Implications of PFAS definitions using fluorinated pharmaceuticals

By Emily Hammel, Thomas F. Webster, Rich Gurney, and Wendy Heiger-Bernays
iScience
March 16, 2022
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104020

There are 9,000+ per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in existence, which makes studying and regulating PFAS individually, or even as small mixtures, infeasible. Multiple PFAS definitions based on structure have been proposed, yet these definitions do not consider the implications for the full suite of organofluorine chemicals. For example, organofluorine pharmaceuticals, whose use may be essential and are found in human serum and wastewater, are not uniformly identified across all definitions. Using nine definitions prepared by various stakeholders, we screened the 360 organofluorine pharmaceuticals approved and used globally between 1954 and 2021. Definitions ranged in their inclusion of organofluorine pharmaceuticals (1%–100%). The most inclusive definitions include several top prescribed pharmaceuticals, e.g., Prozac and Lipitor. This analysis provides a framework against which organizations can make decisions about how best to proceed when defining PFAS.

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