The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has denied a legal petition to place limits on the toxic Pfas “permanent chemical” in food, another setback to public health advocacy groups’ efforts to limit exposure to the dangerous compound.
Despite advances in science and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding that food is the largest source of Pfas exposure, the agency refuses to set limits. Tests have shown that the levels of Pfas in one serving of some contaminated foods are equivalent to drinking multiple glasses of contaminated water.
Although regulators are focused on controlling PFAS in water, the chemicals are widely used throughout the food system, and there was hope that the agency led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would take the threat more seriously. Kennedy is leading the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, a cornerstone of which is eliminating toxic chemicals from food.
Sandra Doshin, an attorney with the Tucson Environmental Justice Task Force (TEJTF), which filed the legal complaint in November 2023, called the FDA’s decision “unfortunate.” The group plans to file a lawsuit asking a court to order the FDA to set a threshold.
“If it’s important enough to regulate water, it makes sense that we should regulate food,” Dothan said.
Pfas is a class of at least 16,000 compounds most frequently used to make products water, stain, and oil resistant. They are thought to be linked to cancer, birth defects, weakened immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease, and a variety of other serious health problems. They are called “eternal chemicals” because they can persist in the environment for thousands of years and are designed to be indestructible.
A November 2023 petition asked the FDA to test for up to 30 Pfas compounds in a variety of produce, fish, eggs, milk, and bread. Although the agency did not respond within the six-month deadline required by law, TEJTF asked the agency to scale back the petition in 2025 and set advisory thresholds for PFOA and Pfos, two of the most common and dangerous Pfas compounds found in seafood and milk.
A recent FDA test found that 70% of seafood samples contained the chemical, and an independent milk test found that 12% of 50 samples contained the chemical at extremely high concentrations in Whole Foods and Kirkland Signature brands. The FDA rejected the amended petition, stating that it plans to take action regarding standard-setting for Pfas and that there is “insufficient evidence to support (TEJTF’s) request.”
The agency said it plans to set a less binding “action level” that would not require contaminated food to be removed from shelves. “Tolerance levels” or limits make it illegal to sell food contaminated beyond a set threshold.
Pfas gets into food because it is commonly used in pesticides, food packaging, and sewage sludge used as fertilizer. It is also commonly found in nonstick cookware and kitchen utensils, and contaminated water used for processing and cultivation can contaminate food.
The scale of the problem is difficult to gauge, in part, because the technology used to test food for chemicals is not as advanced as that to detect Pfas in water, and there is no robust government testing program. However, the patchwork of independent tests suggests a broader problem.
Meat and produce produced on farms that use sewage sludge have been found by independent testing to contain high levels of Pfas, leading some state officials to order contaminated food and milk removed from the market.
Several independent tests have found high levels of Pfas in blueberries, kale, and other moisture-rich produce because the chemicals are attracted to water. An independent test also found the beer to be contaminated, and an EPA test of the seafood found the chemical in all but one sample.
Levels of the Pfas compound generation 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 the median level of Pfas could be equivalent to drinking highly contaminated water every day for a month.
If you regulate one route and not the other, people will not be protected.
“Your body doesn’t know how PFAS got there,” Dothan says.
Still, the FDA conducts only limited annual inspections, adjusting its methodology in 2019 to only capture what consumer groups say are extremely high contamination levels and ignore relatively low to moderate levels that may still pose a health risk.
In 2019, the FDA initially found 182 food samples contaminated with Pfas, but after changing its methodology midway through the study, that number was reduced to 78, prompting accusations that the agency was intentionally concealing the contamination.
“Imagine using a radar gun to detect speeding cars and then manipulating the radar to only detect speeding cars exceeding 100 miles per hour,” Brian Ronholm, former assistant secretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote in Consumer Reports after the FDA announced the change.
