Scientists sound alarm at US regulator’s new ‘forever chemicals’ definition

‘There’s a real difference in the definition that industry uses and what the international scientific community uses.’ Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) department responsible for protecting the public from toxic substances is working under a new definition of PFAS “forever chemicals” that excludes some of their widely used compounds.

The new “working definition”, established by the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, is not only at odds with much of the scientific world, but is narrower than that used by other EPA departments.