Researchers Explore A New Toxic Pollution Site: People

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http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden/newsrelease.php

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

January 30, 2003

 

Jon Corsiglia, (202) 667-6982 x142

Liz Moore, (202) 667-6982 x143

Lauren Sucher,(202) 667-6982, x141

Researchers Explore A New Toxic Pollution Site: People“Body Burden” Studies Are

Raising Health Concerns And Prompting Stronger Government Actions

 

WASHINGTON — After decades spent researching chemical contaminants in air, water

and on land, scientists have begun to turn their attention to an important

pollution site they have by and large neglected until now: people.

 

Using sensitive new laboratory techniques to detect chemicals and assess their

health effects, a growing number of researchers in the United States and abroad

are testing blood, urine and tissue for an array of environmental contaminants

that find their way into the human population through pollution or consumer

products.

 

Two studies being released this week are likely to give these “body burden”

studies new prominence in environmental science and policy.

 

Environmental Working Group (EWG), in partnership with Mt. Sinai School of

Community Medicine and Commonweal, today released the results of the most

comprehensive evaluation to date of multiple chemical contaminants in people.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal Public Health Reports, the study results

offer an up-close and personal look at nine individuals whose bodies were tested

for 210 chemicals – the largest suite of industrial chemicals ever surveyed.

 

The web-presented report is available at www.ewg.org. It found:

 

Subjects contained an average of 91 compounds, most of which did not exist 75

years ago.

In total, the nine subjects carried 76 chemicals linked to cancer.

Participants had a total of 48 PCBs, which were banned in the U.S. in 1976

but are used in other countries and persist in the environment for decades.

 

A second study will be released Jan. 31 by the federal Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC). It provides statistical data relevant to

Americans’ body burdens of 116 chemicals.

 

“The CDC has studied individual chemicals in a multitude of people; our study

examined individual people for a multitude of chemicals,” said Jane Houlihan,

EWG vice president for research. “The CDC’s work helps us assess exposure levels

for each contaminant across the population; our study begins to document the

complex reality of the human body burden—what we call the ’pollution in people,’

” said Houlihan.

 

She added: “Both studies are long overdue, and both reveal disturbing gaps in

scientific understanding of environmental contaminants and in our system of

regulatory safeguards.”

 

Body burden testing that has been conducted and made public to date often

results in swift action by government and corporate leaders. Following a medical

study showing high mercury levels in the blood of patients whose diets were high

in mercury-contaminated fish, the State of California recently sued five grocery

chains to force them to put labels on these products in the seafood aisle. When

Scotchgard was found in virtually all Americans, 3M Company was forced to change

the formula.

 

A majority (55%) of Americans mistakenly believe that the government tests

chemicals used in consumer products to make sure they are safe, according to

recent opinion research conducted by Washington Toxics Coalition. The federal

government does not safety-test industrial chemicals, nor does it require

manufacturers to submit testing data.

 

“People are loaded with chemicals,” said EWG Senior Vice President Richard

Wiles. “Some are known carcinogens, and many are banned. There are some about

which science knows virtually nothing when it comes to potential health effects.

We need a modern, common sense approach to identifying and protecting the public

from possible health effects from long-term exposure to low levels of multiple

chemicals.”

 

 

• View the interactive report

 

 

 

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