“We know PFOS is a carcinogen, we know it’s a deadly chemical and there’s no safe level in drinking water,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA official and science policy director at the non-profit organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). “Our soil and water are now contaminated.”
While the EPA has not set limits for PFAS in pesticides, in June 2022 they lowered their advisory health limit in drinking water to 0.02 parts per trillion (ppt), a level so low as to suggest that no amount of exposure to these compounds is safe. The Texas Tech researchers found much higher levels of these toxic chemicals in most of the pesticides they analyzed, with a particular insecticide sporting a level as high as 19m ppt.