PFAS/Forever Chems Increase Likelihood of Death by Cardiovasc Disease, More; Study, Toxic Water N. Italy
The Guardian, April 29, 2024. For the first time, researchers have formally shown that exposure to toxic PFAS increases the likelihood of death by cardiovascular disease, adding a new level of concern to the controversial chemicals’ wide use.
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The findings are especially significant because proving an association with death by chemical exposure is difficult, but researchers were able to establish it by reviewing death records from northern Italy’s Veneto region, where many residents for decades drank water highly contaminated with PFAS, also called “forever chemicals." Records further showed an increased likelihood of death from several cancers, but stopped short of establishing a formal association because of other factors.
“This is the first time that anyone has found strong evidence of an association of PFAS exposure and cardiovascular mortality,” said Annibale Biggeri, the peer-reviewed study’s lead author, and a researcher with the University of Padua. PFAS are a class of 15,000 chemicals used across dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. Though the compounds are highly effective, previous research has linked them to cancer, kidney disease, birth defects, decreased immunity, liver problems and a range of other serious diseases.
Veneto’s drinking water was widely contaminated by a PFAS-production plant between 1985 and 2018. Researchers first found an excess of about 4,000 deaths during this period, or nearly three every month. Part of the region was supplied with water from a different source, giving researchers the opportunity to compare records for tens of thousands of people who drank contaminated water and lived near those who did not.
Though PFAS can affect the cardiovascular system in different ways, it is largely a problem because it produces stubbornly high and dangerous levels of cholesterol.
The levels are difficult to control because they aren’t caused by dietary or lifestyle choices that can be addressed with adjustments, but hormonal changes that affect the metabolism and the body’s ability to control plaque in arteries. The study’s authors suspect that post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the environmental disaster, which upended lives across the region, may also be contributing to circulatory disease...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/29/pfas-death-cardiovascular-disease#:~:text=Veneto's%20drinking%20water%20was%20widely,or%20nearly%20three%20every%20month
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- The Moms Vs. The Multinational. When “forever chemicals” contaminated their water, Italian mothers got organized and took the polluters to court, Truthdig, Jan. 8, 2024. Ed.
VENETO, ITALY — In November of 2023, a group of 30 scientists from 11 countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France and confirmed the findings of a new study published in The Lancet Oncology: One type of the group of chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is cancerous to humans, and another is possibly cancerous. The findings came on the back of more than a decade of evidence of the potential harm PFAS pose to human health.
This didn’t arrive as news to Michela Piccoli, a nurse in Lonigo, a town in the Veneto region of northern Italy.
For nearly seven years, the mother of two has been researching PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” for their propensity to last indefinitely while accumulating in the tissue of humans, animals and, according to a new paper awaiting publication, crops. In February of 2017, she received a letter from the area’s public health institution, Local Social Health Unit no. 8, offering a free blood screening for her 15-year-old daughter. For decades until its closure in 2019, a company called Miteni Spa - co-owned at the time by Mistubishi & the Italian energy multinational, Eni - manufactured PFAS in the area. The tests were part of the surveillance program on populations affected by PFAS contamination & measured the level of PFAS in the blood of a sample of teens living in the Veneto region, including Lonigo.
*Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of synthetic chemicals composed of carbon & fluorine atoms that have been widely used in consumer products since the 1950s. Because the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the strongest, PFAS do not degrade easily in the environment. Used in such common products as nonstick pans, water-resistant clothing, shoes, packaging and cleaning supplies, PFAS have been linked to cancer, infertility, reduced immune response, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other health problems.
Piccoli had never heard of PFAS, but as a nurse she felt it important to contribute to the study. A month later, the results came back: PFAS levels in Piccoli’s daughter’s blood were 110 nanograms per milliliter, far above the National Institute of Health’s threshold of 8 nanograms. “I was stunned and confused,” she recalls. The letter urged calm, but as Piccoli started reaching out to friends in the area, she found she was far from alone in receiving equally alarming results...
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-moms-vs-the-multinational/
