Spring 2003 Issue
What’s Getting Into You?
CDC lab helps prevent diseases linked to environmental toxins
From the time you wake up in the morning until your head hits the pillow at night, you come in contact with thousands of toxins in the environment. Are toxic chemicals getting into your body? And how do you know what your health risks are?
That’s precisely what some 100 employees of CDC’s Environmental Health Laboratory assess every day, as they develop and apply advanced methods for measuring more than 270 environmental chemicals in people.
Biomonitoring - measuring environmental chemicals in blood, urine, saliva and body fluids or tissues - is at the core of the lab’s capabilities. The lab also plays a critical role in responding to environmental health emergencies, including chemical terrorism. Capable of rapidly identifying and measuring 150 potential chemical terrorist agents in people, the lab is staffed 24 hours a day for emergency needs.
“We actually figure out what gets into you, and how much, to help make the right kinds of health decisions,” explains James Pirkle, M.D., Ph.D., deputy director for science in the Division of Laboratory Sciences at CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.
The lab, which recently moved into a new state-of-the-art facility, has a long history of making important discoveries that have influenced public health policy. The lab’s groundbreaking data was a major factor leading to the removal of lead from gasoline, the elimination of mercury from indoor paint, and the first objective assessment of smoking and second-hand smoke exposure in the U.S. population. The lab also has contributed to major studies of dioxin exposure - including Agent Orange.
“About 30 percent of the measurements we make can’t be done by any other lab in the world,” says Pirkle. “The other 70 percent are conducted with unusually high quality standards.”
Biomonitoring can lead to significant public health benefits. For example, methyl parathion, a dangerous pesticide, was sprayed illegally inside thousands of homes in at least seven states in 1997 and 1998, resulting in the death of two children in Mississippi. In response, the lab measured methyl parathion in more than 15,000 people, identifying who needed medical treatment and who needed to relocate until their homes were deemed safe.
In Haiti, where more than 100 children with upper respiratory infections were mysteriously dying after visiting the local hospital in 1995 and 1996, the CDC lab cracked a case in 36 hours that had mystified other scientists for months. As the lab discovered, children who died were poisoned accidentally by liquid acetaminophen (a pain reliever), which had been mislabeled in China. It was contaminated with an industrial-strength antifreeze ingredient, which caused kidney failure.
“Biomonitoring is a tool that gives us the best exposure information,” says Pirkle. “Using that information, we can ultimately make the best public health decisions.”
Recently, the Environmental Health Lab released the largest study of Americans’ exposure to environmental chemicals - the 260-page “Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals.” The report contains data on blood and urine levels of 116 environmental chemicals, including data showing declines in blood lead levels in children and decreases in exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The report contains additional data on 89 of these chemicals that will help physicians and scientists identify and prevent health problems from exposure.
“This is a landmark document that is, by far, the most extensive assessment of Americans exposure to environmental toxins,” says Pirkle. “This new, expanded information helps us identify exposure problems and address them. We can also identify where the problems aren’t, which is very significant. There are so many different kinds of chemicals out there, it is critical to have this improved exposure information to better evaluate the significance of multiple human exposures in the population.”
The CDC Foundation administers several programs such as “Mercury-associated Neurobehavioral Deficits in Children” and “Phthalates in Pregnant Women,” aimed at studying the impact of environmental factors on the public’s health. To learn more about these and other programs, visit CDC Foundation - Programs.
- Lisa Splitlog