The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has acknowledged today that TFA - a common PFAS pesticide metabolite and widespread pollutant - is far more toxic to human health than previously recognised, cutting its health-based guidance values by over 70%. PAN Europe and Générations Futures welcome this long-overdue step, but warn the revised values still are not protective enough. Nevertheless, EFSA’s conclusions confirm NGOs’ demands: all PFAS pesticides must be banned without delay.
Today, EFSA published its long-awaited scientific opinion establishing consumer health-based guidance values for trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) [1]. TFA is itself a PFAS and is formed through the breakdown of PFAS pesticides, F-gases and other PFAS substances. Human exposure has increased significantly in recent years as rising levels of TFA have been detected in drinking water, groundwater, cereals, plant-based foods and even wine [2]. Because of its increasing planetary-scale exposure, scientists have characterised it a planetary boundary threat [3].
EFSA’s opinion follows the recent agreement by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)’s Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) to classify TFA as ‘Toxic to reproduction’ Category 1B, meaning it can damage the developing foetuses [4].
EFSA identified several critical adverse effects linked to TFA exposure, including disruption of thyroid function (which can affect healthy foetal development, including the brain), liver toxicity, skeletal and eye malformations, and reduced sperm quality. The expert opinion proposes an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of 0.014 mg/kg body weight per day, lowering safe exposure levels by 50%, compared to the value previously proposed by EFSA (0.03 mg/kg) [5] and by 72% compared to the current health-based value (0.05 mg/kg) established in 2017.
However, important shortcomings remain in EFSA’s assessment. Dr Pauline Cervan, Toxicologist at Générations Futures, says “EFSA’s health-based values are still insufficiently protective. The agency continues to tolerate a high level of thyroid dysfunction as acceptable, while the potential impacts on the immune system and on brain development are underestimated. In addition, the carcinogenic potential remains unknown and the developmental neurotoxicity has not been assessed. EFSA applied an arbitrary safety margin of 5 to address these remaining uncertainties, while we recommend a safety factor of 10 to address the missing data.”
The conclusions leave no room for inaction. Dr Angeliki Lysimachou, Head of Science and Policy at PAN Europe says: “Despite the shortcomings of the assessment, EFSA has confirmed that TFA is far more toxic than previously recognised. Political action is now urgently needed to ban PFAS pesticides. Considering that TFA is a forever chemical, even if emissions stopped today, TFA levels in the environment would keep rising for the years to come. If we don’t act, it is the public that will pay the price of political inaction.”
These findings also come far too late. A previous investigation by PAN Europe and the Générations Futures network revealed that EFSA had long been aware that several PFAS pesticides degrade into TFA, while there were major data gaps regarding its toxicity. Yet the necessary studies were requested with a 10 or 15 years delay. Eventually, it was ECHA that requested two key missing studies, and their results have revealed serious health concerns. [6]
“The fact that TFA's toxicity remained under the radar for decades is a failure of the pesticide manufacturers as well as the regulatory authorities. The warning signs were there, but the necessary investigations were never carried out in line with the law. Worryingly, that pattern continues today - EFSA still does not recommend carrying out a carcinogenicity study or a developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) study on TFA,” added Cervan.
“The EFSA opinion demonstrates once again that PFAS pollution cannot be managed through clean-up alone: The only effective solution is to stop emissions at source, by banning PFAS pesticides and other uses of PFAS chemicals,” concluded Lysimachou.
Contact:
- PAN Europe: Dr Angeliki Lysimachou angeliki [at] pan-europe.info +32 496 392930
- Générations Futures: Dr Pauline Cervan pauline [at] generations-futures.fr +33 7 57 18 34 22
Notes:
[1] EFSA Communication 22 July 2026.
[2] See publications by PAN Europe and its network
[4] ECHA, Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) 77 minutes. See PAN Europe PR , June 10th
[5] See EFSA’s draft (July 2025)
[6] See:
