Teflon and 'forever chemicals:' The hidden toxins in your body

What do raincoats, pizza boxes, frozen vegetable packaging, and non-stick frying pans have in common? They all contain perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS). Known as "forever chemicals" by experts, they could be damaging human health.

Roland Weber, an environmental consultant with the United Nations, describes them as "one of the most threatening chemicals ever invented." 

Some 4,500 human-made substances fall under the PFAS designation, and residues from this family of chemicals are now found across the globe — in soil, drinking water, food, animals, and even inside the human body.

Do I have PFAS in my body?

Some 98 percent of Americans have PFAS in their blood. Studies from India, Indonesia, and the Philippines found the toxic substances in nearly all breastmilk samples tested. Every child in Germany has forever chemicals inside them, and in a fifth of those cases, concentrations exceed critical levels.

This made me wonder about the levels of forever toxins in my own body. Finding out is not easy as there are very few specialist labs in Germany able to perform the necessary tests. But I managed to locate one, IPASUM, in the southern city of Erlangen. 

I sent them a blood sample. It was analysed for PFOA and PFOS — the best-known forever chemicals — which can cause liver and kidney damage, decrease male fertility, affect the weight of newborn babies, and the effectiveness of vaccines. In high concentrations, they can lead to cancer. New studies have also indicated a link between the chemicals and severe cases of COVID-19.

The lab found 4 nanograms of PFOA and PFOS per litre of my blood. That's around a 1000th of the weight of a grain of sand and means I'm well below critical levels and in line with the German average.

Thomas Göen, a professor at IPASUM, who carried out the analysis, told me these concentrations present no risk according to current scientific knowledge. But the results didn't put my mind at ease because the substances are persistent and can accumulate in the body.

"And that's the main problem," Göen said, "that in the end, they may accumulate in a dose, which might be a problematic concentration."

Forever chemicals are so stable that they don't biodegrade in nature, and the human body excretes them very slowly. Scientists are looking for ways to break them down, but any methods are still in their infancy.

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But it's exactly this stability that makes PFAS so useful. Water, fat, and dirt resistant, they are deployed in practically every industry and found in a diverse range of products, including artificial leather, photographic paper, pesticides, the foam in fire extinguishers, dyes, and airplanes.

Humans ingest most PFAS in their food. Fish, meat, milk, eggs, and vegetables from contaminated regions can contain particularly high rates of these chemicals.

Most sewage treatment plants can't filter out the chemical residues, which then enter the environment through landfills, industrial waste, and by washing outdoor clothing. PFAS have been found in the remote mountains of Patagonia, snow in Antarctica, and the Altai Mountains in Central and East Asia, and inside polar bears, birds, and dolphins.

Some animals with high PFAS concentrations experience changes in their hormone levels and liver and thyroid function. There has been little research on their impact on ecosystems.

From the atom bomb to the kitchen cupboard

In 1938, US chemicals concern DuPont invented PFTE, one of the first PFAS chemicals. As it was able to protect the metal from corrosion at incredibly high temperatures, it used it in the first atomic bomb.

PFTE soon appeared in households around the globe as a durable coating on frying pans under the brand name "Teflon." It was a huge commercial success. 

But in 1998, the non-stick brand found itself in a sticky situation when a livestock farmer said his cows grazing near a Teflon production plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, were wasting away and dropping dead. 

Robert Bilott, an environmental lawyer and longtime defender of the livestock farmer, in his legal battle against DuPont, said his client "could see white foaming water coming out of a landfill next to his property." It soon came out that thousands of people in the region had been contaminated with PFAS through sewage from the DuPont factory and leaking landfill waste.

Studies suggest that high PFAS levels in the area are connected to increased cases of kidney and testicular cancer. In 2017, DuPont agreed to pay victims $671 million in compensation for bodily harm.

DuPont knew for decades about the dangers from the production of Teflon (PTFE) as indicated in this internal document from 1970

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Other countries, including The Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy, have seen cases of PFAS contaminating drinking water and the environment.

Some of these forever chemicals are now being phased out in the EU, the US, and Japan, and the amount detected in the population has steadily decreased. In Germany, the average has more than halved since 1990.

In response to the crackdown, the chemicals industry is manufacturing a new generation of PFAS that differ very little from their predecessors, but don't fall under the ban for now.

How can I protect myself?

What am I supposed to take from all this? I'm a bit stumped. It feels impossible to avoid something found in so many things but which isn't flagged on labels or packaging.

For now, I've said goodbye to non-stick pans and I'm considering buying a water filter to get rid of any PFAS in my drinking water. It looks like takeaway and convivence food, which I've never been a fan of anyway, will slip even further down the menu, so I can keep away from PFAS-laden disposable packaging. But I'll never be able to turn down a box of frozen spinach — a childhood favourite of mine.

On a global level, the pressure to dispense with PFAS is growing. Following a Greenpeace campaign, outdoor clothing manufacturers Vaude, Paramo, and Rotauf committed to detoxing their garments. Swedish furniture giant Ikea says it has also banned the substances, while countries such as Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are pushing for an EU-wide ban on all PFAS by 2030. 

(This article by author Tim Schauenberg was originally published on Deutsche Welle.)