"Forever chemicals" showed up in the blood of all 110 people tested in nine European countries, Croatian MEP Gordan Bosanac from Možemo! said on Thursday. The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament ran the tests, and Bosanac presented the findings at a news conference alongside Italian Greens/EFA MEP Cristina Guarda and toxicologist Prof. Marjorie Van Dursen.

The chemicals are PFAS, a group of compounds that stay in the body and in nature for years. All 110 people had trifluoroacetic acid, or TFA, in their blood — the smallest and most persistent compound in the group, which the European Chemicals Agency says is toxic to reproduction.

Ten people from Croatia took part in the study: seven from Gospić, two from Knin and one from Pula. Six of them had raised levels of the best-known PFAS compound, five of those from Gospić. The Croatian samples also showed high levels of four long-chain PFAS compounds.

"The result is a plain fact: these forever chemicals are in our blood," Bosanac said.