The class of chemicals known as PFAS has generated a lot of attention recently, as experts work to understand how they can affect human health.
Since they don’t break down, it allows them to travel long distances through the environment, and accumulate in our bodies. The EPA also recently put limits on the so-called "forever chemicals" in drinking water. Some Arizona communities have been dealing with PFAS in their water supplies, as well.
But, the chemicals are ubiquitous and found in many products lots of people have in their homes. So, how can the potential risks and beneficial uses of PFAS be balanced? With The Show to talk about this is Paloma Beamer, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Arizona, where she’s also the interim associate dean for community engagement and director of the West Environmental Justice Center funded by the EPA.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Paloma, let's define our terms here. First off, what exactly are these chemicals?
PALOMA BEAMER: Yeah, so PFAS stands for per and polyfluoroalkyl substances and they're a class of chemicals that are all manmade. They don't exist in nature. And, you know, I'm looking at one of our fact sheets here. At the time we made it, it was around 9000. I think now it's over 20,000 chemicals have been identified, and they were used historically and are currently used for industrial production of other kinds of common household items, such as nonstick pans, stain protection on our fabrics, fast food wrappers, other types of wrappers used for food like foil, upholstery, carpets, and even, our dental floss is often coated in it. Anything that you don't want stuff to stick to. And then they were also used widely in military applications, as a key component of firefighting foams.
BRODIE: So it sounds like it's safe to say that all of us have, at one point or another, come into contact with these.
BEAMER: Yes. I mean, the the Centers for Disease Control conduct surveys every couple of years where they measure, you know, contaminants of concern like this in Americans across the country, and I think since the early 2000s that have shown that 98% of the people they test have these compounds in their blood in the US.
BRODIE: Wow. So these chemicals are designed to not break down. Is that part of what makes them not great for people?
BEAMER: Well, I mean, it's one of the things that makes the exposures, increase. Right? Because then they're able to move in the environment. They're able to be transported long distances in the environments. That's why they find them even in remote places like the Arctic for the Antarctic, and it allows it to accumulate in our body. Right? So then they can, biomagnify through the food chain, but they can also accumulate in our bodies and be stored in our bodies because we're not breaking them down as quickly as other compounds. And it's that long lasting aspect that, you know, gives them many of the desirable attributes for industry, but does make it so that they're available to cause health effects through exposure, even though some of them have been phased out over 20 years, we're still being exposed to them in the environment. Or that, they can cause, you know, like we said, health outcomes in our body because they're allowed to accumulate at a different rate than some of the other compounds we might be worried about
BRODIE: What kinds of negative health outcomes might they cause?
BEAMER: So that's one of the things that's really, you know, I think when people start looking at PFAS a little bit alarming is that, you know, they've been associated with health outcomes and close to probably at least 100 epidemiological studies. And many of these things are common, like cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, many types of cancers, impaired thyroid and kidney function and they might be associated with, adverse birth outcomes in children, for example.
BRODIE: Given how common many of those things are, as you mentioned, how easy or difficult is it to identify PFAS as a potential culprit for that, as opposed to any of the other things that that might be causing them?
BEAMER: I mean, that's one of the difficulties, right, in studying these sorts of things, which is why there's so many studies that have been published on the topic.
BRODIE: Sure. You mentioned a number of the things that these chemicals are used in. Am I right that they're also used in a lot of high tech manufacturing things like computer chips, things like that?
BEAMER: I'm not as familiar with them being used in computer chips, but that would not be surprising. I mean, one of the things that makes them so difficult to measure is that, you know, Teflon, which is a compound we talk about a lot in everyday life in America is used a lot in, you know, the machines that we use to analyze for chemicals, like most of those machines have Teflon tubing, and if you’re trying to look for PFAS you need to find a machine that doesn’t have Teflon tubing. So it is all around us.
BRODIE: So what does that mean then for the future? Because you hear, increasingly, people expressing concern about as you describe some of the negative health effects of these chemicals, but also they're so ubiquitous and it seems like there might be an argument that if you get rid of them, some number of these products might either go away with them or become vastly more expensive to to manufacture and buy.
BEAMER: Right. So like we said, there are, you know, tens of thousands of these compounds. The ones that were widely used in the early 2000, PFOS and PFOA are two really common ones. Those were phased out, you know, many years ago and were replaced with ones that have shown less health effects so that there might be ones in that whole class of compounds that may not be associated with as many health effects or distribute as much in the environment, but we need to have a better understanding to identify those ones. And currently they can be used without a lot of additional testing. So when they decide to phase one out, because it's been associated with diseases or other environmental impacts, they can replace it from one of the existing compounds that's already been approved for use.
BRODIE: What does that mean for regulation? I mean, it kind of sounds like you're describing a game of chemical whac-a-mole.
BEAMER: Exactly. It is like a game of chemical whac-a-mole because the Toxic Substances Control Act in the early 70s, and it was updated in the 2010s, basically allowed all compounds that were being used by industry in the US at that time to be grandfathered in. So they don't have to prove that they're safe. Any additional compounds would have to be. So it makes it, you know, in industry's favor to go find, you know, one of the ones that they already had created that was approved back in the 70s. I mean, PFAS, one of the things that's really unique about them is that they are the among the first group of contaminants that have made it through the whole process to be regulated in drinking water that were not amongst the groups that were initially, you know, regulated when EPA was established in the 70s. So it's one of the first, you know, what we call in my field, emerging contaminants, and I'll say PFAS have been emerging since I was in college in the 90s. So, by emerging, it's not it's not a short term thing.
BRODIE: Yeah. Given how many of these chemicals there are, are some potentially more dangerous than others? Are some worse for people than others?
BEAMER: Well, there's certainly ones that we have identified being worse for people, but they're among the more widely studied. And that's why they were phased out. And then the replacement ones were just starting to accumulate enough evidence about them to understand which ones are, you know, have adverse health effects versus others.
BRODIE: I mean, is it possible that at some point there could be a chemical in this class of chemicals that isn't bad for people, that still does the stuff that, you know, scientists hope it does?
BEAMER: I mean, that would be the dream and that would be the ideal. And if we could find ways to screen them more effectively and quicker than, you know, all these animal studies or, cell culture studies or, trying understand how they affect people that would, you know, be great. And that's potentially one of the promises of some of the artificial intelligence tools that we could use would be are there ways to develop ways of screening these compounds through that kind of technology to identify those that are less harmful for the environment or for humans?
BRODIE: Alright, Paloma, thank you so much for the conversation, I appreciate it.
BEAMER: Of course. Anytime.
