All Nonessential PFAS Should Be Phased Out, Scientists Advise

A huge group of chemicals found in everything from food packaging to medical devices is so troublesome that only essential uses should be allowed, a group of U.S. and European scientists said Tuesday.

Segments within virtually all of the chemicals—called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS—resist breakdown by sunlight, weather, and microbes, nine scientists wrote in an article published Tuesday in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts.

“The continual release of highly persistent PFAS will result in increasing concentrations and increasing probabilities of the occurrence of known and unknown effects,” the scientists wrote.

That persistence and known toxicity of some PFAS ...