Addressing Urgent Questions for PFAS in the 21st Century
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Addressing Urgent Questions for PFAS in the 21st Century. / Ng, Carla; Cousins, Ian T.; DeWitt, Jamie C.; Glüge, Juliane; Goldenman, Gretta; Herzke, Dorte; Lohmann, Rainer; Miller, Mark; Patton, Sharyle; Scheringer, Martin; Trier, Xenia; Wang, Zhanyun.
In: Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 55, No. 19, 2021, p. 12755-12765.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Addressing Urgent Questions for PFAS in the 21st Century
AU - Ng, Carla
AU - Cousins, Ian T.
AU - DeWitt, Jamie C.
AU - Glüge, Juliane
AU - Goldenman, Gretta
AU - Herzke, Dorte
AU - Lohmann, Rainer
AU - Miller, Mark
AU - Patton, Sharyle
AU - Scheringer, Martin
AU - Trier, Xenia
AU - Wang, Zhanyun
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 American Chemical Society
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Despite decades of research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), fundamental obstacles remain to addressing worldwide contamination by these chemicals and their associated impacts on environmental quality and health. Here, we propose six urgent questions relevant to science, technology, and policy that must be tackled to address the “PFAS problem”: (1) What are the global production volumes of PFAS, and where are PFAS used? (2) Where are the unknown PFAS hotspots in the environment? (3) How can we make measuring PFAS globally accessible? (4) How can we safely manage PFAS-containing waste? (5) How do we understand and describe the health effects of PFAS exposure? (6) Who pays the costs of PFAS contamination? The importance of each question and barriers to progress are briefly described, and several potential paths forward are proposed. Given the diversity of PFAS and their uses, the extreme persistence of most PFAS, the striking ongoing lack of fundamental information, and the inequity of the health and environmental impacts from PFAS contamination, there is a need for scientific and regulatory communities to work together, with cooperation from PFAS-related industries, to fill in critical data gaps and protect human health and the environment.
AB - Despite decades of research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), fundamental obstacles remain to addressing worldwide contamination by these chemicals and their associated impacts on environmental quality and health. Here, we propose six urgent questions relevant to science, technology, and policy that must be tackled to address the “PFAS problem”: (1) What are the global production volumes of PFAS, and where are PFAS used? (2) Where are the unknown PFAS hotspots in the environment? (3) How can we make measuring PFAS globally accessible? (4) How can we safely manage PFAS-containing waste? (5) How do we understand and describe the health effects of PFAS exposure? (6) Who pays the costs of PFAS contamination? The importance of each question and barriers to progress are briefly described, and several potential paths forward are proposed. Given the diversity of PFAS and their uses, the extreme persistence of most PFAS, the striking ongoing lack of fundamental information, and the inequity of the health and environmental impacts from PFAS contamination, there is a need for scientific and regulatory communities to work together, with cooperation from PFAS-related industries, to fill in critical data gaps and protect human health and the environment.
KW - environment
KW - equity
KW - global
KW - health
KW - PFAS
KW - policy
U2 - 10.1021/acs.est.1c03386
DO - 10.1021/acs.est.1c03386
M3 - Review
C2 - 34519210
AN - SCOPUS:85116023046
VL - 55
SP - 12755
EP - 12765
JO - Environmental Science & Technology
JF - Environmental Science & Technology
SN - 0013-936X
IS - 19
ER -
ID: 333777118