PFAS BLOOD TEST FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT SHOWS: PFAS POLLUTION DOES NOT STOP AT THE SCHELDE

09.05.2022 | Press release Fundamental right to blood testing:

PFAS BLOOD TEST FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT SHOWS: PFAS POLLUTION DOES NOT STOP AT THE SCHELDE

Antwerp, 09.05.2022

---

Grondrecht, the citizen collective started in response to the PFOS problem in Antwerp and Zwijndrecht, has had PFAS in the blood of 30 people tested. The research was conducted at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam under the leadership of Prof. Jacob de Boer.

13 of the 25 participants (52%) from Greater Antwerp have values above the EFSA2020 standard.

25 of the 30 participants live in Greater Antwerp (postcodes 2050, 2070, 2140, 2060, 2000, 2018, 2600, 2650 and 2170), 2 participants live in Boom, 1 in Ghent, 1 in Mechelen and 1 in Moerbeke-Waas. The people from Ghent and Moerbeke-Waas both spent their youth in Zwijndrecht and Melsele.

• This time the participants come from Zwijndrecht (2) but also from Antwerp (8), Linkeroever (4), Antwerp-Noord (4), Borgerhout (4), Edegem (1), Merksem (1), and Berchem (1), Boom (2) and Mechelen (1). Two additional samples are from two people who spent their youth in Zwijndrecht and Melsele, they now live outside the 5 km perimeter.
• HBM-I and -II: 19/30 (63%) samples exceed the HBM-I value, 1 person even exceeds the HBM-II standard.
• Two people living about eight kilometres from 3M have levels of 11 and 13 µg/L. Nine others living between four and eight kilometres away also have levels that are too high. Five of them are between 10 and 17 µg/L.
• The person who grew up in Zwijndrecht has 13.9 µg/L PFAS in the blood, while the woman who spent her youth in Melsele has 37.9 µg/L or 5.5 times the EFSA standard.
• 2 former residents from Zwijndrecht and Melsele far exceed the standard, with values of 13.09 µg/L and 37.90 µg/L respectively.
• 2 residents from Boom, who live next to the Rupel, significantly exceed the standard, with values of 27.60 µg/L and 36.10 µg/L respectively.
• 13 of the 25 participants (52%) from Greater Antwerp have values above the EFSA2020 standard.
• 14 of the 25 participants (56%) from Greater Antwerp have values above the HBM-I values.
• A mother and her seven-year-old child are both above the EFSA2020 standard, it is worrying that her daughter has higher/worse values than her mother.
• It is striking that this group consumes fewer eggs and vegetables from their own garden, but their values are still too high, above the EFSA2020 threshold value and the HBM-I standard. Contamination does not only occur via consumption from your own garden. Air emissions and precipitation can be the cause of this.

“These results confirm what we have suspected for some time: that PFAS intoxication does not stop at the Scheldt,” says Eva Frooninckx, spokesperson for Grondrecht. “Consequently, the government must also take measures on the right bank to monitor and limit the impact of PFAS poisoning.” 

Fundamental rights therefore require, among other things, that:

• People in Greater Antwerp should be able to be tested.
• Former residents from the Zwijndrecht Region and residents from other PFAS hotspots must be able to be tested. “This research shows that people on the Right Bank are also exposed to PFAS to a great extent,” says Frooninckx of the citizen collective Grondrecht.
• The current Large-Scale Blood Survey (perimeter 5km around 3M) organized by the Flemish Government must be supplemented with a epidemiological research, so that research can be done on causal links between pollution and health effects. Such connections can only be established if enough people participate. “We are receiving a striking number of reports from people with thyroid problems or who have high cholesterol,” says Eva Frooninckx, “Let us finally start working on a substantiated health study and this can only happen if the government conducts an ambitious campaign around large-scale blood testing and is committed to ensuring that as many people as possible get tested,” Frooninckx continues. “That also makes it much easier to have 3M pay for medical costs resulting from PFAS poisoning.”
• Not only the gardens of Zwijndrecht, but also those of the wider area must be measured for PFAS. “It cannot be the intention that citizens themselves have to pay thousands of euros for a soil survey of their own garden to find out whether it is still safe for their children to play in,” says Frooninckx. “The government must facilitate this and recover the costs from 3M.”
• 3M must communicate transparently about the PFAS contamination that has occurred in the past via soil, water and air, and about the emission or discharge of PFAS that is still taking place.

---