The presence of PFAS has become very widespread in recent years, which has caused it to emerge as a new and huge public health concern. PFAS have come to be known as forever chemicals. This is because they are resistant to breakdown when in the body or out in the environment. These chemicals can be found everywhere in our everyday lives, such as in nonstick cookware.
The communities that are at the greatest risk of PFAS are communities of color as well as low-income families. It has been proven that Latino and Black communities commonly live in areas that have PFAS that are active in their drinking water. This is often the case with communities that live near airports are industrial work sites, as these are locations where it is common to have a huge use of products that contain high concentrations of PFAS.
A prolonged exposure to PFAS has been proven to cause many health issues, some examplesof this being childhood development issues as well as cancer. Many communities require testing of people who live in high-exposure areas.
While under the Biden administration, they launched a program known as the National PFAS Strategic Roadmap, which was launched in order to understand the impact of PFAS as well as invest in its cleanup. One part of this initiative was to create national water standards for drinking water, which included testing for PFAS chemicals in the water. Another part of this initiative was to take 2 billion dollars using the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in order to help address the issue of contamination in water systems in small and less fortunate communities.