(ORDO NEWS) — According to a study by American scientists, eating one trout caught in the rivers and lakes of the United States is equivalent to a month of drinking water contaminated with “eternal chemicals.”
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances ( PFAS) were developed in the 1940s and are still widely used in non-stick coatings, food packaging, and fire extinguisher foam.
However, they do not break down in the environment for a long time, accumulating in water, air and the bodies of living organisms, which puts them in the category of so-called eternal chemicals .
Accumulating in the bodies of people, PFAS lead to diseases of the thyroid gland, liver, kidneys, ulcerative colitis, reduced immunity, infertility and various types of cancer.
And, as American ecologists have found out, a person who has eaten one river fish can get a serious dose of these chemicals.
After collecting and analyzing more than 500 samples from US rivers and lakes from 2013 to 2015, conservationists found that, on average, freshwater fish contain about 9,500 nanograms of PFAS per kilogram of body weight.
In other words, the researchers calculate that eating one trout is equivalent to a month’s consumption of polluted water with a PFAS content of 48 parts per trillion (by the standards of the US Environmental Protection Agency, water with only 0.02 parts per trillion of PFAS is considered safe).
Interestingly, the level of PFAS in wild river fish was 248 times higher than in commercially farmed or marine fish.
Thus, people who decide to buy trout in the store risk less than those who spend the weekend fishing or are too poor to buy fish in the market.
The results of the study highlight the importance of introducing restrictions and even a complete ban on the production and use of PFAS.
But it is not yet known how much time will pass before dangerous chemicals are banned, and our planet is completely cleansed of them.
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