Silent Spring Institute awarded $1M to study health impacts of PFAS in drinking water

The Barnstable Patriot | September 26, 2019

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“Silent Spring Institute is the recipient of an initial $1 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to investigate the human health effects from exposure to PFAS contaminants in drinking water.

The study is one of seven projects being funded through ATSDR’s new health study on PFAS, involving multiple communities across the United States. The grant covers the first year of a five-year effort. The Silent Spring project will focus on two communities in Eastern Massachusetts—Hyannis and Ayer—where public drinking water supplies have been contaminated by PFAS from the use of firefighting foams at nearby fire training areas…

‘Despite the growing number of towns dealing with contamination, there have been few human health studies in communities that have been exposed to PFAS in drinking water,’ says co-principal investigator Laurel Schaider, PhD, an environmental chemist at Silent Spring Institute. ‘The ATSDR health study is the first to look at exposures at multiple sites across the country, allowing us to identify health effects that are hard to study by looking at each community separately’…

The team plans to collect blood samples from 1,000 adults and 300 children in Hyannis and Ayer. The researchers will analyze the samples for a range of known PFAS chemicals, biological markers of different health effects (including effects on the immune system, reproduction, cholesterol levels, and neurobehavioral effects in children), and previously unknown PFAS chemicals that the study participants may have been exposed to.

Because PFAS can pass through the placenta and be transferred to babies through breast milk, the researchers will also use modeling to estimate how much children are exposed to PFAS in the womb and through breastfeeding…

‘This is a pressing public health issue,’ says Laurie Nehring, president of PACE. ‘Communities across the country are discovering that their water is contaminated. They’re concerned and they want answers, so it’s important that we fully understand what the risks are so we can take steps to protect our health’…

‘We all have a right to safe drinking water,” says MBCC executive director Cheryl Osimo. “MBCC is grateful to be a part of this new national health study to ensure our children, grandchildren, and future generations have access to drinking water that is free of harmful pollutants.””

This content provided by the PFAS Project.