Other authors of the study are Elsie Sunderland, Cindy Hu and Courtney Carignan of Harvard University and Simona Balan of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. They reported that a statement signed by 200 worldwide scientists – environmental health experts, toxicologists, epidemiologists and others – urged countries around the world to restrict the use of PFAs.
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In all, the study found that PFASs were detectable at the minimum reporting levels required by the EPA in 194 out of 4,864 water supplies in 33 states across the U.S. Drinking water from 13 states made up 75 percent of those cases.
People exposed to PFASs in their drinking water really have no way to avoid exposure, Hu said.
The researchers reported that 66 of the public water supplies that they studied – which supplied water to 6 million people – had at least one water sample that measured at or above the EPA’s safety limit of 70 parts per trillion (ng/L) for two types of PFASs: perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical commonly used in nonstick cookware.
The highest levels of PFASs were detected in watersheds near industrial sites, military bases, and wastewater treatment plants-all places where these chemicals may be used or found. “I think this study has important public health implications because drinking water affects so many people and we need to be careful about what chemicals we use and how we dispose of them in the environment“.
A new study out Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters looked at a national database that monitors chemical levels in drinking water and found that 6 million participants were being exposed to levels of a certain chemical that exceed what the EPA considers healthy.
Drinking water from 13 states accounted for 75 percent of the unsafe supply, led by California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Minnesota, Arizona, Massachusetts, and IL.
That study, published August 9 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at about 600 teens from the Faroe Islands, an island country off the coast of Denmark.
The health dangers at even lower levels are still being explored, the Harvard experts contend.
This suggests that PFASs, which are known to interfere with immune function, may be involved in reducing the effectiveness of vaccines in children, the authors conclude.
“We considered major industrial sites that participate in USA programs”, Hu said.
Blum, the founding director of the Green Science Policy Institute in Berkeley, said that a major conclusion from these studies is that the problem of fluorinated chemicals in our nation’s drinking water is enormous. “Your choices are to use a different source for drinking water, like bottled water, but there are no standards for these compounds in bottled water, either”, Olsen said. “They are emitted via industrial processes and military and firefighting operations, and they migrate out of consumer products into air, household dust, food, soil, ground and surface water, and make their way into drinking water”, they wrote.
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“You can get a filter that removes everything, but those are very expensive to buy and maintain, so you’re kind of stuck”, Olsen said. PFAs used at these sites somehow found their way into the nearby water supply. Environmental Protection Agency (R830758); the Danish Council for Strategic Research (09-063094); and the as part of the environmental support program DANCEA (Danish Cooperation for Environment in the Arctic).
