Senate inquiry calls for urgent review of food standards and blood testing

reportIt made 47 recommendations to the federal government, released Wednesday afternoon.

He suggested Food Standards Australia and New Zealand review “tolerable daily intakes” for PFAS based on the latest international research and submit a report to federal parliament by October to consider regulatory limits for PFAS in food.

Blood testing to measure PFAS levels, enhanced health and cancer screening, and mental health support should be offered to people at high risk of exposure, including some firefighters, people exposed in the workplace, and those living in contaminated areas, the report said.

He said a national chemical biomedical monitoring program should be considered to measure Australians’ long-term exposure to chemicals, similar to programs already established in the US, parts of Europe, Japan and Korea.

The report also called for a national fund and task force to remediate contaminated sites, the development of safer work procedures to minimize exposure to chemicals in the workplace, and rules to classify PFAS as “dangerous goods” when transported.

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It also called on the federal government to create a national PFAS environmental monitoring program to monitor pollution in ecosystems and waterways.

The inquiry received 148 submissions and held seven public hearings, involving elders of the Wreck Bay community, an Aboriginal village near Jervis Bay on the NSW South Coast.

Wreck Bay was contaminated with PFAS-rich firefighting foam used at a nearby military base, resulting in a disproportionate number of premature deaths and illnesses among its population.

The federal government is still evaluating the findings of the March investigation’s interim report.

The dissenting report, approved by two Labor senators on the inquiry committee – deputy leader Varun Ghosh and Senator Ellie Whiteaker, both from Western Australia – broadly supported most of the recommendations but differed on some key points.

He acknowledged there was a “growing body of research, literature and evidence regarding the potential health risks associated with PFAS exposure,” but said the evidence did not support the need for blood testing.

“A causal relationship between health effects and exposure to PFAS has not been conclusively established to date,” the dissenting report said.

The government had been warned about the potential dangers of PFAS since 1981, and manufacturers concealed their presence in human blood and concealed scientists’ warnings about their carcinogenic potential.

PFAS chemicals were formerly a key ingredient in a number of industrial products produced by Wall Street giant 3M, including the popular fabric protector Scotchgard and the firefighting foam it supplied to the military.

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