Imagine discovering a sequel to a horror movie, only to find the studio shelved it because the villain’s résumé makes the producers look bad.
That’s the current state of play with PFNA — a so-called “forever chemical” now known to lurk in drinking water systems that serve roughly 26 million Americans — and an EPA toxicity report that, according to agency scientists, was finished and ready to be posted in mid-April. And then… nothing.
The assessment, produced by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), concludes what independent scientists have long feared: PFNA — perfluorononanoic acid — appears to interfere with human development (think lower birth weights), and animal data strongly suggest liver damage and male reproductive harms (reduced testosterone, lower sperm output and smaller reproductive organs).
The report even calculated a so-called safe exposure level — the key number regulators use to set cleanup targets at Superfund sites and to set drinking-water limits.
But while the science was, in one EPA insider’s words, “scientifically… done,” the public-facing action stalled.
Two scientists familiar with the assessment — both from the EPA’s Office of Research and Development — told reporters the final version has been finalized and ready to publish since April.
“All that was left to do was to brief higher-ups about the report and post it,” one said, calling the delay unusual: “In recent years, the assessments tended to be finalized within a few weeks.”
So why the holdup?
The story is as much political as it is procedural.
The draft — already public last year — retained those same calculations in the final version, despite industry objections.
Trade groups like the American Chemistry Council argued the evidence for low birth weight and liver impacts wasn’t robust enough; they notably sidestepped the reproductive-harm evidence, which other regulators have documented.
At the same time, the EPA quietly announced in May that it would reconsider limits the Biden administration set on PFNA and related PFAS in drinking water.
Darya Minovi, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, put it bluntly: “If you’re trying to roll back drinking water standards, you probably don’t want to release information that makes the case for why those standards are necessary.”
The IRIS program, which historically produced these painstaking toxicology assessments, is itself under siege.
Created to offer a science-first evaluation of chemical risks, it has been stripped of staff and institutional support since the start of the Trump administration.
According to sources familiar with recent IRIS work, of 55 scientists identified as working on recent assessments, only eight remain in the office.
One longtime program scientist and recent EPA departure lamented the attrition: “Through the movement of bodies, they have disassembled IRIS.”
That matters because IRIS reports are the kind of documents activists, state regulators, and courts rely on when they press polluters to pay for cleanup.
Consider the legal case in New Jersey: the state sued a plant owner over PFNA contamination near West Deptford.
As part of a settlement, Solvay Specialty Polymers (now Syensqo Specialty Polymers) agreed to pay more than $393 million and to remediate contamination, though the company settled without admitting liability.
Industry players like Solvay have also lobbied the EPA against strict PFNA limits and backed legislation (including an attempt dubbed the “No IRIS Act”) that would limit IRIS’s role in regulation.
Meanwhile, the agency’s public posture has been mixed.
An EPA spokesperson told ProPublica the report “would be published when it was finalized,” but declined to explain what remained to be done or when it would go public.
In May, the EPA issued statements asserting it was “committed to addressing” PFAS in drinking water — even as it rolled back or reconsidered other rules related to drinking-water limits, certain solvents and air pollution protections.
For communities that have already tasted PFNA’s harms — found in soil, groundwater, food, dust, breastmilk and human blood — the delay is not academic.
The draft IRIS assessment, a five-year synthesis of the literature, said PFNA “may cause” immune problems, thyroid disruption, developmental brain effects and a cluster of conditions, including Type 2 diabetes.
That science undergirds policy decisions on cleanup responsibility, public-health guidance and which communities receive federal help.
To environmentalists and residents, the silence looks less like prudence and more like suppression.
Laurene Allen, co-founder of the National PFAS Contamination Coalition and a resident of Merrimack, New Hampshire — a town with documented PFNA contamination — didn’t mince words: “This is the suppression of information,” she said.
For people living with contaminated wells and children born in communities with elevated PFAS levels, withholding an assessment that quantifies risk and sets safe exposure levels is a stroke against both transparency and public health.
So the report sits — ready, in the view of in-house scientists, but unposted.
The result is a cruel form of limbo for regulators and affected communities: the data exist, experts say, the conclusions are clear, and yet the document that could catalyze remediation and protection remains in bureaucratic purgatory.
Meanwhile, PFNA continues to lurk in water systems, and the people who drink that water still lack the clarity they deserve.
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