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Michigan receives $4 million to study how toxic chemicals have affected state residents

Daniel P. Fleming

Michigan has received a $4-million grant from the Center for Disease Control to monitor people's exposure to toxic chemicals, including PFAs.

PFAs, or perfluoroalkyl substances, are a family of chemicals found across the state. They're linked to health problems including cancer.

Michigan was one of six states awarded grant funding to expand toxic chemical biomonitoring.

Lynn Sutfin is a spokesperson with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. She said the grant will be used to monitor Michigan adults statewide.

“We’re looking at PFAs, PCBS, some pesticides and heavy metals but more arsenic, mercury, and lead at this time. That’s what we’re going to be looking at through this,” Sutfin said.

According to Sutfin Michigan is both an industrial state and a hunting state and the monitoring efforts will explore the unique ways residents may have been exposed to chemicals - including through hunting.

“So we are going to be looking at Michigan people and how they were exposed to chemicals and what has happened to them since then,” she said.

The grant will also focus on firefighters who have come into contact with PFAs.

“PFAs is something that has traditionally been found in firefighting foam which means they have a unique exposure to this chemical,” Sutfin said.

The information collected from the five year study will be used to better understand how PFAs impact human health.