Floored by Fluorochemicals: What Are The Health Risks?

How extensive and risky is fluorochemical contamination? How are these chemicals affecting people’s health?

Those are among the questions the Environmental Protection Agency, the Defense Department, and other environmental research agencies are jointly addressing to assist public health officials, wastewater utilities, and military installations.

“We need more research,” Mark Levine, Vermont’s health commissioner, told Bloomberg Environment. “We don’t want to minimize what exposure could do, but we don’t want people to get overly concerned.”

Fluorochemicals are fire-resistant, heat-resistant, and stain-resistant and are used in hundreds of consumer products as well as in firefighting.

Military and other firefighting training ...