PFAS: Understanding, Prioritising, Acting — The Landmark Work of Anses 📑🔬

For the first time, Anses has compiled an unprecedented dataset of 2 million entries covering 142 PFAS across all media in France: environment, food, consumer products and human biomonitoring.

👉 Key Findings

📍 Data on PFAS contamination remains highly heterogeneous. Air, dust and soil are still poorly documented, mainly due to the absence of dedicated monitoring programmes.
📍 To guide the expansion of surveillance, Anses developed a PFAS categorisation method. Newly collected toxicity data allowed the identification of 105 additional PFAS.
📍 In total, 247 PFAS, including TFA, have now been integrated into the national monitoring strategy.

📊 Three Monitoring Strategies Proposed by Anses

▪︎ Long‑term surveillance: targeting the most concerning and recurrent PFAS.
▪︎ Exploratory surveillance: ad‑hoc campaigns for rarely or never‑monitored substances.
▪︎ Localised surveillance: focused on confirmed or suspected local sources.

⚠️ Practical Recommendations from Anses

▪︎ Investigate specific sources (materials in contact with food or water, building materials, consumer products) to assess PFAS release potential.
▪︎ Establish a national system to regularly update the PFAS categorisation as new data emerges.
▪︎ Develop a global monitoring approach for chemical contaminants: dioxins, PCBs, PAHs, heavy metals, etc.
▪︎ Act at the source to limit emissions of this large family of persistent substances.

🔗 Source: Anses