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By Jess Thomson
Science Reporter
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As many as 7 percent of Americans may be exposed to "forever chemicals" in their drinking water because of wastewater treatment alone.
Forever chemicals—formally known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—may not be removed effectively from wastewater in processing plants, according to a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and end up being consumed by 23 million people across the U.S.
The study also found that 75 percent of these organic fluorine compounds in wastewater are made up of prescription drugs, which are also 62 percent of the organic fluorine compounds in treated water made available to the public.
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"We've been focused on a small subset of these chemicals, but that's just the tip of the iceberg," study co-author Bridger Ruyle, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at New York University, said in a statement.
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"The research shows that even advanced wastewater treatment removes less than 25 percent of these compounds before they're discharged into rivers and streams," Ruyle said.
PFAS are a group of human-made chemicals that have been widely used in various industrial and consumer products since the 1940s. Numbering as many as 15,000, they are often referred to as "forever chemicals" because they are highly persistent in the environment and the human body, meaning they don't break down easily over time.
"PFAS are chemicals that have been produced since the 1940s and are used in a variety of industry and consumer products, including nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabric and firefighting foam. The first PFAS chemicals that were produced were PFOA and PFOS," Maaike van Gerwen told Newsweek. She is the research director for the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
About 20 percent of all U.S. tap water contained some PFAS chemicals, with New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania having the highest levels, a 2023 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found.
PFAS exposure has been linked to a range of health problems, including increased cancer risks, disruptions to hormone regulation and impairment of immune system function.
On April 10, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that six PFAS were to be regulated in drinking water according to the EPA's National Primary Drinking Water Regulations.
"EPA established legally enforceable levels, called Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs), for six PFAS in drinking water: PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA as contaminants with individual MCLs, and PFAS mixtures containing at least two or more of PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and PFBS," the EPA said.
The researchers studied the wastewater in eight large wastewater treatment facilities across the U.S., which are similar in size and treatment technology to those that serve 70 percent of the country.
However, they found that the six EPA-regulated PFAS make up only about 8 percent of all the organic fluorine found in wastewater, meaning that the majority of PFAS in our water is not being regulated.
"Most (62 to 75 percent) of the [extractable organofluorine] consisted of commonly prescribed fluorinated pharmaceuticals, and the maximum [extractable organofluorine] removal efficiency was <25 percent," the researchers wrote in the paper.
The researchers said that because of the movement of wastewater in U.S. waterways, 15 million people across the U.S. may receive PFAS in their drinking water above regulated levels, which may increase to 23 million people in drought conditions.
"What's particularly troubling is that these fluorinated pharmaceuticals are designed to be biologically active at very low doses," said Ruyle. "We don't yet understand the public health implications of long-term exposure to these compounds through drinking water."
These results show that we need to crack down on a range of PFAS sources and improve our methods of removing the forever chemicals from our wastewater. The researchers said that fluorinated pharmaceuticals should also be subject to regulation.
They wrote: "We can't just focus on the handful of compounds we've studied extensively while ignoring the majority of what's actually out there. We need a more comprehensive approach to regulation and increased attention to the ecological and public health impacts of fluorinated pharmaceuticals."
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about PFAS? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
Reference
B.J. Ruyle, E.H. Pennoyer, S. Vojta, J. Becanova, M. Islam, T.F. Webster, W. Heiger-Bernays, R. Lohmann, P. Westerhoff, C.E. Schaefer, E.M. Sunderland, High organofluorine concentrations in municipal wastewater affect downstream drinking water supplies for millions of Americans, PNAS (2025). 122 (3) e2417156122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2417156122.
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