how pure is the laboratory material?

How do you study the effects of exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances, if present in anything?! To study the effects of a chemical, toxicologists typically expose animals to various doses of the chemical over a period of time so they can then study the dose versus effect relationship. Such toxicology studies often use several types of “blanks” for quality control. Blanks are experiments in which the test animal is not given a dose of any of the chemical being studied (a kind of placebo in human drug testing). In addition, researchers often examine the amount of the substance under study in a blank to also include it in the evaluation of the dose-versus-effect relationship. For example, if the research was done in water, they might get water from a pure site to use in the test and not add any chemical doses to it, but they would still analyze the water to detect trace amounts of the substance under study. . Researchers will also analyze the feed for the same reason.

One research group attempted to examine how the presence of PFAS in test animal feed, test materials, and animal subjects themselves could abort toxicological studies of the effects of PFAS and could lead to inaccurate results.

Matt Simick and co-authors sampled minnows raised in an aquaculture facility (used for toxicity testing), as well as various types of fish food: flakes, freeze-dried brine shrimp, freeze-dried bloodworms, and frozen brine shrimp, for PFAS . Fish and fish feed were found to contain PFAS at various levels. This study documents differences between food types, brands, and aquaculture practices, but ultimately recommends that all feeds and organisms should be tested for PFAS contamination before conducting baseline or translation experiments.