According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), doctors need more up-to-date guidelines from the federal government to help them recognize and treat the effects of “forever chemicals” on their patients.
“In early 2024, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry published guidance for clinicians on managing human exposure” to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), said EWG – a nonprofit organization focused on environmental health issues – in its 2025 PFAS Roadmap released last week. “The guidance did not fully address recommendations from a 2022 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). The agency should promptly update the guidance consistent with the report’s recommendations.”
On a larger scale, the next administration must “do more to reduce industrial releases of PFAS to address this contamination crisis” and must accelerate efforts to set PFAS limits under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, said Melanie Benesh, EWG vice president for government affairs, during a press webinar last week. “We must use these laws to address the PFAS problem where it starts, with the polluters.”
“We also need to do much more to hold these polluters accountable for the harm they have caused. This includes increased action on those who break the law and increased access to justice for the harm they have caused to people in the communities most affected by the PFAS contamination crisis,” she said.
Exposure to PFAS typically occurs through contaminated food or water. Due to their chemical composition, they reduce friction and repel oil and water, so they are often used in non-stick cookware, waterproof fabrics, stain-resistant coatings and personal care products.
Studies have linked exposure to these chemicals to a range of health problems, including increased cholesterol, reduced birth weight, lower antibody responses to vaccines, kidney and testicular cancer, pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, preeclampsia and changes in liver enzymes. Other research has also suggested a link between PFAS and thyroid disease, breast cancer and ulcerative colitis.
In January, the CDC issued guidelines based on the NASEM report, suggesting that doctors consider testing patients’ blood for PFAS to determine exposure across the population. In February, the FDA announced that fast-food wrappers and other grease-repellent materials containing PFAS would no longer be sold in the U.S. for use in food packaging. And in April, the Biden administration adopted strict limits on PFAS levels in drinking water.
“The most important action we can take to combat PFAS is setting a drinking water standard for six (types of) PFAS, which will provide safer drinking water for 100 million people,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at EWG. “But the next administration should take an equally important step by setting limits on PFAS in the food we eat.”
“The Biden administration has kept many promises, but much more needs to be done,” said John Reeder, EWG vice president for federal affairs.
Other recommendations in the report included:
- Doubling Environmental Protection Agency funding for PFAS
- Protect drinking water from additional PFAS
- List PFAS as hazardous air pollutants
- Make sure new PFAS are safe before they come to market
- Stop the use of PFAS in oil and gas production
- Call on industry to disclose how much PFAS is produced, imported and used and the potential risks associated with it.
- Ban on the incineration of PFAS firefighting foam and other PFAS waste until their safety has been proven
- Full funding of the FDA Office of Food Chemical Safety
- Permanently end the use of PFAS in food packaging
Faber blamed the industry that uses PFAS for not wanting to respond to the problem. “These companies that make and use PFAS have understood since the 1950s that PFAS are toxic,” he said. “In the 1950s, they did their own animal testing. In the 1960s, they saw their own workers become contaminated and in the 1970s, they became sick, and even though they knew about those risks, they failed to tell their regulators, their neighbors, their workers or anyone else, and that’s one of the reasons we’re having this conversation today.”
“The same companies are now fighting the drinking water standard through their industry associations,” he added. “They are fighting back against efforts to classify PFAS as hazardous substances under our federal contaminant cleanup laws… It’s disgusting, that’s the only word you can use to describe it.”
One piece of good news is that some states have begun to take action against PFAS, Benesh said. “After one state takes action, you see the industry begin to adapt. After states began banning PFAS and packaging, the industry agreed to a voluntary withdrawal of certain PFAS from food packaging.”
“There has also been pressure from the retail level, where consumers have told retailers like Lowe’s and Home Depot that they don’t want PFAS in their carpets,” she said. “Some of those retailers have implemented policies that have helped drive the market, but I don’t think many industries that use PFAS are taking independent action to stop using them.”
