- Type
- Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance
- How serious
- High severity
- Evidence
- Strong evidence
Why it is flagged
Restricted under the Stockholm Convention. Human studies associate exposure with altered thyroid hormone levels, and it persists in the body for years. For PCOS the evidence is emerging: higher blood PFOS went with higher odds of PCOS in a US fertility-clinic cohort, and PCOS was diagnosed about twice as often among women in a Swedish town whose drinking water was contaminated with PFOS.
Health topics it bears on
Sources
- Objective for Canadian drinking water quality – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances Health Canada, 2024
- Guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality: guideline technical document – perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) Health Canada, 2018
- Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances exposure is associated with polycystic ovary syndrome risk among women attending a fertility clinic Science of the Total Environment (Zhang et al.), 2024
- Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water and risk for polycystic ovarian syndrome, uterine leiomyoma, and endometriosis: A Swedish cohort study Environment International (Hammarstrand et al.), 2021
- Risk to human health related to the presence of perfluoroalkyl substances in food European Food Safety Authority, 2020
Also listed as
pfos, perfluorooctane sulfonate, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid