Chapter 1: What are PFAS and why are they a concern?
Hi, this is Ira Plato, and you're listening to Science Friday. Nearly every one of us has some type of PFAS, commonly known as forever chemicals, in their blood. These chemicals are found in nonstick pan coatings, waterproof materials, and firefighting foam.
Roughly two years ago, the EPA adopted federal regulations for PFAS levels in drinking water, though last year the Trump administration rolled back some of those regulations. But back in 2018, New Jersey was the first state to adopt its own drinking water standards for PFAS. And now 10 years later, researchers at Rutgers University have crunched the data to see how well it worked.
Chapter 2: How did New Jersey become a leader in regulating PFAS?
Joining me now to tell us more is the lead author of the study, Dr. Hari Iyer, assistant professor of cancer epidemiology and health outcomes at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much, Ira. It's so great to be here. Nice to have you. Okay, let's jump right in.
Chapter 3: What were the findings of the Rutgers study on PFAS levels?
What did you find in this study?
We're so excited to present these results of a valuation of state policies to reduce PFAS levels in drinking water. And we found a 55% reduction in average concentrations after the policy was implemented.
Wow. Is that a surprising study? I mean, that's a pretty big drop.
So it's interesting you ask that. Our government colleagues were not surprised.
Chapter 4: How significant is the 55% reduction in PFAS levels?
They said, you know, Hari, we know when we put these policies in place, we expect to see a drop. That's why we do them. But I think we were excited to see this because in public health, Often our message is, you know, this thing is bad for you. This disease is becoming more prevalent. But here we were actually able to demonstrate a positive impact of a regulation.
So would you describe the PFAS in the water now at a safe level in New Jersey?
So we definitely have observed levels that are below the maximum contaminant levels that are called these regulatory limits. But I think that there's another part of this story, which is the ongoing evolution of our understanding of the health impacts of long-term exposure. And so something that a lot of folks will ask is, you know, that's great that the water levels have dropped today.
Chapter 5: Are current PFAS levels in New Jersey considered safe?
But have I been drinking water for the last 20 years that has had higher levels? And if so, how does this help me? And I think that that's a very fair question to ask. And so I think when you ask the question about safe levels, I think we're still kind of understanding these long term health risks.
Yeah, so we don't know what those long-term health risks are. Do we know what portion of our daily ingestion of PFAS comes from drinking water?
So that's a complicated question. It's a good one. But what I will say is, based on a lot of this accumulating evidence from animal studies and from toxicology studies and cells, what has been shown is that Once water is ingested into the body, the concentration in the water can be magnified by orders of magnitude.
Chapter 6: What health risks are associated with PFAS exposure?
And so while I don't know if I have a precise answer of what contribution water is, it is certainly a very important one. And because of this biological magnification effect, it's still a major area that we want to control.
Yeah, I want to dig into that more. So what happens when you drink the PFAS in it? How does your body, as you say, magnify what's going on?
That's a great question. I can speak a bit more to the health side than the sort of consumption side. So on the health side, I think what has started to become more evident is that the water passes through your body and usually gets filtered in the kidney and liver. And so those are the organs where some of the sort of best established emerging evidence on a health impact seems to be.
So kidney function and risk of certain kidney cancers have been linked to these PFAS exposures.
Chapter 7: How did New Jersey implement its PFAS regulations?
And a lot of liver enzyme levels that sometimes you get monitored at the doctor's office, those seem to be elevated in people who have high consumption of these chemicals. And so some of what we're doing at the Cancer Institute and other places is now trying to understand those elevated levels. Are they being linked now to these downstream cancer outcomes and other chronic disease outcomes?
How did New Jersey limit the PFAS? Did they have special treatment plants or filters?
I'm glad you asked that question because it turns out that there were a lot of actions that we observed when we were reviewing these data, actions taken by water systems in anticipation of the policies coming into place. Some examples of some of those actions are identifying wells that have really excess levels and then just pulling them offline.
So they're no longer going to be serving people at their home. Another example is like kind of what you had just asked about, which are granulated activated carbon.
Chapter 8: What is the future of PFAS research and regulation?
It allows us to kind of identify these PFAS chemicals, catch them and remove them from the water. So post-treatment, those levels are no longer as high.
When you said well water, were you talking about people's individual well water? They were able to eliminate the PFAS from that?
So no, no. In this context, what I was referring to is that often water that is provided from different systems, they will have their own wells that are sources of water that then gets kind of transferred. Unfortunately, one of the limitations of our study is that it was really only looking at public water systems.
And so unfortunately, we're not able to demonstrate that this 55% reduction holds in people's home well systems because those don't tend to be tested as often. And that's about one in 10 New Jersey residents, I believe, is served by their home well.
So is New Jersey's water more contaminated than other states?
So unfortunately, there's been nationwide studies that have looked at levels over the last 15 years or so. And yes, unfortunately, New Jersey has in the past had higher levels on average than other states. However, given sort of the findings from this study, one would hope that in subsequent years when those national comparisons are done, that may not be the case.
Yeah. Are other states looking at your success and implementing their own standards for PFAS?
That's a great question. And that's something that we hope that other states can look to some of these successes. But I think the power of doing something like this and being able to publish these findings is that it can lead to exactly what you're describing. Best practices can be shared from states. These experiments that are done at a local level, you can test some of the
You know, the kinks in the policy, maybe it works well in certain contexts, but not others. Maybe it's addressing certain populations and not others. And those best practices can be shared to ultimately make, you know, our water, drinking water safer for everybody.
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