PFAS Blood Tests Have No Clinical Utility, KCE Says

Blood testing for PFAS — the ubiquitous “forever chemicals” — currently offers no clinical utility, even for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and workers in high-exposure professions, according to a new report from Belgium’s Federal Health Care Expertise Center (KCE). The finding, published on July 7 as KCE Reports 422, extends and reinforces the agency’s earlier conclusion from 2025 that widespread PFAS screening cannot guide medical decisions.

Why PFAS Testing Falls Short

The KCE’s conclusion rests on four fundamental gaps in current scientific knowledge. First, there is no established link between specific PFAS blood concentrations and clinical outcomes — doctors cannot tell a patient what their PFAS level means for their health. Second, different laboratories use different testing methods that produce inconsistent results from the same blood sample. Third, scientists have not yet determined what concentration threshold constitutes a health risk. And critically, as RTBF reported, no medical treatment exists to reduce PFAS levels in the human body, rendering individual blood testing therapeutically meaningless.

“If you have a high PFAS level in your blood, you don’t know what risk you face and you can’t do anything about it,” Marleen Finoulst of Eos Wetenschap noted in earlier coverage of the KCE’s 2025 report.

Implications for Vulnerable Groups

The new report specifically addresses groups previously not covered by the KCE’s analysis. For pregnant women, the agency emphasizes that standard maternal and infant monitoring by general practitioners, gynecologists, or midwives remains entirely appropriate. No adjustment to childhood vaccination strategies is needed — the KCE found no evidence that PFAS lowers antibody production to the point of compromising vaccine protection in children.

Despite the fact that PFAS can be transmitted to infants through breast milk, the KCE states unequivocally that the benefits of breastfeeding still outweigh the uncertain risks. As La Libre Belgique reported, “Despite the abundant literature dedicated to these widely used chemical compounds known as PFAS, uncertainties — or at least imprecisions — regarding their harmful health effects persist.”

Occupational Exposure: A Knowledge Gap

For workers in potentially high-exposure professions — including the chemical industry, textile manufacturing, firefighting, agriculture, road work, and construction — the KCE found that no comprehensive, systematic overview of at-risk occupations currently exists. Research on occupational PFAS exposure and health effects remains limited. The agency recommends more extensive and transparent research combining exposure measurement in risk groups with prolonged clinical follow-up.

A Call for Better Research

The KCE’s report arrives at a time when PFAS contamination is a politically charged issue in Belgium. In May 2026, the Belgian Chamber rejected a Socialist Party proposal to progressively ban PFAS, and three associations along with six individuals took legal action against the Belgian state over alleged failures in combating PFAS contamination, as 7sur7 reported.

The agency explicitly calls for high-quality longitudinal studies that follow human subjects over time, perform regular measurements, and account for simultaneous exposure to multiple substances. Special attention should be paid to newer PFAS compounds entering the market as replacements for older, better-studied substances like PFOS and PFOA, exposure to which is declining due to stricter regulations.

What This Means for Policy and the Public

The KCE’s finding may reduce pressure on Belgian health authorities to fund widespread PFAS screening programs. It redirects the focus from individual testing toward population-level exposure reduction and scientific research. Communities living near contamination hotspots — such as Zwijndrecht near the 3M factory, or Ronse with its textile industry legacy — have demanded blood testing as a way to understand their exposure. The KCE’s conclusion that such testing has no clinical utility may clash with public expectations for transparency and action.

However, the agency acknowledges that population-level biomonitoring — testing groups to understand exposure patterns — remains scientifically valuable. The distinction is subtle but important: testing individuals to guide their medical care is currently useless, but testing populations to track contamination trends can inform regulatory policy.

The Bottom Line

As the KCE press release states, “Our knowledge of PFAS is evolving, but important questions remain unanswered. In the meantime, caution and measures taken to limit population exposure still make sense.” The priority, according to the agency, is not more blood tests — it is reducing exposure at the source and investing in the research needed to finally understand what these ubiquitous chemicals are doing to our health.