Statement from Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless, M.D., and Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas on FDA’s scientific work to understand per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food, and findings from recent FDA surveys

Statement from Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless, M.D., and Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas on FDA’s scientific work to understand per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in food, and findings from recent FDA surveys

At the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, increasing our scientific knowledge and capabilities is a cornerstone to ensuring the safety of the foods that Americans consume. We do this by reviewing all available scientific evidence to determine the safety of foods and food packaging and conducting our own research to fill in gaps in the science. As part of these efforts, the FDA has been working to develop new methods to quantify certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in foods. We have employed these new methods to test samples of foods Americans typically consume for certain types of PFAS, and today we are making available recently analyzed data from these initial testing initiatives. Overall, our findings did not detect PFAS in the vast majority of the foods tested. In addition, based on the best available current science, the FDA does not have any indication that these substances are a human health concern, in other words a food safety risk in human food, at the levels found in this limited sampling. These data give our scientists a benchmark to ...

Read More