New ITV documentary reveals high levels of toxic forever chemicals among residents in Yorkshire town
A new documentary from ITV, ‘In Our Blood: The Forever Chemicals Scandal’, reveals the high levels of forever chemicals found in residents of a Yorkshire town.
Dr David Megson, Reader in Chemistry and Environmental Forensics at Manchester Met, features extensively throughout the documentary, analysing the blood results of the residents taking part in the programme.
The documentary focuses on Angus Fire, who for decades have manufactured and tested PFAS firefighting foam at its factory in Bentham, North Yorkshire.
In 2024 environmental journalist Pippa Neill conducted a year-long investigation after obtaining documents from 2008 which showed testing of groundwater on the Angus Fire site revealed the highest known concentrations of PFAS ever recorded in the UK.
ITV offered residents within a kilometre of the factory or former or current workers, for the first time, a test to discover the levels of PFAS in their blood.
Nine of the 39 people tested had PFAS levels in the highest risk category, with one former worker of Angus Fire recording a blood PFAS level more than 200 times higher than the lower risk threshold.
Dr Megson said: “I was absolutely shocked when we started to run this data. Nearly everybody we tested was above average and two thirds of them were in the top 5%. A third of them were higher than anything we’d ever expect to see in the background population.
“I’ve done a few contamination studies in my time as a scientist and I think that this one is the one that stands out for just such a high proportion of people having elevated exposure of PFAS. It was quite staggering.”
In response to the PFAS blood test results in Bentham, Angus Fire said it is unfounded to classify the blood data as high because the UK does not have national blood PFAS guidance values.
Across the UK, concern is growing over the threat posed by forever chemicals. There are thought to be up to 10,000 PFAS contaminated hotspots across the country, many of them linked to firefighting foam.
‘In Our Blood: The Forever Chemicals Scandal’ airs on ITV1 and ITV X at 10.15pm on Sunday 22nd March.
