Experts renew calls for urgent PFAS action as UK says evidence of health risks lacking

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URGENT action is needed to remove PFAS chemicals from the environment, experts have said, after a UK government agency found there was not yet enough evidence to directly link industrial PFAS exposure to health impacts. 

Following a review of 35 studies, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) concluded last month that the current evidence of health impacts caused by industrial exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) was "inadequate" and advised further research would be "beneficial". 

However, PFAS, the "forever chemicals" found in non-stick cookware and other consumer goods, have long been associated with with heightened risk of some cancers and pregnancy complications. Dan Middleton, a cancer epidemiologist at Queen's University Belfast, told TCE that "a lack of evidence is not evidence of no effect" and that "we shouldn't wait to find evidence to do something". 

The UKHSA's review was followed days later by publication of blood test results revealing elevated levels of PFOA, the type of PFAS most associated with health problems, in people living near a PFAS-producing plant in Thornton-Cleveleys near Blackpool, UK. While Middleton supported the UKHSA review for reaching "exactly the correct conclusion", he said: "If there are PFAS in people's blood and in the environment here, we should be dealing with that problem because of things that are found elsewhere."

Following the first major PFAS lawsuit in the US, a landmark DuPont-funded study in the 2000s found probable links between PFOA exposure and thyroid disease, testicular and kidney cancers, pregnancy-induced hypertension, high cholesterol and ulcerative colitis. 

David Megson, an environmental forensics researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University who ran the blood testing study in Thornton-Cleveleys, urged UK health authorities to support more detailed biomonitoring, telling TCE: "I'd love the UKHSA to get some more support to do the types of studies that other people have been able to do in North America and Australia ... you could test 10,000 people, get the blood concentrations, have a look at the proper health data and see if there's a link. Because as they acknowledge, there's no UK data on it."

However, the UKHSA previously rejected calls for blood screening in Thornton-Cleveleys, saying they were "unlikely to provide clear information". 

Middleton also questioned the effectiveness of clustered blood sampling. "Cancer clusters sadly rarely find anything", he said. "Usually the statistical conditions don't really allow for the cluster to present itself. And even if there is a statistically significant cluster, it can often be very hard to attribute that cluster to an underlying risk factor."

Another issue is that, while US studies have linked blood PFAS levels to the distance from its source, the lack of testing in the UK means people in Thornton-Cleveleys can't yet rule out the possibility that they "just have PFAS in their blood anyway from using everyday consumer products like we all do".

Renewed urgency

The latest calls for action come after the then-government met heavy criticism in July when it declined to commit to phasing out non-essential PFAS, such as in cookware and school uniform, from 2027, as recommended by a committee of MPs. Instead it promised to "consider best how to manage chemicals in consumer products more broadly". Megson said it was "crushing to see them identify everything that needed to be done, and then not adopt a single word of it", adding that tackling PFAS was "probably urgent 20 years ago". 

"I fear that we're maybe where the US and other countries were 10-20 years ago, and we've seen their levels come down because they've been taking it seriously. We're doing it in a very sporadic way."

While the Drinking Water Inspectorate for England and Wales now monitors PFAS levels against a safe upper limit, there is relatively little testing for PFAS in food and in the air. The only official guidance in Thornton-Cleveleys has so far been issued by the local council advising residents to peel fruit grown in their gardens and to avoid eating eggs from local birds. 

"We're almost looking for irrefutable evidence that it has caused catastrophic harm before we jump in and do anything," Megson said.