Why ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are So Hard to Regulate

Public health and environmental advocates are struggling to outrun “forever chemicals,” otherwise known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

“I call it the toxic treadmill because that’s kind of what we’re running on,” Erik Olson, a senior strategic director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Newsweek.

PFAS, which are added to everyday products to repel oil and water, are both highly profitable for manufacturers and highly hazardous to the public for the same reason: their persistence. These chemicals not only help consumer goods last longer, they also take very long to decompose in human bodies. Because the body becomes confused by synthetic organic chemicals, PFAS can often trigger certain physiological responses.

While the health effects of these chemicals are still being researched, evidence shows that PFAS exposure is linked to cancers, childhood development problems, fertility and a wide range of other health issues. At least 97 percent of Americans have PFAS in their systems, according to one study, and PFAS have been detected in nearly half of the country’s tap water.

But even as lawmakers on both sides seek to crackdown on PFAS regulation, advocates argue it’s not enough to identify which PFAS should be limited. Olson said the only thing that will protect Americans from the health risks of these chemicals is to regulate them as a class.

“The problem is that the industry keeps inventing new ones,” Olson said. “Every time you get rid of an old one, or you control an old one, a bunch of new ones are coming at you.”

“It’s like playing whack-a-mole,” he said.

There are tens of thousands of PFAS. Currently, only six are regulated by the federal government. Those requirements were only rolled out last year when former President Joe Biden ordered municipal water systems to remove six synthetic chemicals that are present in the tap water of hundreds of millions of Americans. These regulations are still in place under the Trump administration.

“We are one huge step closer to finally shutting off the tap on forever chemicals once and for all,” former EPA Administration Michael Reagan told reporters at the time.

Jamie DeWitt, the director of Oregon State University’s Environmental Health Sciences Center, told Newsweek that while a half-dozen PFAS may not seem like a lot, filtering out those six will likely filter out many others.

“There’s no guarantee that all other PFAS will be filtered out, but it will likely help to reduce other PFAS that aren’t regulated,” DeWitt said. “So, even though only six are regulated, the regulations should have a positive impact on levels of other PFAS in publicly available drinking water.”

But for all the PFAS removed under the latest regulation, there may still be new PFAS that could be produced and used by the chemical industry, and these could bypass existing technologies for treating drinking water.

“There are hundreds [of PFAS] that are not regulated, and there’s no stoppers on industries from creating new ones,” Ronnie Levin, an instructor in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s department of environmental health who is widely recognized for her work in cutting lead in drinking water, told Newsweek.

“These are all manufactured [chemicals], so it’s easier to tweak it, because they made it up,” she said.

Companies have known the risks of these chemicals for years, but because they’re incredibly profitable, DeWitt said it’s unlikely the industry would take efforts to seek alternatives without government pressure.

“Their goal is to make a profit, and they will continue to do what they’re allowed to do,” she said.

Levin criticized those calling investigations into PFAS speculative, saying it would be a grave mistake to investigate risks already known to be hazardous, like lead, arsenic and dioxins.

“We don’t need that. There’s nothing new there. If we find out that arsenic also causes fingernail malformation, who cares? It’s a poison. We don’t need that information,” she said. “If we already know they’re bad, we don’t need to do more research. We know that arsenic is a carcinogen and that it causes cardiovascular disease, and it also causes skin lesions. Why would we spend money to look at the skin lesions when we already know that it’s a carcinogen?”

“Doing more research on what we already know is bad, there’s no value to the information,” she said. “You want to do research where there’s value to the information, because you’re spending resources, and you want to spend it wisely.”

But Olson added there are also limitations to research and at some point, officials need to make the determination that entire swaths of toxins should be regulated.

“There’s no way you’re going to study the toxicity of 15,000 chemicals,” he said. “You’re just not going to be able to do that. So, the only way to really control this is by regulating PFAS as a class.”