Experts and civil society groups have announced the results of blood tests conducted on residents in the Tama area of Tokyo, which contain chemical substances that have been identified as hazardous, that blood levels on average are about 2.4 times higher than those in the national survey.

"PFAS" is a general term for artificially created organic fluorine compounds, and two of them, "PFOS" and "PFOA", have been pointed out as harmful in American studies.

In response to a series of detection of values exceeding the government's provisional target values in rivers and groundwater around the U.S. military base in Okinawa Prefecture, Associate Professor Koji Harada of the Graduate School of Kyoto University and a citizens' group conducted blood tests on 2 residents of the Tama area, where the U.S. military base Yokota Air Base is located, and announced the results at a press conference held in Tachikawa City on May 650.

According to the report, the average value of PFOS and PFOA detected in the 8 people tested was 650.14 nanograms, which is 6.2 times the national survey.

The average total values of PFOS and PFOA are high by
municipality, such as 4.23 nanograms in Kokubunji City, 2 nanograms in Tachikawa City,

and
19.15 nanograms in Musashino City.

Associate Professor Harada said, "Following Okinawa, the Tama region also obtained such results, so I hope that the national and local governments will consider this a nationwide problem and conduct a thorough investigation."

Residents who underwent the test: "I want to try to detect at an early stage whether there is any impact on my health"

At the press conference on the 8th, residents who underwent blood tests also participated and talked about how they got tested and how they received the results.

Kinuko Tomoda, 45, who has lived in Kokubunji City for 75 years, said that tests detected a total blood level of 27.7 nanograms of PFOS and PFOA.

Mr. Tomoda said, "Groundwater in the Tama area is said to be delicious, so I have been drinking tap water using it for a long time. I would like the government to examine it in detail."

Miyuki Hama, 30, who has lived in Kunitachi City for about 70 years, said that the total amount of PFOS and PFOA exceeded 20 nanograms.

Mr. Hama said, "When I moved in, I was told that the tap water in this area was delicious because it was mixed with well water, so I used it with peace of mind. I found that the results were higher than the average, so I would like to try to detect whether there is any impact on my health at an early stage. I want the national government and the government to take proper measures."