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The substances are used in everyday products like food packaging and have been linked to health issues including cancer, fertility problems and liver damage.
There are more than 12,00 different per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) which are known as forever chemicals because they persist in the environment for decades and have been detected in soils, plants, nectar, pollen and the atmosphere.
Their links to health concerns have led to tighter restrictions on many PFAS but while this appears to be working, newer PFAS are taking their place, according to the new study.
To see if the restrictions are working, scientists led by the James Hutton Institute in Scotland and Germany’s University of Graz analysed roe deer livers over a 25-year timespan.
They tested for a range of PFAS, including both regulated and unregulated compounds.
However, although total PFAS levels fell sharply from 1998 to 2022, some of the newer replacement chemicals increased over the same period.
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One example is PFNA – a type of PFAS used in the production of non‑stick coatings and water‑repellent treatments for fabrics. This has faced fewer restrictions than older compounds. Its concentration doubled during the study period, rising from three nanograms per gram to six nanograms per gram.
Its rise illustrates a pattern of “regrettable substitution” identified by the researchers, where industry shifts toward alternative PFAS as other chemicals are phased out.
Dr Viktoria Mueller, a researcher at the Hutton and one of the study’s lead authors, said: “Our findings suggest that focusing on just a few PFAS doesn’t solve the problem. When some are restricted, they are replaced by others, leading to ongoing contamination.”
The deer livers analysed were collected from Bavarian Forest National Park between 1998 to 2022.
“These biomonitoring studies on animals from remote places show that PFAS are transported over vast distance through the atmosphere,” said Professor Joerg Feldmann, from the University of Graz.
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“Possible sources of atmospheric PFAS are PFAS production sites, hence we would urge the European and the UK policymakers to include polymers in a PFAS ban.”
The restrictions that are in place are having a marked effect, the research found.
The total concentration of PFAS in the livers decreased by more than 87% between 1998 and 2022, dropping from 64 nanograms per gram to eight nanograms per gram.
PFOS (a type of PFAS that was once widely used in products like stain‑resistant coatings and firefighting foams but is now heavily restricted in the EU) showed the biggest decline. Its levels fell by over 98% and have stayed low since 2018. Between 1998 and 2003 alone,
PFOS concentrations declined by 67%, reflecting the impact of voluntary industry-phase outs in the early 2000s.
