Michigan beef found to contain dangerous levels of ‘forever chemicals’

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/11/michigan-beef-dangerous-levels-forever-chemicals

 

Tom Perkins
Fri 11 Feb 2022 06.00 EST

 

Cattle from a small south-east Michigan farm that sold beef to schools and at farmers’ markets in the state have been found to contain dangerous levels of PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals” that can pose a serious risk to human health.

The news comes after consumer groups in 2019 warned that using PFAS-laden sewage sludge as fertilizer would contaminate dairy, beef, crops and other food products. However, at the time a Michigan agricultural regulator publicly assured the state’s dairy farmers her agency wouldn’t test milk for the toxic chemicals as they didn’t want to inflict economic pain on the $15bn industry, she said.

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Sludge isn’t the only route PFAS takes into the nation’s food. It’s also found in pesticides, rain, packaging and water used on crops, and testing is increasingly finding the chemicals in vegetables, seafood, meat, dairy and processed foods. Consumer groups say regulators are failing to keep the dangerous compounds out of food, a problem highlighted by the Michigan contamination.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of over 9,000 compounds that are used to make products heat, water and stain resistant. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, and they are so effective that they are used in thousands of products across dozens of industries.

The chemicals are also linked to a range of serious health problems like cancer, liver disease, kidney issues, high cholesterol, birth defects and decreased immunity.

Still, the US Department of Agriculture has largely been absent from the PFAS discussion while the US Food And Drug Administration hasn’t yet established health limits for food. The agency only conducts limited annual testing and recently adjusted its methodology so it will only catch what consumer groups say are extremely high contamination levels, and ignore relatively low to moderate levels that can still pose a health risk.

In 2019, the FDA initially found 182 food samples to be contaminated with PFAS, but, after changing its methodology part way through the study, that figure dropped to 78, drawing accusations that it was intentionally covering up contamination. [Note: during the Trump administration.]

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