I'm Flora Lichtenen and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the show, studying the link between our health and forever chemicals.

They might take hundreds to thousands of years to break down in the environment,

and some of them take years to be eliminated from the human body.

We're headed to Newburgh, New York. It's a small city, about 70 miles north of New York City,

and for decades, residents were unknowingly drinking water contaminated with toxic PFS, aka Forever Chemicals.

Now the CDC is studying the health effects of PFS exposure in Newburgh, along with nine other

sites. Preliminary data from city residents links PFAS with high cholesterol, high blood pressure,

and heart disease. Here to tell us more are Dr. Aaron Bell, environmental epidemiologist

at the University at Albany in New York, who led the Newburgh study, and Chantelle Riley,

a health and science reporter who's been covering PFAS for years. Welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.

Okay, let's start with some definitions.

When we talk about PFAS, what are we talking about?

Sure.

Per and polyfluoral alkalis substances, PFS, for short, is a family of chemicals that includes

anywhere from 9,000 to 12,000 separate chemicals used in manufacturing and in firefighting foam.

Historically, they've been used as non-stick coating, Teflon, for example, in our cookware,

also in rain or water-resistant clothing, and certainly in the firefighting foam, as I mentioned. They're a concern because they

tend to stay in our bodies and in the environment for very long time. So we refer to them as persistent

chemicals. And they can interrupt or interfere with our hormonal processes in our bodies.

I've also heard of PFOA and PFS, PFOS. Are those, do those fall under the

...