“There should be a single health protective fish consumption advisory for freshwater fish across the country.”Īlthough scientists might not know precisely how people are being exposed to PFAS, the study “clearly indicates that for people who consume freshwater fish even very infrequently, it is likely a significant source of their exposure,” Andrews said.
“The extent that PFAS has contaminated fish is staggering,” first author Nadia Barbo, a graduate student at Duke University, said in a statement. PFOS is so potent that ingesting just one serving of freshwater fish would be equivalent to drinking a month’s worth of water contaminated with PFOS at levels of 48 parts per trillion, according to the study. While the samples included many types of forever chemicals - of which there are thousands - the biggest contributor to total PFAS levels was the compound known as PFOS, responsible for about 74 percent of the total, the researchers found.Īlthough PFOS has largely been phased out of manufacturing, it used to be the main ingredient in fabric protector Scotchgard, and it lingers on in the environment.
These levels indicate that the consumption of such fish “is potentially a significant source of exposure” to PFAS, the authors determined. The median level of total targeted PFAS in fish from rivers and streams was 9,500 nanograms per kilogram, while the median in the Great Lakes was 11,800 nanograms per kilogram, according to the study. These samples were acquired through two EPA programs: the 2013-2014 National Rivers and Streams Assessment and the 2015 Great Lakes Human Health Fish Fillet Tissue Study. To draw their conclusions, the researchers evaluated the presence of different types of PFAS in 501 fish fillet samples, collected across the U.S. fish consumption to blood levels of PFAS, while also comparing PFAS levels in freshwater fish with those in commercial seafood samples, the authors explained. “Food has always been kind of the hypothesis of how most people are exposed to PFAS compounds,” corresponding author David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, told The Hill.īut Tuesday’s study is the first analysis to connect U.S. Researchers first identified such contamination in catfish that inhabited the Tennessee River in 1979. Sign up for the Morning Report newsletterįish consumption has long been identified as a route of exposure to PFAS, according to the study.
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