Stuart Khan, a professor in the School of Civil and Engineering at the University of Sydney, said the results were “shocking but not surprising” and broadly in line with results from studies in other countries such as the United States.
“It’s not surprising that we knew that contamination is widespread. We’re all exposed to these chemicals, and it ends up in people’s blood, but it’s still shocking,” Khan said.
“These are synthetic chemicals that have never occurred naturally. So for millions of years, our ancestors were never exposed to them, and now we’re all walking around with these synthetic chemicals in our blood.”
The ABS said there was “currently limited evidence of human disease or other clinically significant harm resulting from PFAS exposure”, but that studies had found associations between people exposed to PFAS chemicals and some biological effects.
These included increased cholesterol and uric acid levels in the blood, reduced kidney function, lower birth weight in babies, later age for starting menstruation and earlier menopause, according to the federal Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.
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Khan said the public health implications of such widespread detectable PFAS in our systems was a matter of scientific uncertainty.
“It’s hard to really see epidemiological evidence of impacts, but there’s enough reason to be concerned; just the fact that we’re all carrying this around in our blood is enough to wonder what are we going to find out in a few generations’ time,” he said.
The data comes months after this masthead revealed that Brisbane’s drinking water contained levels of PFOA at seven times the level considered safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
