Hundreds of Toxic Chemicals Measured Measured in Newborn Babies

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Study . Finds Industrial Pollution Begins in the Womb

 

WASHINGTON — Not long ago, scientists believed that babies in the womb were

largely protected from most toxic chemicals. A new study helps confirm an

opposite view: that chemical exposure begins in the womb, as hundreds of

industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides are pumped back and forth from

mother to baby through umbilical cord blood.

 

Environmental Working Group (EWG) commissioned laboratory tests of 10 American

Red Cross cord blood samples for the most extensive array of industrial

chemicals, pesticides and other pollutants ever studied. The group found that

the babies averaged 200 contaminants in their blood. The pollutants included

mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA. In total, the

babies' blood had 287 chemicals, including 209 never before detected in cord

blood.

 

The blood samples came from babies born in U.S. hospitals in August and

September of 2004. The study, called Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns,

tested each sample of umbilical cord blood for an unprecedented 413 industrial

and consumer product chemicals. The study (www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/) is

part of an important new science that measures toxins in people — the human body

burden.

 

" For years scientists have studied pollution in the air, water, land and in our

food. Recently they've investigated its health impacts on adults. Now we find

this pollution is reaching babies during vital stages of development, " said EWG

Vice President for Research Jane Houlihan. " These findings raise questions about

the gaps in our federal safety net. Instead of rubber-stamping almost every new

chemical that industry invents, we've got to strengthen and modernize the laws

that are supposed to protect Americans from pollutants. "

 

U.S. industries manufacture and import approximately 75,000 chemicals, 3,000 of

them at over a million pounds per year. Yet health officials do not know how

many of these chemicals pollute fetal blood and what the health consequences of

in utero exposures might be. Many of these chemicals require specialized

techniques to detect. Chemical manufacturers are not required to make available

to the public or government health officials methods to detect their chemicals

in humans, and most do not volunteer them.

 

EWG's Houlihan said that had her group been able to test for more chemicals, it

would almost certainly have detected them.

 

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/