Australian food standards must be reviewed to limit the intake of dangerous “forever chemicals”, and subsidised blood tests and cancer screenings should be made available to the public, a Senate inquiry has recommended.

The inquiry into per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, also known as PFAS, called for a national biomonitoring program to measure chemical exposure, with a particular focus on assessing the health effects of PFAS on children and pregnant women over time.

“The science is clear: PFAS are toxic and linked to immune, reproductive and cancer risks,” said Senator Lidia Thorpe, the chair of the cross-party Senate committee.

“People are getting sick but the problem is still being minimised – that has to stop. These chemicals are the asbestos of the 21st century.”

The inquiry was launched in 2024, following months of reporting by this masthead that established that PFAS chemicals were circulating in Australian drinking water at potentially unsafe levels and being used in hundreds of household products.

Synthetic PFAS chemicals are sometimes known as “forever chemicals” because they are extremely long-lasting and near-ubiquitous in the environment.

Most Australians carry some forms of PFAS in their bloodstreams, according to testing done as part of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ National Health Measures Survey between 2022 and 2025.

The World Health Organisation has classified some PFAS chemicals as carcinogenic to humans, and recommended minimising exposure.

The report, released on Wednesday afternoon, made 47 recommendations to the federal government.

It recommended that Food Standards Australia and New Zealand review “tolerable daily intakes” for PFAS against the latest international research and present a report to federal parliament by October, and consider regulatory limits for PFAS in food.

Blood testing to measure PFAS levels, enhanced health and cancer screening and mental health support should be offered to people at high risk of exposure, including some firefighters, people exposed at work and residents of contaminated areas, the report said.

It said a national chemicals biomedical monitoring program should be considered, similar to programs already established in the US, parts of Europe, Japan and Korea, to measure Australians’ long-term exposure to chemicals.

The report also called for a national fund and taskforce to remediate contaminated sites, the development of safer work procedures to minimise on-the-job exposure to the chemicals and rules to classify PFAS as “dangerous goods” when transported.

It also urged the federal government to establish a national PFAS environmental monitoring program to track contamination in ecosystems and waterways.

The inquiry received 148 submissions and held seven public hearings, including with elders of the Wreck Bay community – an Aboriginal village near Jervis Bay on the NSW South Coast.

Wreck Bay was contaminated by PFAS-rich firefighting foam used on a nearby military base and has seen disproportionate numbers of early deaths and illnesses among its population.

The federal government is still considering the findings of an interim report produced by the inquiry in March.

A dissenting report endorsed by the two Labor senators on the inquiry committee – deputy chair Varun Ghosh and Senator Ellie Whiteaker, both from Western Australia – broadly supported many of the recommendations but differed on some key points.

It acknowledged “a growing body of research, literature and evidence regarding potential health risks associated with PFAS exposure” but said the evidence did not support the need for blood tests.

“A causative relationship between health effects and PFAS exposure has not been definitively established to date,” the dissenting report said.

The government was warned of the potential dangers of PFAS as far back as 1981, and manufacturers covered up their presence in human blood and buried warnings from scientists about their carcinogenic potential.

PFAS chemicals were formerly the key ingredient in a suite of industrial products manufactured by Wall Street giant 3M, including popular fabric protector Scotchgard and firefighting foam it supplied to the military.

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