Phil Brown

Phil Brown, the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek that the “most alarming” aspect of this proposed rule is the exemption from reporting for imported products.

To reduce the PFAS contamination around military bases, the Department of Defense can replace AFFF with “safer, non-fluorinated” foams, Phil Brown, the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.

“I am very concerned, as are all the scientists and affected residents whom my colleagues and I speak with all the time,” Phil Brown, the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.

Features research on PFAS chemicals by Phil Brown.

“We already know that PFAS are associated with preterm birth, low birth weight, reproductive toxicity, preeclampsia, decreased fertility, and single occurrence of miscarriage,” Phil Brown, a professor of sociology and health sciences and the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.

In the U.S. only Michigan has a maximum contaminant level for PFHxA, specific to drinking water contamination, while several other states “have advisory or notification levels, or cleanup levels in groundwater, soil or fish tissue,” Phil Brown, the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.

There are many sources of human PFAS exposure, including through “manufacturing, wastewater treatment, sludge application to land, firefighting foam, building products, personal care products, and dietary sources,” Phil Brown, the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University, told Newsweek.

“It is really one of the broadest categories of chemical ever used, so that does make it very exceptional,” said Phil Brown, an environmental sociologist at Northeastern University in Boston who has studied the chemicals.