FDA food sampling finds contamination by ‘forever chemicals’

June 8, 2019 at 5:05 a.m. | Updated June 8, 2019 at 5:05 a.m.

FILE - This Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, file photo shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration building behind FDA logos at a bus stop on the agency's campus in Silver Spring, Md. The Food and Drug Administration’s first broad testing of food for a worrisome class of nonstick, stain-resistant industrial compounds found high levels in some grocery store meats and seafood and in off-the-shelf chocolate cake, according to unreleased findings FDA researchers presented at a scientific conference in Europe. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - This Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018, file photo shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration building behind FDA logos at a bus stop on the agency's campus in Silver Spring, Md. The Food and Drug Administration’s first broad testing of food for a worrisome class of nonstick, stain-resistant industrial compounds found high levels in some grocery store meats and seafood and in off-the-shelf chocolate cake, according to unreleased findings FDA researchers presented at a scientific conference in Europe. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Food and Drug Administration sampling has found nonstick compounds called “forever chemicals” in some foods.

The FDA presented the unreleased results at a science conference in Finland two weeks ago. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group obtained the results and provided them to the Associated Press.

The findings came from a 2017 sampling of shopping basket goods for manmade compounds called PFAS, which are used in firefighting foam and in nonstick and stain-resistant products and are predicted to take thousands of years to degrade.

Federal toxicologists said some PFAS compounds pose a higher health risk than previously thought. Many states are demanding federal regulation.

FDA sampling shows PFAS in some meat and fish at levels well above federal recommendations for water. The agency said it didn’t consider that a likely threat.

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