What are some of the toxic effects of being exposed to PFAS?
John Oliver discusses PFAS — a class of chemicals linked to an array of health issues — and why their widespread use isn’t as magical as it may seem.
“Wow… that is incredible. Usually when your child is the highest in something, your instinct is to brag about it, but GOOD LUCK finding a bumper sticker with ‘my child has the HIGHEST levels of PFAS in the United States’ on it. NOBODY WANTS THAT!”
JOHN OLIVER
- Alteration in thyroid hormones which have a very important function in brain function.
- The associations between PFASs exposure and thyroid hormones levels imbalance in adults, although the associations between PFASs exposure and thyroid parameters have shown mixed results that seem to be compound, age and sex-dependent
- Populations with higher exposures to PFAS tend to have a greater incidence of high cholesterol, thyroid disruption, cancer, early menopause and other health effects.
- Studies in adults have said PFASs disrupt thyroid function; therefore, it is of utmost importance to study their potential endocrine effects in children because they are in development and rely on a healthy thyroid system.
Summary of Overall Effects:
Clinical Case Examples:
CASE STUDY #1
“In 2016, my husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer and died three weeks later.”
Sandy Wynn-Stelt
Sandy Wynn-Stelt and her husband thought they were buying their dream home when they moved to a Christmas-tree farm in Rockford, Michigan, in 1992. They were unaware that the land where they wanted to build their dream home was contaminated with chemicals used by a nearby footwear factory to waterproof shoes, i.e PFAS. There has been several studies linking exposure to PFAS to cancer, however research is still emerging on this specific impact. Wynn-Stelt’s husband was diagnosed with cancer 24 years after they moved into their dream home. And Stelt herself underwent cancer surgery to remove her thyroid and surrounding lymph nodes.
No causal links between PFAS and cancer have been proven, so it is hard to definitely say what role PFAS played in this family’s cancer prevalence. About a year after Joel Wynn-Stelt died, state officials visited her home and tested the well water for chemicals following a drinking water advisory for the area around Wolverine.
When they came back three weeks later with a team in tow…. the news was not good.
“They told me the rates [of PFAS] in my groundwater at that time were 27,000 parts per trillion, and they thought that was an error because it was too high. So they tested again, and it came back at 38,000 parts per trillion. It’s tested as high as 88,000 parts per trillion.”
“In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency advises that some common early-generation PFAS be limited to 70 parts per trillion.”
“Health Canada set the drinking water guidelines for those same legacy PFAS at 1,000 parts per trillion.”
The level in Wynn-Stelt’s blood was five million parts per trillion — 750 times higher than levels in the average person, she said.
The level of PFAS in Wynn-Stelt’s blood is considered extremely rare. However most people do have at least a small amount.
CASE STUDY #2
“The samples analysed in this study were collected from Ludmilla and Rapid Creeks which receive
runoff from Darwin Airport and surrounding urban areas. The collected fauna are used by mainly
Indigenous people for consumption (aquatic foods).The motivation for this study was to address concerns that sediment and aquatic food sources were
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) testing in
contaminated by PFAS. The study aims were to measure the amounts of PFAS in sediment and aquatic foods and to assess human and ecosystem health risks.”
sediment and aquatic foods from Darwin Harbour- Prepared for Northern Territory Department of Health
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Open in new tab “Autumn Peltier, the “Water Warrior”. She is a clean water activist for Indigenous Communities in Canada (Photo via womenofinfluence.ca)”
The study found that:
- There were significantly higher levels of PFOA and PFOS+PFHxS in sediment from Ludmilla and Rapid Creek than at a remote comparison site (8 to 85 times higher respectively).
- According to the data, biological species and sediment samples from Ludmilla and Rapid Creeks had significantly higher mean PFOA and PFOS+PFHxS concentrations than samples from the comparison site (between 6 and 101 times).
A recent Health Canada biomonitoring study said 98.5% of Canadians have PFAS in their blood.
Sources:
- Toxic, long-lasting contaminants detected in people living in northern Canada (msn.com)
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31029975/
- Class action filed for PFAS contamination of Indigenous land – Lawyers Weekly
- https://theconversation.com/toxic-long-lasting-contaminants-detected-in-people-living-in-northern-canada-141256
- https://canadians.org/fn-water
- Toxic, long-lasting contaminants detected in people living in northern Canada (msn.com)
- Toxic Inequities: Chemical Exposures and Indigenous Communities in Canada and the United States on JSTOR
- cdu_pfas_report_summary.pdf (nt.gov.au)