Alarming levels of the permanently toxic chemical have been found in the blood of people living in a town previously found to be contaminated with the highest levels of Pfas on record in the UK.
Pfas, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is commonly known as a permanent chemical because it persists in the environment and has been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including some cancers. They are used in a variety of consumer products, but one of the most common uses is firefighting foam.
In May 2024, the Ends Report and the Guardian published research revealing that groundwater in the small rural town of Bentham in North Yorkshire was contaminated with the highest levels of Pfas ever recorded in the UK. It was discovered on the property of Angus Fire, a factory that legally produced Pfas-containing fire extinguishing foam from 1976 to 2024.
Blood tests carried out as part of a new ITV documentary, produced in association with Ends Report, to be broadcast on Sunday night, revealed “alarming” levels of these chemicals in the blood of residents and former workers at the factory.
In the UK, there are no guidelines for safe levels of Pfas in the blood. But in the United States, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Nasem) said that a total of seven Pfas chemicals in the blood above 2 ng/ml can have negative health effects.
The highest blood Pfas level recorded in Bentham was 405 ng/ml, more than 200 times the US risk level of 2 ng/ml. This was recorded in the blood of a former Angus Fire employee who wished to remain anonymous.
When Pfas levels in the blood exceed 20 ng/ml, Naseem says clinicians should consider more frequent targeted health checkups because of the increased risk of side effects.
Almost a quarter (23%) of the 39 people who had blood tests at Bentham had levels that put them in the highest risk category. Among them was 34-year-old Stephen Illston, who had a Pfas level of 55 ng/ml.
Ilston has struggled to conceive a child. He said infertility issues led to poor mental health and for years he questioned his “usefulness on earth.”
A growing number of studies are linking Pfas to reproductive health problems, including decreased sperm count. Stephen said discovering that Pfas was elevated in his blood was “the answer I was looking for”.
“I’m glad to hear it’s probably Pfas and not me,” he said.
Dr David Megson, a forensic environmental scientist and Pfas expert at Manchester Metropolitan University, who conducted an analysis comparing blood test results to Pfas levels in the US population, said he was “absolutely shocked” when he saw Bentham’s data. He said the levels were “exceptionally high compared to the general (U.S.) background population.”
“If that’s normal, half the people should be above average (and) half the people should be below average.[But]almost everyone we tested was above average, and two-thirds of them were in the top 5 percent. One-third of them were higher than what we would ever expect to see in the background population. So this was really shocking and very surprising.”
Dr Shubhi Sharma, from environmental charity Chem Trust, said: “The levels of Pfas in the blood of people in Bentham are alarming, especially given that these chemicals have been linked to a range of health hazards, including certain cancers.”
An Angus Fire spokesperson said: “There is no internationally accepted way to interpret blood tests for Pfas and there is limited agreement on the relationship between Pfas exposure, blood levels and health effects.”
They said: “Classifying blood data as ‘abnormally high’ in the UK context is unfounded.” They added that Bentham’s blood test group was “very small” and said: “While we recognize that these results may cause concern, elevated levels of Pfas in the blood are not an indicator of health, nor do they indicate how Pfas is absorbed.”
An internal Environment Agency report in 2024 said “airborne dispersion” from foam testing could expose residents to Pfas through “consumption of produce from community gardens and produce grown within private gardens.” Photo: Jill Mead/Guardian
Dr Tony Fletcher, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of the world’s leading Pfas experts, said the fact that Bentham had a large number of people with “high concentrations well above 20ng/ml” who did not work in the factory suggested that “they were exposed in the community”.
An internal Environment Agency report produced in 2024 suggested that air emissions from factories could be a route for this exposure.
The report states that “airborne droplets” from foam tests at factories could lead to Pfas exposure among field workers and to residents through “consumption of community garden produce or produce grown in private gardens.” It added that it was considered “likely” that this could happen.
Fletcher said this could be possible because during testing of Pfas firefighting foam, the chemical “gets up in the air” and then “may rain or precipitate some distance from the plant, where it can seep into the ground and be exposed to water or exposed to food grown in the ground.”
Lindsay Young, who has a Pfas level of 30ng/ml, said test fires at the Angus fire site were common. “The siren goes off and within five or 10 minutes you can see smoke coming up and you have to go inside. There’s a lot of black smoke. We don’t know what’s inside. No one can tell us what’s inside,” she said.
A spokesperson for Angus Fire said the risks in the Environment Agency report were “overstated” and that as a manufacturer of fire extinguishing agents it “responsibly carries out regular fire testing to ensure its products are fit for purpose”. The company stopped testing Pfas foam in Bentham in 2022 and said Angus Fire’s previous operations were not the only source of Pfas in the Bentham area environment.
The Environment Agency said fire testing was not regulated as part of the site permit and the regulation of these fires was the responsibility of local councils. However, North Yorkshire Council said because the company was associated with the fire service, the test fire was exempted from the Clean Air Act 1993, which bans the emission of black smoke from commercial premises and businesses.
Mr Fletcher is part of a scientific committee advising the Jersey government after the state’s private drinking water supply was contaminated by the use of firefighting foam containing Pfas at the airport.
The committee recommended to the Jersey Government that for women of childbearing age with Pfas levels above 10 ng/ml, or those with Pfas levels above 20 ng/ml who are eligible to receive cholesterol-lowering drugs, clinicians should consider prescribing colesevelam, a cholesterol drug found to lower Pfas levels, as a first-line choice, and that phlebotomy should be considered as a second-line drug.
Fletcher said people in Bentham who have elevated Pfas in their blood and want to lower it can discuss these options with their doctors.
An Angus Fire spokesperson said: “We are aware of concerns about the potential negative environmental impact of historic operations at our facility and regret the inconvenience and worry this has caused Bentham.”
“Angus Fire has worked diligently over many years to establish the extent of contamination by Pfas chemicals, working with independent industry-leading environmental consultants and the Environment Agency (…) Angus Fire has always followed the guidelines set by UK regulators and health authorities. Our own understanding of these chemicals has evolved at the same rate as that of the regulators.”
