Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 11/1/19

The agency on Thursday announced it has a "scientifically validated" method for testing 16 different types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in food — a significant step for FDA and state health and environmental authorities that are trying to determine how much Americans are exposed to the chemicals through their diet.

As part of this effort, the FDA in June released the preliminary results of PFAS testing in a limited sampling of foods, including from areas specifically affected by PFAS environmental contamination and the general food supply, via a routine program monitoring about 800 contaminants in the average U.S. diet. After applying the validated testing method to the initial results — which detected PFAS, in many cases at very low levels, in 14 out of 91 samples — the FDA said that's been revised to only two out of the 91 samples.

The new results: PFAS, after initially being detected in a range of foods, was only present in ground turkey and tilapia. It was also detected in milk and produce from areas with known environmental contamination; the milk was discarded and didn't enter the food supply, while the agency determined the concentrations in produce were so low they weren't a human health concern.

Curious case of chocolate cake: The preliminary testing also showed extremely high levels of PFAS in chocolate cake. However, FDA determined that "chocolate appears to produce false positives." To avoid this, the new validated testing includes an additional step to confirm measurements.

There are nearly 5,000 types of PFAS , which since the 1940s have been used in everything from Teflon cookware to food packaging. PFAS have been dubbed "forever chemicals" because they can take thousands of years to degrade. They're found in about 99.8 percent of Americans' blood, and several of the most well-studied are linked to kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease and other ailments.