Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Chemicals (2006) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 15-26
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From page 15... ...
Responding to a congressional request, the National Research Council established the Committee on Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Toxicants to review current practices in and recommend ways to improve the interpretation and uses of human biomonitoring for environmental toxicants. This report defines biomonitoring as one method for assessing human exposure to chemicals by measuring the chemicals1 or their metabolites2 in human specimens, such as blood or urine (CDC 2005)
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When gathered for the U.S. population, biomonitoring data can help to identify new chemicals that are found in the environment and in human tissues, monitor changes in exposures, and establish the distribution of exposures among the general population.
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Other federal agencies have participated in biomonitoring efforts, including EPA, which sponsored the National Human Exposure Assessment Survey (NHEXAS)
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For persistent chemicals (chemicals that remain in the body for months or years, such as lead in bone or lipophilic organic chemicals in adipose tissue) , biomonitoring data provide information on what chemical and how much enters the body and accumulates; in most cases, biomonitoring data do not provide information on the timing, sources, or routes of exposure.
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The personal nature of biomonitoring raises the bar on ethical and communication challenges because the mere fact that biomonitoring data are results of measurements in human specimens gives them the appearance of being more accurate than traditional sources of exposure information, such as questionnaires and environmental monitoring (Schulte and Sweeney 1995)
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. ." But where controversies surround the issue of health risks, as they do in the case of biomonitoring data, the communication and ethical aspects cannot be divorced from the use of the data.
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. With respect to environmental chemicals, biomarkers of exposure, effect, and susceptibility are defined as follows (WHO 2001)
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. This report focuses primarily on biomonitoring as used in populationbased studies, such as CDC's national reports on human exposure or EPA's NHEXAS, because they raise the most far-reaching and challenging questions regarding the interpretation of biomonitoring data.
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THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL COMMITTEE To address some of the challenges raised by biomonitoring data, Congress5 asked the National Academies to perform an independent study to identify key uncertainties in estimating exposure, health effects, and human risks potentially associated with biomonitoring and to develop a research agenda for interpreting human biomonitoring data. In response, the National Research Council established the Committee on Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Toxicants, which prepared this report.
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The committee was also tasked with developing an overall research agenda for addressing uncertainties to improve evaluations and characterizations of health risks and to improve tracking of changes potentially relevant to public health. To address its task, the committee held four public sessions in which it heard presentations from officials of EPA's Office of Research and Development; CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, National Center for Health Statistics, and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; the Washington State Department of Health; the International Life Sciences biomonitoring committee; the American Chemistry Council; CropLife America; the Association of Public Health Laboratories; Environmental Defense; and academe.
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2005. Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals.
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2004. Human biomonitoring of environmental chemicals: Measuring chemicals in human tissue is the "gold standard" for assessing the people's exposure to pollution.
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