The following is the statement of Activist and Actor Mark Ruffalo on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new PFAS health advisories:
Today’s announcement by the EPA that PFAS are toxic at very low levels confirms what community leaders have been saying for decades – that these toxic forever chemicals have no place in our drinking water or our homes.
Today’s announcement will bring no comfort to the people who have been poisoned for decades without their knowledge or their consent. Until the EPA sets enforceable limits on PFAS in their drinking water, turns off the tap of industrial PFAS pollution in their communities, and ends the use of PFAS in their household products, today’s announcement will simply be a reminder that PFAS polluters have escaped accountability for decades.
Although we should all be pleased that the EPA is following the science, it's too soon to tell whether the agency will fulfill the president’s pledge to protect us from toxic PFAS by holding polluters accountable for this contamination crisis. I urge the president to fulfill his promise to quickly set a PFAS drinking water standard, to accelerate EPA’s efforts to reduce industrial releases of PFAS, to ensure that federal agencies avoid buying products made with PFAS, and to direct the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration to end the use of PFAS in everyday products like cosmetics and carpets.
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