Proposed Legislation Will Provide Free Blood Testing for Children Exposed to PFAS
State Senator Mark Huizenga has introduced legislation that will provide free testing for children who may have elevated PFAS blood levels due to contaminated water. Under the proposed bills (SB 298 and 299), physicians will be able to work directly with families to get free blood testing for children who live in homes with contaminated well water or which are served by municipal water that exceeds state limits for PFAS.
Blood testing for the chemicals costs upwards of $200 (down in recent years from around $800) and is typically not covered by insurance.
Huizenga said the intent is to give parents peace of mind as well as provide monitoring of those patients with high PFAS blood levels in order to help understand its long-term effects.
In a series of videos on his website, Huizenga spoke with several people impacted by PFAS contamination, including Northern Kent County resident Tobyn McNaughton, whose now 9-year-old son was found to have an extremely high blood PFAS level – about 100 times more than an average adult and the highest of any child in the United States.
The McNaughton family members’ blood levels were tested after it was found that the well water serving their home was contaminated by PFAS, emanating from a nearby property where sludge containing PFAS and other chemicals was dumped. She spoke about the difficulty of even finding a lab that was qualified to do the testing, and the cost, which at the time was close to a thousand dollars.
She said there is still a need for wider testing.
“I think there is still a good amount of people who don’t know” about PFAS or their exposure levels, she said. “I run into people weekly that don’t know what I’m talking about, so I think having something put into place, a law, more people would be aware of it.”
“The science hasn’t really caught up to the crisis”
In another video, Huizenga interviewed pediatrician Dr. William Bush, M.D., who noted that because the PFAS research is in its infancy, symptoms or diseases caused by the chemicals are not clearly defined.
“There really is probably not going to be a clinical sign that we can tell families, ‘watch for this’, because that might be related to PFAS,” Bush said. “But we still need to do the monitoring.”
“I tell people that the science hasn’t really caught up to the crisis,” Huizenga said, underscoring the importance of long-term health monitoring for those with high levels. “We don’t know and it takes a long time to develop an understanding.”
While all the long-term health effects are not known, research has shown an association between PFAS exposure and a variety of health issues, including lower antibody response to some vaccines. McNaughton reported that her son’s childhood vaccinations have been determined to be ineffective.
The current proposed legislation would cover children in Kent, Ottawa and Kalamazoo counties who were born between 2001 and 2012. Huizenga said he hopes it will eventually be expanded to become a statewide and perhaps national policy.
The legislation will also provide counseling services to help alleviate anxiety around discovery of high blood PFAS levels.
“If a patient gets that news, it’s devastating,” Huizenga said. “So to provide that counseling along the way is something that we’ll include in the bill.”
The bills, introduced in May, are currently going through review by the Housing and Human Services Committee. Huizenga estimated they will come up for a vote in early 2026.