New Study Reveals PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ as a Lethal Threat to Public Health
For the first time, researchers have formally demonstrated that exposure to hazardous PFAS raises the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, raising new concerns about the chemicals’ widespread use.
The findings are especially significant because proving an association with death by chemical exposure is difficult, but researchers were able to establish it by reviewing death records from northern Italy’s Veneto region, where many residents drank water contaminated with PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” for decades.
Records also revealed an elevated risk of death from numerous malignancies, but other circumstances precluded a definite link.
“This is the first time that anyone has found strong evidence of an association between PFAS exposure and cardiovascular mortality,” said Annibale Biggeri, main author of the peer-reviewed study and researcher at the University of Padua.
PFAS are a group of 15,000 compounds used in dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, stains, and heat. Though the substances are extremely powerful, earlier studies have connected them to cancer, kidney illness, birth deformities, low immunity, liver difficulties, and a variety of other dangerous conditions.
Between 1985 and 2018, a PFAS-production factory poisoned drinking water throughout Veneto. Researchers discovered an excess of around 4,000 deaths during this time or one every three days.
A portion of the region received water from a different source, allowing researchers to compare records for tens of thousands of people who drank polluted water while living near others who did not.
PFAS can harm the cardiovascular system in a variety of ways, but it is primarily an issue because it causes persistently high and hazardous cholesterol levels. The levels are difficult to control since they are generated by hormonal changes that alter metabolism and the body’s ability to control plaque in arteries, rather than food or lifestyle decisions, which may be adjusted.
The study’s authors believe that post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by the environmental calamity, which disrupted lives throughout the region, may be contributing to circulatory disease.
Biggeri also stated that there was “very clear” evidence of an increase in kidney cancer. There were 16 cases recorded in the first five years of the study and 65 in the latter five. It also discovered higher rates of testicular cancer at certain time periods.
The statistics “showed clearly” that earlier life exposures lead to higher levels of mortality, with the exception of women who have several children. Previous studies revealed that levels were greater in women who had only one child.
The chemicals build in placentas and are passed down to children during pregnancy, lowering levels in the body. Mortality rates among women of childbearing age were generally lower, but higher in older women.
Laura Facciolo, a Veneto native who drank tainted water, warned the toxins will be handed down to future generations. She stated that the findings highlight the need to ban PFAS and the disaster’s injustice.
“I found myself in a big giant trial where no one gave any consent, just like mice,” she went on to say. “I have no words for this.”