Statement from Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, Professor and Director of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment and the UCSF EaRTH Center, on EPA’s new regulations on PFAS in drinking water:
Today’s action by EPA to reduce levels of 6 PFAS chemicals from people’s drinking water is monumental and will improve the health of millions, including those most susceptible to PFAS harms, like pregnant people and infants.
EPA says they now know how much PFAS is harmful to health, but we know that industry knew of PFAS health harms for decades – and literally hid that information while contaminating water systems around the globe. The long list of health harms linked to PFAS include low birthweight, immune and cardiovascular effects and cancer.
We remain concerned that these new regulations only cover 6 chemicals that are part of the PFAS family and there are thousands of them. This is why we have urged EPA to regulate chemicals as a class.
That said, we applaud EPA for using the best available science to calculate for a wider range of health effects including low birthweight. EPA’s decision to regulate 4 PFAS – PFNA, PFHXS, PFBS and GENX – as a mixture and recognize the additive effect of PFAS chemicals on health is also the type of actions we expect across all of EPA when considering health risks from chemicals. This, along with other recent EPA decisions including reducing toxic air contaminants are a giant win for the health of everyone who lives in the United States.
