Recommendation 17

HM Government · verbatim extract Not Addressed

Building a robust evidence base on the long-term health effects of PFAS exposure, including for higher-risk groups, is important to inform proportionate and effective public health responses. Human biomonitoring is a way of measuring chemicals in the body by testing samples such as blood or urine. UKHSA are developing a human biomonitoring programme to establish background levels of selected environmental pollutants including PFAS. For substances like PFAS that are widespread in the environment, human biomonitoring results reflect exposure from many different sources, including food, drinking water, air and everyday products. Thus, most people in the UK are likely to have measurable levels of PFAS in their blood, but it is not possible to tell where the exposure came from. At this time, PFAS blood testing does not predict future health problems and can sometimes create unnecessary concern. For these reasons, PFAS biomonitoring is not currently recommended through the NHS or private blood tests. The Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) has undertaken PFAS related work on a number of occasions, including reviewing the scientific basis of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) tolerable weekly intake (TWI) for the sum of four PFAS (2022). COT will also consider the global epidemiological evidence base and identify gaps to inform future research. Following the publication of the COT Interim Position Statement in 2023, a COT PFAS subgroup was established to undertake the Committee’s own consideration of the evidence base and risk assessment of PFAS. The subgroup aims to review relevant evidence to support human health risk assessments in relation to existing and legacy exposure through food, drinking water, and the environment; and will provide guidance to UK Government Departments and Agencies undertaking such assessments. This work is ongoing and will be published on the COT website when available. This subgroup is supported by UKHSA and FSA joint Secretariat. COT acknowledges that its review of PFAS will be an extensive and lengthy undertaking. UKHSA is also undertaking a rapid evidence review aiming to support their remit in preparing for and responding to incidents involving PFAS. The identification of a site or area with potentially elevated environmental concentrations of PFAS, where emitting sites have been identified as a potential source, can lead to local community concerns. This review will improve our understanding of the evidence on the potential health impacts from sites where PFAS emissions or contamination have been identified. It is intended that the review will be published in summer 2026. UKHSA are developing capabilities to assess human exposure to PFAS (human biomonitoring) using state of the art analytical techniques. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) on Chemical Hazards and Threats includes work led by UKHSA to establish a human biomonitoring platform to allow the development of reference (background) values for environmental pollutants including PFAS. This work is a collaboration with the Health Survey for England using blood and urine from a representative sample of the English population. Preliminary results are expected later in 2026.