US Food and Drug Administration rejects petition to set Pfas limits in food | US news

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected a legal petition seeking limits on toxic Pfas “forever chemicals” in foods; This marks another failure in efforts by public health advocates to limit exposure to dangerous compounds.

The agency refuses to set limits despite growing scientific research and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding that food is the largest source of exposure to Pfas. Tests found that Pfas levels in a single serving of some contaminated foods were equivalent to drinking many glasses of contaminated water.

While regulators are focused on curbing Pfas in water, the chemicals are widely used across the food system and there was hope that the agency under Robert F Kennedy Jr would take the threat more seriously. Kennedy leads the “Make America Healthy Again” (Maha) movement, for which removing toxic chemicals from food is the cornerstone.

Sandra Daussin, attorney for the Tucson Environmental Justice Task Force (TEJTF), which filed the legal petition in November 2023, said the FDA’s decision is “disappointing.” The group plans to file a lawsuit and ask a court to have the FDA set thresholds.

“If it’s important enough to be regulated in water, then we need to regulate it in food too; it’s a very simple thing,” Daussin said.

PFAs are a class of at least 16,000 compounds most commonly used to make products water, stain, and oil resistant. It has been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a number of other serious health problems. These are called “forever chemicals” because they can persist in the environment for thousands of years and are designed to be indestructible.

The petition, dated November 2023, called on the FDA to control up to 30 Pfas compounds in a variety of products, fish, eggs, milk and bread. The agency did not respond within the six-month period required by law, but TEJTF scaled back its petition in 2025 to ask the agency to set advisory thresholds for PFOA and Pfos, two of the most common and dangerous Pfas compounds in seafood and milk.

Recent FDA testing found that 70% of seafood samples contained chemicals. independent milk testing It found it in 12% of 50 samples, including extremely high levels in Whole Foods and Kirkland Signature brands. FDA denied the revised petition. stating It plans to take action on setting standards for Pfas and says “there is not enough evidence to support it” [TEJTF’s] to request”.

The agency said it plans to set less binding “action levels” that do not require contaminated foods to be removed from shelves. “Tolerance levels,” or limits, make it illegal to sell food contaminated beyond a set threshold.

Pfas ends up in foods because it is widely used in pesticides, food packaging, and sewage sludge used as fertilizer. It is also frequently found in nonstick cookware and kitchen products, and dirty water used in processing or growing can contaminate foods.

The extent of the problem is difficult to gauge in part because the technology used to test foods for the chemicals is not as advanced as the technology that looks for Pfas in water, and there is no robust government testing program. However, a patchwork of independent tests points to a broader problem.

Meat and crops produced on farms using sewage sludge have been found to contain high levels of Pfa in independent tests, and some government agencies have ordered the removal of contaminated food and milk from the market.

Some independent tests have found high levels of Pfas in blueberries, kale and other water-rich produce due to the chemicals being absorbed into the water. Independent tests also found the beer to be contaminated, and EPA tests on seafood found the chemicals were present in all but one sample.

Levels of the Pfas compound gen An analysis of FDA and EPA fish testing data by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found that eating one serving of U.S. freshwater fish contaminated with average levels of Pfas could be equivalent to drinking highly contaminated water every day for a month.

Organizing one route but not the other leaves people unprotected.

“Your body doesn’t know how PFAS got in there,” Daussin said.

Still, the FDA only conducts limited annual testing and adjusted its methodology in 2019 to capture only what consumer groups say are extremely high levels of contamination and ignore relatively low to moderate levels that may still pose a health risk.

In 2019, the FDA first to create It was stated that 182 food samples were contaminated with Pfas, but after changing the methodology in the middle of the study, this figure dropped to 78, leading to accusations that it deliberately covered up the contamination.

“Imagine using a radar gun to detect acceleration in cars, but then changing the radar to only detect speeds above 100 mph.” wrote Brian Ronholm, former assistant secretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was quoted in Consumer Reports after the FDA announced the change.