Discussing Better Regulation on PFAS from the Perspective of Risk Research, Part 2

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate about how to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). There have been several recent national and international developments, including the publication of an assessment report by the Food Safety Commission and the classification of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as Group 1 and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as Group 2B as carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. At the same time, there have been numerous reports of PFOS and PFOA detected in surface water, groundwater and drinking water. Therefore, a special session entitled “Discussing better regulation on PFAS from the perspective of risk research, part 2” was held at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis Japan. Aiming to have a multifaceted discussion by sharing the initiatives of different actors, this special session included not only the initiatives of the national government and international organizations, but also the industry-academia-government collaboration and the initiatives of the local authorities. This paper presents the content of the presentations made by the speakers in the session and the general discussion.