Drinking water ‘forever chemical’ level set too high, say scientists

Scientists are concerned that the allowable levels of toxic “permanent chemicals” PFAS in UK drinking water are too high.

A BBC study found that PFAS levels exceeded European safety levels in almost half of the samples taken. However, none exceeded the current UK security level.

Chemicals are found in many products such as non-stick pans, food packaging, carpet, furniture, fire fighting foam.

They have been linked to a variety of diseases, including cancer.

Guidelines from the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate state that drinking water should contain PFAS chemicals at no more than 100 nanograms per liter (ng/l). Above that, steps must be taken to reduce levels.

In collaboration with the University of Greenwich, the BBC took 45 samples of tap water. Laboratory analyzes found that none exceeded the 100 ng/l level.

But 25 samples contained PFAS and four had levels exceeding 10 ng/l, which under current guidelines means local health professionals should be consulted and levels monitored.

And nearly half of the samples exceeded the European Food Standards Agency’s tolerable limit of 2.2 ng/l.

Professor Roger Klein, a chemist and PFAS expert, said: “The significance of their results, small as they are, is that it underlines that this material is everywhere and that it is in drinking water.”

“It is ridiculous that the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate has a level of 100 ng/l before action is taken.”

Rita Lock-Caruso, a professor of toxicology at the University of Michigan, also said the results raised a possible health concern: “We’re finding health effects at lower and lower concentrations, in the single digits.”

Research has found that the most common PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, have likely links to high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer, and pregnancy-induced hypertension.

There is particular concern about the effect on children. Professor Philippe Grandjean, from Harvard University, said: “A woman can accumulate this in her body and when she becomes pregnant, she shares it with her fetus. She sheds some of her body burden in the milk. So the next generation gets a huge dose, and the baby can end up with up to 10 times more PFAS in its blood than its mother.

The US is considering lowering its regulatory level from 70 ng/l.

“We are beginning to think that there is no safe level and we want to make it as low as possible, because water is not the only source of exposure,” said former director of the National Institute of Environmental Sciences, Linda Birnbaum. .

However, there is little public data on its presence or impacts in the UK.

Some residents of Jersey’s Channel Island believe they are suffering adverse health effects from drinking water contaminated with PFAS.

In the 1990s, the Jersey government discovered that PFAS had contaminated the St Ouen’s Bay aquifer, which locals used for drinking water.

After years of local lobbying, the Jersey government recently agreed to offer free blood tests for people with health problems in the area.

“I have an autoimmune disease, my father has kidney disease and my mother has thyroid disease,” says Sarah Simon, a lifelong resident of Jersey turned citizen scientist.

“When I started talking to our neighbors, I found out that a lot of the men had kidney stones and the women had thyroid disease. This can’t be a coincidence.”

PFOS and PFOA have been restricted and neither is now manufactured in the UK. However, there are still a large number of other PFAS that are still in use and are not regulated.

The BBC studies 18 different types of PFAS chemicals in tap water samples.

In a statement, the Department for Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs said: “We have robust systems in place to identify the impact of a range of chemicals on the environment and human health and are working closely with regulators to better assess the presence of PFAS in our natural environment and its sources”.