News Coverage
Testing people for pollutants
A study looking for environmental toxins in breast-milk samples puts California at the forefront of the biomonitoring movement
Published October 5, 2003
TORRANCE is home to a hazardous waste site; the Central Valley uses copious amounts of pesticides; and Marin County has an unusually high, and puzzling, rate of breast cancer. For scientists and environmental activists, these disparate locations are the ideal proving ground for a new theory. They believe that environmental pollutants may play a role in various diseases, such as breast cancer. To prove their hypothesis, they have begun collecting breast milk from new mothers in all three locations. In doing so, they've placed California in the vanguard of a national biomonitoring movement.
Biomonitoring involves looking for "pollution in people" -- testing bodily substances, usually blood and urine, for the presence of harmful substances, such as dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and DDT. Traditionally, estimates of human exposure to toxic substances have been based on measurements of chemicals found in food, soil, air and water.
The rest of this article can be found at http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-biomonitoring6oct06,1,12467...
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