European
wines face alarming ‘forever chemical’ contamination, new study finds
From Austria
to Spain, not a single wine tested came back clean, exposing the reach of
ultra-persistent chemicals in Europe’s food chain.
April 24,
2025 4:29 am CET
By Bartosz
Brzeziński
BRUSSELS —
Europe’s favorite bottle of red or white may come with an unwanted ingredient:
toxic chemicals that don’t break down naturally.
A new
investigation has found widespread contamination in European wines with
trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) — a persistent byproduct of PFAS, the group of
industrial chemicals widely known as “forever chemicals.” None of the wines
produced in the past few years across 10 EU countries came back clean. In some
bottles, levels were found to be 100 times higher than what is typically
measured in drinking water.
The study,
published on Wednesday by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, adds fresh
urgency to calls for a rapid phase-out of pesticides containing PFAS, a family
of human-made chemicals designed to withstand heat, water and oil, and to
resist breaking down in the environment.
Wine
production is among the heaviest users of pesticides in European agriculture,
particularly fungicides, making vineyards a likely hotspot for chemical
accumulation. Grapes are especially vulnerable to fungal diseases, requiring
frequent spraying throughout the growing season, including with some products
that contain PFAS compounds.
Researchers
found that while TFA was undetectable in wines harvested before 1988,
contamination levels have steadily increased since then — reaching up to 320
micrograms per liter in bottles from the last three vintages, a level more than
3,000 times the EU’s legal limit for pesticide residues in groundwater. The
study’s authors link this rise to the growing use of PFAS-based pesticides and
newer fluorinated refrigerants over the past decade.
“This is a
red flag that should not be ignored,” said Helmut Burtscher-Schaden of Austrian
NGO Global 2000, who led the research. “The massive accumulation of TFA in
plants means we are likely ingesting far more of this forever chemical through
our food than previously assumed.”
The report,
titled Message from the Bottle, analyzed 49 wines, including both conventional
and organic products. While organic wines tended to have lower TFA
concentrations, none were free of contamination. Wines from Austria showed
particularly high levels, though researchers emphasized that the problem spans
the continent.
“This is not
a local issue, it’s a global one,” warned Michael Müller, professor of
pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry at the University of Freiburg, who
conducted an independent study that confirmed similar results. “There are no
more uncontaminated wines left. Even organic farming cannot fully shield
against this pollution because TFA is now ubiquitous in the environment.”
The findings
highlight the growing scrutiny on PFAS — a broad class of fluorinated compounds
used in products from non-stick cookware to firefighting foams and agricultural
pesticides. These substances are prized for their durability but have been
shown to accumulate in the environment and in living organisms, with links to
cancer, liver damage and reproductive harm.
While the
risks of long-chain PFAS have long been recognized, TFA had until recently been
considered relatively benign by both regulators and manufacturers. That view is
now being challenged. A 2021 industry-funded study under the EU’s REACH
chemicals regulation linked TFA exposure to severe malformations in rabbit
fetuses, prompting regulators to propose classifying TFA as “toxic to
reproduction.”
“This makes
it all the more urgent to act,” said Salomé Roynel, policy officer at PAN
Europe. She pointed out that under current EU pesticide rules, metabolites that
pose risks to reproductive health should not be detectable in groundwater above
0.1 micrograms per liter — a limit TFA regularly exceeds in both water and,
now, food.
The timing
of the report adds political pressure just weeks before EU member states are
due to vote on whether to ban flutolanil, a PFAS pesticide identified as a
significant TFA emitter. Campaigners argue that the EU must go further, pushing
for a group-wide ban on all PFAS pesticides.
“The vote on
flutolanil is a first test of whether policymakers take this threat seriously,”
Roynel said. “But ultimately, we need to eliminate the entire category of these
chemicals from agriculture.”
Industry
groups are likely to push back, arguing that PFAS-based pesticides remain
crucial for crop protection. But Müller counters that claim, saying
alternatives are available: “There are substitutes. The idea that these
chemicals are essential is simply not true.”
With the
EU’s broader PFAS restrictions currently under discussion, the wine study
injects fresh urgency into debates over how to tackle chemical pollution and
protect Europe’s food supply.
“The more we
delay, the worse the contamination becomes,” said Burtscher-Schaden. “And
because we’re dealing with a forever chemical, every year of inaction locks in
the damage for generations to come.”
The European
Commission declined to comment on the report.
This story
has been updated with a no comment from the European Commission.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário