PRESIDENT & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
PFAS: An Emerging Threat That Raises Familiar
Technological Issues
Scott: Recently there was a lot of news
media about the subject of our winter
Lab Matters feature, PFAS (per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances). Apparently, it
is in Glide dental floss!
Joanne: They even find it in polar bears.
Scott: Hasn’t PFAS been an issue in
Minnesota?
There are literally tens of
thousands of chemicals that no
one tests for. And these substances
are released into the environment
every day.”
Joanne Bartkus, President, APHL
Joanne: Yes. Minnesota was early in the
PFAS business because 3M—originally
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Company—is based in our state,
with headquarters in St. Paul and
manufacturing plants in a few different
locations. Some years ago, 3M discarded
PFAS—originally, we called them PFCs
(perfluorinated chemicals)—in a landfill,
and they leached into the groundwater.
The state public health laboratory was
really instrumental in helping to map the
plume in the groundwater and in testing
the filters the public water supplies used
to get the chemicals out of the water.
Around 2007, the Minnesota legislature
passed a bill mandating that the
state department of health do some
biomonitoring studies, including a pilot
study to assess the PFAS exposure of
residents in the Twin Cities East Metro
area, where PFAS had contaminated the
groundwater. We developed methods
and did a study that ran for at least a
year. We found that blood levels of PFAS
corresponded with the time individuals
had lived in the East Metro area and
presumably consumed PFAS in the water.
Overall, PFAS levels were elevated above
the levels in NHANES (CDC’s National
Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey).
A couple years later, we thought we
were done, and the legislature directed
us to do another study. Again, we found
elevated PFAS levels, but less than before.
In fact, they were coming down at a
rate consistent with the half-life of the
chemicals.
2
LAB MATTERS Winter 2019
When it comes to health risk, we still
don’t know the long-term effects of
PFAS exposure. But it is reassuring to the
people who live in East Metro to know the
intervention is working, and their blood
levels are coming down.
Scott: But there are other sources of
exposure as well.
Joanne: PFAS are ubiquitous. They are in
many different consumer products. And
they’ve even been found in breast milk
and umbilical cord blood. After concerns
were raised about the original chemicals,
manufacturers came up with the next
generation of these substances, and
we have even fewer tests to detect and
measure those.
Scott: I understand the testing is very
expensive.
Joanne: The levels at which people want
to detect these chemicals is so low now
that you need special instrumentation to
do it. And we have no dedicated funding
mechanism to buy new instruments.
Although we are lucky to have legislative
support for this work, it’s just not enough
for new equipment.
Both the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency and the Department of Health
want our laboratory to do PFAS testing,
but neither can afford to buy us new
instruments. So commercial laboratories
are stepping in. Having been leaders in
developing the methods and assessing the
problem, we would like to maintain the
capability and capacity to do the testing.
Scott: This is definitely an area that falls
within the purview of state public health
and environmental laboratories. And the
problem, if anything, seems to be growing.
Or maybe the public is just becoming
more aware of it?
Joanne: I would say both. There
are literally tens of thousands of
chemicals that no one tests for. And
these substances are released into the
environment every day. Fortunately,
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
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