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Osaka Board Accepts First PFAS Mediation Targeting Daikin After Mass Resident Filing

Tests near the Yodogawa plant found extreme PFAS levels and elevated blood readings in locals as Japan lacks blood standards and definitive disease links remain unproven.

Overview

  • More than 800 nearby residents filed a public pollution mediation on Dec. 23 seeking health monitoring, data disclosure, and contamination countermeasures.
  • The Osaka Prefectural Pollution Review Board confirmed it accepted the application the same day, in what organizers say is the first such corporate PFAS case in Japan.
  • Groundwater around Daikin’s Yodogawa site has been reported at roughly 400 times the nation’s provisional PFOS/PFOA drinking-water target of 50 ng/L.
  • A 2023 blood survey of 1,190 residents and former employees found over 30% above U.S. reference levels, and some former workers were diagnosed with interstitial lung disease.
  • Daikin handled PFOA from the 1960s, produced it from the 1980s, and ended its use in 2012, while national rules still lack a blood-level benchmark and causality to specific diseases remains unsettled.