Great Lakes Study Finds 'Forever Chemicals' Climb the Food Chain and End up in People

Great Lakes study finds 'forever chemicals' climb the food chain and end up in people

Because PFAS — the so-called "forever chemicals" — persist for extensive periods, they can continue to move through the environment. New research from the Great Lakes shows they travel through entire food webs, accumulating from algae and other small organisms to top predators and ultimately reaching people through what they eat. What's happening? To trace that movement, researchers at the University of Notre Dame compiled over four decades of p…

New Research Traces How ‘Forever Chemicals’ Move Through the Great Lakes and Into People

The study used more than 40 years of data to map fluctuating PFAS levels across species in the region's food chain.

PFAS Levels Monitored in Great Lakes Sportfish Consumers in Milwaukee

A groundbreaking new study published on July 10, 2026, in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology reveals disturbing insights into the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in sportfish consumers from the Great Lakes region, specifically Milwaukee, Wisconsin. PFAS, often dubbed “forever chemicals” due to their persistence in the environment and human body, are causing increasing alarm globally for their ad…