The European Food Safety Authority has significantly lowered the guideline value for TFA. This could have a serious impact on agriculture.
Whether in drinking water, in food or even in the human body: trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) can now be detected throughout Switzerland. TFA is an extremely long-lasting PFAS compound. It arises, among other things, from the breakdown of certain pesticides and fluorinated refrigerants. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) set a health benchmark for TFA for the first time in 2017.
Now she is sharpening her assessment significantly. It lowers the health guideline value from 0.05 to 0.014 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day. This corresponds to a reduction of around 72 percent, according to a recently published research report by the EFSA.
The reason for the reassessment of 170 studies and position papers was numerous new scientific data that had been available since the first assessment in 2017. These included new animal studies that provided evidence of effects of trifluoroacetic acid on development, reproduction and, in particular, thyroid hormones.