United States: According to recent research, eating one freshwater fish from a river or lake in the United States is the same as drinking one month’s worth of water contaminated with toxic “forever chemicals.”

The PFAS, or Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, were created in the 1940s to withstand heat and moisture and are now found in nonstick cookware, clothing, firefighting foams, and food packaging. However, PFAS—per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are indestructible, which means that over time, the contaminants accumulated in the air, soil, lakes, rivers, food, drinking water, and even human bodies.

PFAS have been linked to a number of major health problems, including liver damage, high cholesterol, poor immunological responses, and various cancers. Between 2013 and 2015, a research team examined more than 500 samples from rivers and lakes across the United States to determine the presence of PFAS contamination in locally caught fish.

A recent study that was published in the journal Environmental Research found that the median level of PFAS in fish was 9,500 nano grammes per kilogramme. One of the most prevalent and dangerous of the thousands of PFAS, PFOS, made up nearly three-quarters of the detected “forever chemicals.”

The researchers concluded that eating one freshwater fish would be equivalent to consuming water with 48 parts per trillion of PFOS for a month. Last year the US Environmental Protection Agency lowered the level of PFOS in drinking water it considers safe to 0.02 parts per trillion, as per the report. Based on the study, the total PFAS level in the freshwater fish was 278 times higher than what has been found in commercially sold fish.

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