WASHINGTON – The United Nations Human Rights Council today presented a landmark report saying the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS are found in the blood of nearly every person on the planet, posing health threats that justify phasing out non-essential uses of PFAS.
The report, presented at the council’s ongoing 63rd session, in Geneva, also calls for a legally binding global strategy to ultimately stop using the entire chemical class of PFAS. It also says governments should adopt stronger domestic protections and advocates for urgent medical monitoring and remedies for frontline communities living in “PFAS sacrifice zones.”
The report is unambiguous that PFAS contamination prevention, not cleanup, has to be the goal.
The Environmental Working Group stands with North Carolina’s Clean Cape Fear, the National PFAS Contamination Coalition, and communities across the U.S. and around the world in urging governments to act on the report’s findings without delay.
But rather than strengthening protections, the Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back drinking water limits for several PFAS. At the same time, the agency is fast-tracking approval of new PFAS pesticides, with the current administration greenlighting five in less than two years. That’s despite EPA data showing serious, unresolved questions about the pesticides’ health and environmental risks.
The following is a statement from Melanie Benesh, EWG’s vice president for government affairs:
The United Nations report confirms what frontline advocates and scientists have known for decades: Toxic PFAS contamination is a global human rights crisis.
PFAS are everywhere, because that’s exactly how the industry designed them. These forever chemicals were engineered never to break down, and they spread across water, soil, food and the bodies of virtually every person alive today.
The science on the harm they cause is clear: PFAS have been linked to kidney, liver, pancreatic and testicular cancers; as well as immune system suppression, thyroid disease, reduced vaccine efficacy, reproductive and developmental harm, low birth weight, increased cholesterol, weight gain in children and dieting adults, and a growing list of serious health effects.
PFAS pollution crosses borders. For decades, U.S. regulators have let industry set the pace on PFAS. Communities pay the price, like in North Carolina, where Emily Donovan’s group Clean Cape Fear is leading the fight to make polluters pay.
The United States helped create this crisis. It has a responsibility to help end it.
The world cannot filter its way out of the forever chemicals crisis. Drinking water treatment helps, but it puts the burden of a problem industry created onto the communities and utilities left to clean it up.
Real accountability means stopping non-essential PFAS production at the source. That requires the international community to finally treat this chemical class the way the evidence has demanded for years: as a single, urgent problem, not a chemical-by-chemical negotiation industry can slow-walk for another generation.
The world’s governments now have a UN report telling them exactly what needs to happen. The only question left is whether they’ll act on it. We must stop making the problem worse and ensure that polluters – not contaminated communities – pay for the damage.
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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
