Advice on PFOA and GenX in food

The Office for Risk Assessment & Research (BuRO) advices the Minister of Healthcare and Sports and the Head of Agency of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) to initiate additional toxicological research to investigate the risk caused by exposure to (mixtures of) PFAS substances and to monitor the presence of PFAS in food of animal origin to allow assessment of the potential exposure of humans. Additionally, BuRO advices the Head of Agency to inform the municipality of Helmond that increased health risk should not be excluded after regular consumption of fish from the specific fishing pond in the close vicinity of the factory of Custom Powders.

BuRO investigated in a pilot study in 2018 the presence of PFOA and GenX in feed and food. The sites of the companies DuPont/Chemours in Dordrecht and Custom Powders in Helmond are two ‘hot spots’ related to PFOA and GenX emissions. BuRO requested the directorate Enforcement of the NVWA to collect egg, milk, cheese, yoghurt and silage samples at farms in the vicinity of DuPont/Chemours in Dordrecht and Custom Powders in Helmond. Subsequently, the directorate Enforcement was requested to collect fish samples at a fishing pond in the close vicinity of the site of Custom Powders in Helmond.

Both the TDI’s for PFOA and the TDI for GenX are not exceeded after the consumption of cow’s milk, meat (cow/sheep), cheese, yoghurt, egg and eel by children and adults. The consumption of these products does not pose a risk for human health. The exposure to PFOA via the consumption of sheep’s milk and carp by children and adults exceeds the provisional EFSA-TDI (0.8 ng/kg body weight per day) for PFOA, indicating a possible risk for human health.