President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is gutting efforts to study and regulate Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), according to a recent ProPublica investigation. In May, the EPA announced that it will delay enforcing drinking water limits for two widespread types, PFOA and PFOS, until 2031, and cancel limits for four other types. The agency has also terminated $15 million in funding for PFAS research.
Commonly known as “Forever Chemicals” for their staying power in the environment, PFAS include as many as 12,000 chemicals. Created in the 1940s, they are today widely utilized in clothing, cookware, food packaging, lipstick, and more to make products resistant to heat, water, and grease.
Because we generally like non-stick pans, water-resistant coats, and long-lasting food, PFAS are now everywhere, even in us. Over 98% of Americans have the compounds in their blood at low levels.
Alas, in our bodies, the chemicals may be elevating cholesterol levels, decreasing immune responses to vaccines, and increasing the risk of kidney cancer, according to an influential 2022 review published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
While the precise health risks from PFAS are uncertain, they were salient enough for the first Trump administration to start the ball rolling on regulating six common PFAS compounds in drinking water. Standards were finalized under the Biden administration and in the process of being enforced until the Trump administration pulled back.
So where does that leave Americans concerned about their exposure to PFAS? The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health says you can avoid using nonstick cookware, limit use of food packaging, filter your tap water, and avoid wearing water-resistant textiles.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge recently proffered a novel solution. In a study published in Nature Microbiology last week, they identified a family of bacterial species already present in the human gut which soaks up PFAS. In a test done in mice augmented with the microbes then exposed to the chemicals, the microbes rapidly accumulated up to 74 percent of the PFAS in the gut, then were subsequently excreted.
The Cambridge toxicologists behind the study have already co-founded a startup to develop probiotics that remove ingested PFAS from the body.
Of course, even if these supplements work in humans – and without further imperiling Americans’ already unhealthy guts – that still sends PFAS into wastewater systems, which can eventually end up back in the drinking water supply… What would a game of “Whack-a-mole” look like if the cartoon rodents were replaced with potentially toxic plastic chemicals?
The obvious way to win the game would be for governments to fund research to pinpoint the riskiest PFAS and then introduce common sense limits in consumer products as well as drinking water. Too bad the Trump administration just flushed the latter.
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