"Last week, on the morning the government published its Pfas action plan, I got a worried phone call from a woman called Sam who lives next door to a chemical factory in Lancashire. Sam had just been hand-delivered a letter from her local council informing her that after testing, it had been confirmed that her ducks' eggs, reared in her garden in Thornton-Cleveleys, near Blackpool, are contaminated with Pfas."
"Some, including those found in the eggs Sam and her family have been eating, have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including certain cancers. The levels recorded in one of the eggs was so high that if Sam ate just one a week, it would exceed the European safe weekly level for Pfas exposure 10 times over."
"Sam stopped eating the eggs about a year ago, when the local council started investigating the factory at the end of her garden due to concerns around the historic airborne emissions of PFOA, a banned and carcinogenic type of Pfas chemical. But before this, Sam believed she was making healthy choices, growing her own vegetables and rearing her own ducks, aiming to teach her children where their food comes from."
Residents living next to a chemical factory in Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire had duck eggs confirmed to contain PFAS. Some PFAS are linked to serious illnesses including certain cancers. One egg contained PFAS at levels that would exceed the European safe weekly exposure limit tenfold if consumed once per week. A household consumed these eggs daily for decades before stopping about a year ago when the local council began investigating historic airborne emissions of PFOA from the nearby factory. PFOA is a banned, carcinogenic PFAS. The affected resident reports fear of using her garden and concern about PFAS in her blood.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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