URI researchers have started to test drinking water from private wells in Cape Cod for toxic man-made chemicals called per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which may have been left behind by military training materials.
“There’s links between the high exposure in drinking water and several types of cancer, at the lower end, you’re looking at changes that might affect your immune system, that might lead to insulin resistance and then diabetes, ” said GSO professor Rainer Lohmann, who is also Director of URI’s Sources, Transport, Exposure and Effects of PFASs Center (STEEP).