We’ve all thought to ourselves that more time in the day would be great or if only we knew how to clone ourselves to get more accomplished in our daily routines. Unfortunately, we cannot alter time nor has science advanced in the area of cloning. Thankfully we now have shirts that will repel stains, popcorn that we can easily make in the microwave, non-stick cookware that won’t ruin that perfectly fried egg, and the ability to order food quickly and eat it in our car on the way to our next meeting in a stain-free shirt. These conveniences are possible through advances in chemical engineering. A product of such advancement is perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Which has over the past decade come to the forefront due to unintended consequences in detrimental health and environmental impacts. PFAS chemical and physical properties affect how they will behave in the environment and our bodies. To date there is a large variation in the properties of PFAS compounds that make it difficult to have a concrete understanding of exactly how they will behave coupled with the difficulty of being able to track and understand the over 4,600 PFAS compounds currently registered.
The exposure pathways of PFAS are not well understood and have not been presented collectively to provide context of where our greatest impacts are for humans on a daily basis. This work will highlight the current state of science revolving around all possible routes of human exposure. The goal of this work to provide information on our daily exposures relative to where efforts currently have been focused to manage PFAS.
