People in North Yorkshire town found to have ‘alarming’ levels of toxic Pfas chemicals in blood

## Summary
Photograph: Rob Whitrow/Rob Whitrow/Ends Report View image in fullscreen Angus Fire, a factory in Bentham in North Yorkshire that legally produced Pfas-containing firefighting foam between 1976 and 2024. Photograph: Rob Whitrow/Rob Whitrow/Ends Report People in North Yorkshire town found to have ‘alarming’ levels of toxic Pfas chemicals in blood Exclusive: Testing in Bentham, home to UK’s highest recorded Pfas levels, finds one in four have blood levels in greatest risk category Alarming levels of toxic forever chemicals have been found in the blood of people living in a town previously revealed to be contaminated with the UK’s highest recorded level of Pfas. So that was really shocking, and quite staggering.” Dr Shubhi Sharma from the environmental charity Chem Trust said: “The Pfas levels in people’s blood in Bentham are alarming, especially given that these chemicals have been linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes including certain cancers.” An Angus Fire spokesperson said that there was “no accepted way of interpreting blood tests for Pfas internationally and there is limited agreement on the relationship between Pfas exposure, blood levels and health effects”. They added that the blood test group in Bentham was “extremely small” and said: “While we appreciate that these findings may cause concern, having raised Pfas levels in blood is neither an indicator of health, nor of the way in which Pfas has been absorbed.” View image in fullscreen An internal Environment Agency report in 2024 said ‘aerial dispersal’ from foam testing could expose residents to Pfas through ‘consumption of allotment produce and produce grown within private gardens’.

## Article Content
Angus Fire, a factory in Bentham in North Yorkshire that legally produced Pfas-containing firefighting foam between 1976 and 2024.
Photograph: Rob Whitrow/Rob Whitrow/Ends Report
View image in fullscreen
Angus Fire, a factory in Bentham in North Yorkshire that legally produced Pfas-containing firefighting foam between 1976 and 2024.
Photograph: Rob Whitrow/Rob Whitrow/Ends Report
People in North Yorkshire town found to have ‘alarming’ levels of toxic Pfas chemicals in blood
Exclusive: Testing in Bentham, home to UK’s highest recorded Pfas levels, finds one in four have blood levels in greatest risk category
Alarming levels of toxic forever chemicals have been found in the blood of people living in a town
previously revealed
to be contaminated with the UK’s highest recorded level of Pfas.
Pfas, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and commonly known as forever chemicals because of their persistence in the environment, have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including some cancers. They are used in a variety of consumer products but one of their most prolific uses is in firefighting foam.
In May 2024,
Ends Report
and
the Guardian
published an investigation revealing that groundwater in the small rural town of Bentham in North Yorkshire was contaminated with the highest level of Pfas ever known to be recorded in the UK. This was found on land belonging to Angus Fire, a factory that between 1976 and 2024 legally produced Pfas-containing firefighting foam.
Blood testing conducted as part of a new ITV documentary that will be broadcast on Sunday night, produced
in collaboration with Ends Report
, has revealed that residents and former workers at the factory have “alarming” levels of these chemicals in their blood.
The EU is working on a blanket ban of ‘forever chemicals’. Why isn’t Britain? | Pippa Neill
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In the UK, there are no guidelines indicating what constitutes a safe level of Pfas in blood. However in the US, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (Nasem) has said that if the sum of seven Pfas chemicals in blood is above 2 ng/ml, there is a potential for adverse health effects.
The highest Pfas level in blood recorded in Bentham was 405 ng/ml – more than 200 times greater than the US risk level of 2 ng/ml. This was recorded in the blood of a former worker at Angus Fire who has asked to remain anonymous.
If the Pfas level in the blood is above 20 ng/ml, then Nasem says there is an increased risk of adverse effects and that clinicians should consider more frequent, targeted health screenings.
Almost a quarter (23%) of the 39 people who underwent blood testing in Bentham had levels that place them in the highest risk category. Among them was 34-year-old Stephen Illston, who has a Pfas level of 55 ng/ml.
Illston has had trouble conceiving children. He said his infertility problems had led to poor mental health and years when he questioned his “usefulness on the earth”.
A growing body of research is revealing that Pfas are associated with reproductive health problems, including
lower sperm count
. Stephen said that finding out he had elevated Pfas in his blood was “an answer that I’ve been searching for”.
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“It’s good to hear it’s not me, maybe it’s the Pfas that’s caused it,” he said.
Dr David Megson, a forensic environmental scientist and Pfas expert at Manchester Metropolitan University who carried out an analysis of the blood results to compare them to Pfas levels in the US population, said he was “absolutely shocked” when he saw the Bentham data. He said the levels were “exceptionally high compared to a general [US] background population”.
“If it was just normal, we should have half the people above [and] half the people below average. [But] nearly everybody we tested was above average and two-thirds of them were in the top 5%. A third of them were higher than anything we’d ever expect to see in the background population. So that was really shocking, and quite staggering.”
Dr Shubhi Sharma from the environmental charity Chem Trust said: “The Pfas levels in people’s blood in Bentham are alarming, especially given that these chemicals have been linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes including certain cancers.”
An Angus Fire spokesperson said that there was “no accepted way of interpreting blood tests for Pfas internationally and there is limited agreement on the relationship between Pfas exposure, blood levels and health effects”.
They said it was “unfounded to classify [the] blood data as ‘unusually high’ in the UK context”. They added that the blood test group in Bentham was “extremely small” and said: “While we appreciate that these findings may cause concern, having raised Pfas levels in blood is neither an indicator of health, nor of the way in which Pfas has been absorbed.”
View image in fullscreen
An internal Environment Agency report in

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
N/A

### Areas for Consideration
- Photograph: Rob Whitrow/Rob Whitrow/Ends Report People in North Yorkshire town found to have ‘alarming’ levels of toxic Pfas chemicals in blood Exclusive: Testing in Bentham, home to UK’s highest recorded Pfas levels, finds one in four have blood levels in greatest risk category Alarming levels of toxic forever chemicals have been found in the blood of people living in a town previously revealed to be contaminated with the UK’s highest recorded level of Pfas.
- The highest Pfas level in blood recorded in Bentham was 405 ng/ml – more than 200 times greater than the US risk level of 2 ng/ml.
- If the Pfas level in the blood is above 20 ng/ml, then Nasem says there is an increased risk of adverse effects and that clinicians should consider more frequent, targeted health screenings.

### Implications
- In May 2024, Ends Report and the Guardian published an investigation revealing that groundwater in the small rural town of Bentham in North Yorkshire was contaminated with the highest level of Pfas ever known to be recorded in the UK.
- Blood testing conducted as part of a new ITV documentary that will be broadcast on Sunday night, produced in collaboration with Ends Report , has revealed that residents and former workers at the factory have “alarming” levels of these chemicals in their blood.
- If the Pfas level in the blood is above 20 ng/ml, then Nasem says there is an increased risk of adverse effects and that clinicians should consider more frequent, targeted health screenings.
- He said the levels were “exceptionally high compared to a general [US] background population”. “If it was just normal, we should have half the people above [and] half the people below average. [But] nearly everybody we tested was above average and two-thirds of them were in the top 5%.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers pfas, blood, bentham topics. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1500.