Sarah Simon, the 49-year-old manager of tourist company Panoramic Jersey, has lived near the island’s airport all her life, close to the fire training ground.

In the mid-Nineties it was discovered that foam used for fire training at the airport, packed with chemicals called PFAS, had leaked into the surrounding environment, soaking into the soil and over time, finding their way into a local private bore.

This affected hundreds of residents’ drinking water.

PFAS have been linked to a range of health problems, including reduced immunity, raised cholesterol, thyroid problems, and even certain cancers.

After the bore water was finally tested in 2004, the residents affected were moved on to mains water – but it took another 16 years until the Jersey government offered free blood tests to residents living or working near the airport, who had consumed the borehole water and who showed symptoms linked to PFAS exposure.

Some were found to have levels linked to health problems.

One of those residents was Sarah Simon. She is convinced that PFAS have caused her various health problems. ‘As we were washing in these chemicals, my eczema was horrendous throughout my late teens and for most of my 20s,’ she told Good Health.

‘I was then diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder vitiligo [which causes loss of pigment in the skin] when I was 26.’ She was also found to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by the accumulation of PFAS in her liver, she believes.

Sarah has since interviewed ‘every person on my road’ about their health. ‘I can prove that nearly every male had or still has kidney stones, nearly every female has thyroid issues.’ It’s thought both can be linked to PFAS exposure.

She adds: ‘There have been deaths from kidney cancer, one person was recently diagnosed with testicular cancer, two people with throat cancer, and there are countless cases of breast cancer.’

Other islanders affected by PFAS pollution have complained of ill health in generations of their families.

Graeme Farmer, 57, an arable farmer with land close to the airport – and part of the first group of residents tested – has said that drinking the polluted water caused his blood cancer six years ago. His brother developed mouth cancer at the same time and his father had kidney cancer and bladder cancer, which the family also blame on the pollutants.

‘Jersey is known as Cancer Island by hospital staff in Southampton [where some patients are treated],’ claims Sarah. ‘Coincidence?’

Latest Jersey government data shows that incidence rates are roughly 10 to 20 per cent higher there than in England for breast, skin, and head and neck cancers.

‘Kawasaki disease [which causes inflammation in the blood vessels throughout the body] is super rare, yet a rheumatologist I spoke to said she knows of four people (at least) diagnosed with this type of rare autoimmune disorder here in Jersey,’ says Sarah.

PFAS – or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are a group of over 10,000 man-made chemicals widely used in everyday products, from non-stick frying pans to waterproof mascara.

Known as ‘forever chemicals,’ they don’t break down naturally, and can persist in the environment and human bodies for years, if not decades.

The two most commonly found in humans are PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonates) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acids).

Government research in the US and Europe has shown that PFAS have been detected in the blood of more than 98 per cent of people. The sources of these PFAS include household products. But generally the main ways they get into our body will be via drinking water and foods, say experts.

PFAS have been linked in dozens of studies over the years to serious health concerns – a 2023 study in Science of the Total Environment, for instance, found that higher PFAS levels in men’s semen were linked to poorer sperm quality, affecting fertility.

In the same year a study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives linked PFAS exposure to higher risks of kidney and testicular cancer.

But now the Jersey government is proposing an unusual solution to the potential risks.

Earlier this year, public health doctors from the PFAS Independent Scientific Advisory Panel, set up by the Jersey government in 2023, recommended that the residents who’d been officially tested be offered bloodletting (to be carried out by doctors from Health and Care Jersey, the island’s NHS).

The centuries-old medical practice is seen as an effective way to help remove the chemicals as the chemicals bind to proteins in the blood. Similar to standard blood donation, it involves removing about a pint of blood via the arm. (Those affected would in theory undergo repeated sessions.)

The panel also recommended a medication called colesevelam, a cholesterol-lowering drug shown to bind to PFAS in the gut and stop the body reabsorbing them. It’s thought the Jersey government will approve the recommendations in September.

As Dr Steve Hajioff, chair of the panel, told Good Health: ‘We can’t be sure that removing PFAS from the body will reduce the chance of that person getting ill, however, or will reverse existing illnesses.

‘But we do know that if it is removed from a woman’s body before she becomes pregnant, she will pass much less of it on to her future children and so they should have less risk of being made ill by PFAS in the future.’

All this has not come soon enough for Sarah Simon. She says families in the area were left drinking contaminated water in the area for decades.

‘The government of Jersey first knew PFAS were in ground water in 1993. However, the water near the airport fire ground was not tested for PFAs until 2004.’

The pollution of water sources by ‘forever’ chemicals isn’t isolated to Jersey and there are growing concerns that too little is being done in the UK to protect residents.

A shocking analysis published two weeks ago by the Environmental Agency reveals that virtually every English river, lake and pond tested for PFAS is breaching proposed new safety limits, with 85 per cent exceeding them by at least five times.

The Environment Agency tests on 117 water bodies found that 110 would fail to meet the EU’s proposed maximum limit.

