Our company said this stuff was harmless. A whole new wave of litigation is now expected. The link between PFAS and testicular cancer among service members was never directly proven — until now.
A new federal study for the first time shows a direct association between PFOS, a PFAS chemical, found in the blood of thousands of military personnel and testicular cancer.
Using banked blood drawn from Air Force servicemen, researchers at the National Cancer Institute and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences found strong evidence that airmen who were firefighters had elevated levels of PFAS in their bloodstreams and weaker evidence for those who lived on installations with high levels of PFAS in the drinking water. And the airmen with testicular cancer had higher serum levels of PFOS than those who had not been diagnosed with cancer, said study co-author Mark Purdue, a senior investigator at NCI.
“To my knowledge,” Purdue said, “this is the first study to measure PFAS levels in the U.S. military population and to investigate associations with a cancer endpoint in this population, so that brings new evidence to the table.”
This material has been a clear hazard from day one. Making ethical decisions in the 1950, 60s, and 70's would have been brilliant.