Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Already a member?
Log in
A mother-of-five living adjacent to a Lancashire chemical site fears she may have exposed her infants to toxic substances while breastfeeding, after medical testing confirmed the presence of “forever chemicals” in her blood.
Sam Hammond, 48, has spent 21 years residing near the Hillhouse manufacturing facility in Thornton-Cleveleys – a site operated by AGC Chemicals Europe – and suffered a stroke in 2020.
She explained her growing apprehension regarding local contamination: “I’ve been concerned for the last two to three years since they took soil samples from public areas, including allotments which are just the other side of our garden fence.”
Ms Hammond lives with her husband and four of her children, who are aged 13, 15, 17, and 21, while her eldest son has moved away from home.
Reflecting on her family’s medical history, she remarked: “There are health issues we have had but I never put two and two together before.
“All of the children are neurodiverse but there is no family history of that. One of my children has an extra chromosome.
“When I suffered the stroke in 2020 it had been lockdown and we had been at home growing a lot of vegetables in the garden.”
The household also kept ducks and consumed their eggs, but subsequently ceased eating homegrown produce due to mounting anxieties over ground toxicity.
Earlier this week, blood test findings delivered to Ms Hammond, her husband, and her 21-year-old son revealed heightened quantities of a compound known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA.
PFOA belongs to the synthetic PFAS family of substances, widely incorporated into water-resistant apparel, non-stick cookware, food packaging, and agricultural pesticides. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” owing to their ability to persist in the natural environment for centuries.
Her 21-year-old son registered the highest chemical concentration in the household.
Addressing the disparity, she noted: “We don’t know why his is so different. There’s not much research out there but from everything that I’ve been trying to find out about it we know that it’s transferred through breastfeeding, we know that it can be passed through the placenta.”
As individuals under the age of 18 were excluded from the testing process, no results exist for her younger children.
Reflecting on the implications, she said: “I breastfed all of my children and it is quite scary. There’s that guilt where I think I have potentially poisoned them because I had these chemicals in my system.”
Ms Hammond further observed that several neighbours had developed severe medical conditions during her time in the area, including cases of cancer, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Calling for a complete ban on “forever chemicals”, she urged prompt corrective action: “I think the people that are responsible for it need to just be transparent and clean it up, do what they can to put things right.”
