science Policy Institute, Silent Spring Institute, University of California at Berkeley, University of Rhode Island and Colorado School of Mines, as well as the EPA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.

PFCs can be passed via the umbilical cord from mother to unborn fetus, as well as from mother to baby through breast milk. Another study, published today in Environmental Health Perspectives, connects early life exposure to PFCs with reduced immune system responses that persist into adolescence.

The author, Phillipe Grandjean of the Harvard School of Public Health, said the EPA's non-enforceable health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water is much too high to protect against immune system harm. This paper comes just a month after the National Toxicology Program published a draft review of the science indicating that PFOA is presumed to harm the immune system.

Read study at: Pubs

Source: ewg

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Taxonomy

• Environmental Health
• Water Pollution
• Public Health