Dozens of Chemicals Found in Most Americans' Bodies

http://www.latimes.com/features/hea...ls22jul22,1,3669125.story?coll=la-health-kids
The concentration is especially high in children, a national study says. But experts aren't sure what the health effects are.
By Marla Cone
Times Staff Writer

July 22, 2005

In the largest study of chemical exposure ever conducted on human beings, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday that most American children and adults were carrying in their bodies dozens of pesticides and toxic compounds used in consumer products, many of them linked to potential health threats.

The report documented bigger doses in children than in adults of many chemicals, including some pyrethroids, which are in virtually every household pesticide, and phthalates, which are found in nail polish and other beauty products as well as in soft plastics.

The CDC's director, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, called the national exposure report — the third in an assessment that is released biennially — a breakthrough that would help public health officials home in on the most important compounds to which Americans are routinely exposed.

The latest installment, which looked for 148 toxic compounds in the urine and blood of about 2,400 people age 6 and older in 2000 and 2001, is "the largest and most comprehensive report of its kind ever released anywhere by anyone," Gerberding said. Findings were broken down by age group and race.

At Thursday's news conference, CDC officials emphasized the good news: Steep declines were found in children's exposure to lead and secondhand cigarette smoke.

Lead levels in children have dropped significantly over several years, which Gerberding called an "astonishing public health achievement" attributable largely to its removal from gasoline and paint.

About 1.6% of young children tested from 1999 to 2002 had elevated levels of lead, which could lower their intelligence and damage their brains, compared with 88.2% in the late 1970s and 4.4% in the early 1990s.

But the discovery of more than 100 other substances in humans, particularly children, distressed environmental health experts.

"The report in general shows that people — kids and adults — are exposed to things that aren't intended to be in their body," said Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, an associate professor of pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences who specializes in children's environmental health. "In and of itself, that is a concern. Whether it's harmful or not we can't tell from this particular study."

The new data in the 475-page report reveal how "we have fouled our own nest," Paulson said. "We contaminated the environment sufficiently that there are measurable amounts of potentially toxic substances in people — kids and adults."

The CDC did not try to gauge the health threat the chemicals might pose. A measurable amount of a compound in a person's body does not mean it causes disease or other damage, the agency noted.

For many compounds in the report, experts have little information on what amounts may be harmful or what they may do in combination.

"We are really at the beginning of a very complicated journey to understand the thousands of substances we are exposed to," said Thomas Burke, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The discovery of pyrethroids in most people is especially important, as no one had looked for them in the human body before. Pyrethroids are synthetic versions of natural compounds found in flowers, and they have been considered safer than older pesticides, such as DDT and chlordane, that build up in the environment and have been banned in the United States.

But in high doses, pyrethroids are toxic to the nervous system. They are the second most common class of pesticides that result in poisoning. At low doses, they might alter hormones. The compounds are used in large volumes in farm and household pesticides and are sprayed by public agencies to kill mosquitoes.

Pyrethroids "were a step forward [from DDT and other banned pesticides], but now we're beginning to understand that while they don't persist in the environment, many of us are exposed," Burke said. "We don't quite know what those levels mean."

Eleven of 12 phthalates tested were higher in children than adults. All of the phthalates but one are used in fragrances. In animal tests, and in one recent study of human babies, some of the compounds have been shown to alter male reproductive organs or to feminize hormones.

Representatives of the chemical and pesticide industries praised the study, saying that human biomonitoring is the best available tool to measure exposure. They echoed the CDC in saying that discovery of the chemicals in the human body did not automatically mean they posed a threat.

The report demonstrates "that exposure to these man-made and natural substances is extremely low," said American Chemistry Council spokesman Chris VandenHeuvel.

The CDC's Gerberding said that "for the vast majority" of the 148 chemicals in the report, "we have no evidence of health effects."

Many toxicologists and environmental scientists disagree.

Studies of animals, and in some cases people, suggest that most of the compounds can affect the brain, hormones, reproductive system or the immune system, or that they are linked to cancer. "These are some bad actors," Burke said.

Many of the compounds have not been studied sufficiently to know what happens with chronic exposure to low doses. "No evidence of health effects does not imply that they are not harmful," Paulson said. "It just means we don't know one way or another."

Environmental groups have called for U.S. law to require chemical companies to test industrial compounds more comprehensively, a proposal similar to one that the European Parliament is to debate in the fall.

The evidence that many contaminants amass in children more than in adults could mean that they are exposed to larger amounts — perhaps from crawling, breathing more rapidly or putting items in their mouths — or that their bodies are less able to cope with or metabolize them.

In the womb and in the first two years after birth, children undergo extraordinary cell growth, from brain neurons to immune cells, so there are more opportunities for toxic compounds to disrupt the cells, Paulson said. Animal tests show that fetuses and newborns are the most susceptible to harm from many chemicals.

In the CDC study, one of every 18 women of childbearing age, or 5.7%, had mercury that exceeded the level that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deemed safe to a developing fetus.

Tests on schoolchildren show that mercury exposure in the womb can lower IQs, with memory and vocabulary particularly impaired.

The CDC plans to expand the national chemical report to more than 300 compounds in two years and about 500 in four years. An estimated 80,000 chemicals are in commercial use today.

___________________

Hopefully the industry will act faster and not continue this until something does show up in many kids.

 

Different study...

Unborn babies soaked in chemicals, study finds
Average of 287 contaminants found in cord blood of U.S. infants
Reuters
Updated: 4:49 p.m. ET July 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report released Thursday.

Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.

The report by the Environmental Working Group is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical-cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire r****dants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.

“These 10 newborn babies ... were born polluted,” said New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, who spoke a news conference about the findings Thursday.

“If ever we had proof that our nation’s pollution laws aren’t working, it’s reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb,” Slaughter, a Democrat, said.

Cord blood reflects what the mother passes to the baby through the placenta.

“Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical-cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests,” the report said.

Blood tests did not show how the chemicals got into the mothers’ bodies, or what their effects might be on the babies.

Mercury and pesticides
Among the chemicals found in the cord blood were methylmercury, produced by coal-fired power plants and certain industrial processes. People can breathe it in or eat it in seafood and it causes brain and nerve damage.

Also found were polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are produced by burning gasoline and garbage and which may cause cancer; flame-r****dant chemicals called polybrominated dibenzodioxins and furans; and pesticides including DDT and chlordane.

The same group analyzed the breast milk of mothers across the United States in 2003 and found varying levels of chemicals, including flame r****dants known as PBDEs. This latest analysis also found PBDEs in cord blood.

Slaughter had similar tests done on her own blood.

“The stunning results show chemicals daily pumping through my vital organs that include PCBs that were banned decades ago as well as chemicals like Teflon that are currently under federal investigation,” she said in remarks prepared for the news conference.

“I have auto exhaust fumes, flame r****dant chemicals, and in all, some 271 harmful substances pulsing through my veins. That’s hardly the picture of health I had hoped for, but I’ve been living in an industrial society for over 70 years.”

The Government Accountability Office issued a report Wednesday saying the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the powers it needs to fully regulate toxic chemicals.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found that the EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act gives only “limited assurance” that new chemicals entering the market are safe and said the EPA only rarely assesses chemicals already on the market.

“Today, chemicals are being used to make baby bottles, food packaging and other products that have never been fully evaluated for their health effects on children — and some of these chemicals are turning up in our blood,” said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who plans to co-sponsor a bill to require chemical manufacturers to provide data to the EPA on the health affects of their products.

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