Toxicity of perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoate

Persistent perfluorinated organic compounds, such as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) are used in a variety of industrial applications. They are very stable in the environment, distribute widely in the global environment and in wild life, and are detected in human sera. Our searches have detected ppt levels of PFOS and PFOA in the surface water of Japan and China; their levels are generally more than ten times higher in city areas. Neither PFOS nor PFOA is removed by the purification process of city water. Both PFOS and PFOA are detected in sera of all the people of Japan and China (about 1000 times as high as those in surface water), and their concentrations are increasing in both countries, especially in China. PFOS and PFOA primarily distribute to the liver and cause the liver toxicity. They also cause developmental toxicity. PFOS which is not genotoxic in a variety of assay system including our in vivo comet assay, induced tumors of the liver, thyroid and mammary gland of rats. PFOA which is weakly carcinogenic is not mutagenic in many studies including our in vivo comet assay.