The problem isn’t confined to water. PFOS were also detected in freshwater fish at levels an average of 322 times higher than the limit set to protect wildlife.

Alarmingly, experts warn that just one portion of such fish per month could push human consumers beyond the annual safe intake of PFOS.

A previous report by the Environment Agency identified more than 10,000 PFAS hotspots across the UK, where levels are at high risk of causing health problems.

The hotspots are located near industrial sites and military bases (which would have used PFAS in firefighting foam).

One such hotspot is in the Cotswolds, where concentrations of PFAS were approximately 2,000 times over the safety limit in a stream that went through the Fire Service College in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire. Despite firefighting foam with PFOS being banned in the UK in 2011, it is still polluting ground water.

The Ministry of Defence announced in April that it will investigate three military bases over concerns that they are leaking PFOS into local drinking water: AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire, RAF Marham in Norfolk, and RM Chivenor in Devon have been identified by the Environment Agency as high-risk sites for PFAS contamination due to their historical use of firefighting foams containing these harmful chemicals.

Investigations are ongoing, with no published test results so far.

Other sites identified in Freedom of Information requests include RAF Benson and RAF Coningsby, which recorded PFAS concentrations far exceeding UK safe limits of 100ng/l (7,700ng/l and 3,550ng/l, respectively).

Alex Ford, a professor of biology and specialist in ecotoxicology at the University of Portsmouth, told Good Health: ‘There could well be pockets of the UK which have drinking water that have levels of PFAS which are not safe to drink over the long term.’

He is also concerned about farmland where our food is grown: ‘Much of the PFAS during the wastewater treatment process gets bound within the sludge.’

Sludge is the solid waste left when water is treated at a sewage plant. This sludge is often spread on farmland as fertiliser, meaning PFAS are released into the soil. ‘In the UK up to 87 per cent of sludge is returned to farmland as fertiliser, which can be another route of contamination into the environment and water supplies as well as food,’ says Professor Ford.

Yet Patrick Byrne, a professor of water science at Liverpool John Moores University, who has studied the impact of forever chemicals on water sources, says ‘most drinking water in the UK probably has PFAS in it, but at very low concentrations’.

‘Some populations may live in areas where a drinking water source has become polluted by PFAS above what is considered background concentrations.

‘But the number of people in this band will be very low. Similarly, much of our meat and vegetables probably contain PFAS at low levels,’ he adds. Over time PFAS can build up in our bodies.

Pressure is mounting on the Government to act.

The Royal Society of Chemistry launched its Clean Up UK Drinking Water campaign in October 2023, urging stricter PFAS standards for tap water.

This followed their nationwide analysis of watercourses in England and Wales, which discovered that more than a third contained medium or high-risk levels of PFAS.

Both the US and EU are setting far tougher limits on toxic ‘forever chemicals’. For instance the US Environmental Protection Agency has introduced a legally enforceable limit for some PFAS of 4 nanograms per litre of water (ng/l).

Here, the Drinking Water Inspectorate advises water companies keep the combined level of 48 PFAS below 100 ng/l. This is not legally binding.

‘Guidance alone is not going to provide a long-term fix – to truly safeguard our drinking water and public health, we need statutory legislation with clear, enforceable standards,’ says Stephanie Metzger, policy adviser in sustainable chemicals at the Royal Society of Chemistry.

She points to a recent survey they conducted which suggested that 84 per cent of people support regulation to reduce PFAS contamination from industry.

‘Now is the time for policymakers to enact robust laws that leave no room for uncertainty and hold polluters accountable,’ she says.

There are also calls for more robust water treatment methods, with concerns that the approach the water industry takes currently to deal with forever chemicals in our water is unsustainable.

Water companies use an uncontaminated water source to blend the polluted water to dilute it to acceptable levels.

‘As more PFAS accumulate in these sites, we may start running out of sources that meet the requirements,’ says Ms Metzger. In other words, there won’t be enough uncontaminated water to use.

With the UK having just experienced one of the driest springs since records began, the threat from PFAS contamination becomes even more urgent, adds Ms Metzger.

She and other experts are calling for new approaches, such as using activated carbon to filter out PFAS.

But these systems are costly to operate – and experts warn that until government regulations force action, many water firms have little incentive to invest.

The solution isn’t just forcing water companies to improve treatment, though that’s vital, says Professor Byrne – it’s also about banning the use of the most harmful PFAS altogether, so they don’t get into our water supply in the first place.

As he explains: ‘Forever chemicals are a huge chemical class, which is growing all the time.

‘Only a few have been studied in enough detail in terms of their impact on human health.

‘But because they have almost identical chemical properties to each other, and because all of the evidence is saying they are bad for us, they should be regulated as a whole chemical group rather than one or two compounds.’

Currently the regulation of PFAS is like chemical ‘Whac-A-Mole’, says Professor Byrne.

‘When one chemical is whacked on the head the industry quickly comes up with another one to replace it with.’

Without action, more people are going to be living with the consequences – as he warns ominously: ‘PFAS are probably the greatest chemical threat facing humankind in the 21st century.’