EPA is accused of misreporting PFAS data

The US Environmental Protection Agency falsely reported last year that it did not detect per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in pesticides, according to a complaint by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a public health advocacy group. PEER claims that documents obtained from the EPA under the Freedom of Information Act show that the agency detected several PFAS in pesticides sent to it by an academic researcher and in pesticides the EPA purchased in early 2023. But in a May 2023 press release , the EPA states that it did not detect any PFAS in the pesticides. The EPA's analysis was prompted by research published in 2022 by scientists at Texas Tech University and the US Department of Agriculture ( J. Hazard. Mater. Lett. , DOI: 10.1016/j.hazl.2022.100067 ). The researchers reported finding perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) at low parts-per-million levels in 6 out of 10 pesticides used on a USDA research