00:00PFAS are persistent chemicals, man-made chemicals that have been used for decades now and these
00:10are very persistent chemicals.
00:11They stay in the environment for a long time and yeah, they have been found to affect human
00:20health once they have reached our bodies.
00:22And so with regard to your study in particular, what did you find in terms of to what extent
00:30can PFAS chemicals be absorbed through human skin?
00:36So we, like you said, we investigated 17 PFAS and out of these 17 we found that 8 of them
00:42were directly absorbed so they were able to penetrate through our skin and enter the bloodstream.
00:48And it was, we saw up to 58% of the dose we applied on top of the skin was permeated.
00:56So it was quite a big, big dose, but this is, was different for the different PFAS we
01:01were investigating.
01:03So the, but the biggest permeation was 58% and then it decreased for the other compounds
01:09and some of them were not absorbed directly, but we did find them within the skin after,
01:14at the end of our exposure.
01:16So still some of them are, even though they weren't permeating all the way through, they
01:21were still able to enter into the skin.
01:24Yeah. And so talking about exposure there, how long does it take for the absorption to
01:30start?
01:31For example, how long does makeup have to be on before it starts happening or how long
01:37do you have to have clothes on for that absorption to start?
01:43So this again, really changed this dependent on which compound it is for the, we were looking
01:50at different chain lengths, carbon chain length of PFAS and for the shorter chain ones,
01:56we saw the permeation happened after just a few minutes or like less than an hour, while
02:02for other, it took up to six hours or seven hours to permeate.
02:07So, but that was for the compounds that reached the bloodstream.
02:11So I cannot say for the compounds how long it takes just to enter the skin, but to reach
02:16the bloodstream, it was from a few minutes up to six hours.
02:21And were you able to tell how much of the PFAS was absorbed within those periods of time?
02:34Yes, we, there we have like a, yes, we were able to see like how the exposure happened.
02:43We saw like a curve just start slowly and then it starts happening more quickly after
02:48after some while, and then it kind of slows down back again.
02:51Yeah.
02:52So I'm not sure if you want to go to this question next, because it's kind of extending
02:57beyond your study, but how dangerous could this be for people's health, potentially?
03:06So yeah, like you've mentioned, this is a bit outside of my, my study, but these chemicals
03:12at least four of these chemicals, which we included are being regulated.
03:17For example, the European Union's EPSA, the Food Safety Authority has recommended a weekly
03:25intakes of these chemicals because of their potential health effects.
03:29They can, for example, lower our immune system response after vaccination.
03:35So these are chemicals we need to investigate further and be aware of.
03:40And after reading stories about your report, it would be natural for people to think, okay,
03:46well, I'm going to start looking at the products I'm using to see what they include.
03:53Is it easy for people to avoid products with PFAS if they look through label information?
04:00Are they included in labels?
04:03They should be labeled.
04:04Yes, they should be included in the labels.
04:07There are even already some brands that advertise themselves as being completely PFAS free.
04:14So if you, you should be able to trust that they, they are, you would need to read through
04:19those labels.
04:20But if, if they're, they are adding PFAS, it should be labeled.
04:24Yes.
04:25Yeah.
04:26And do you, do you make yourself, do you look through those labels yourself?
04:32I have started to, yes.
04:34I look through the labels more now.
04:37I might start doing that too.
04:39Okay.
04:40Odney Ragnus dot art.
04:41Thanks so much for talking to us from Birmingham.
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