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20/10/2007

US population is " born" toxic - poisoned through generations!

PBDEs in U.S. infants mirror adult population

Science News –October 17, 2007
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/est...b_prenatal.html


The largest study yet of PBDEs in infants confirms trends seen in adult populations.
The largest study yet of PBDEs in U.S. infants confirms that American babies' concentrations of the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic compounds are at least twice as high as those of European infants. The data also reaffirm other trends observed in studies of adults.

The study (PDF: 711KB), posted online in Environmental Health Perspectives on September 27, is also significant because of its demographics. The research team led by Lynn Goldman of Johns Hopkins University examined 297 infants, of whom 70% were African-American, 21% Caucasian, and 8% Asian. Two-thirds of the mothers were unmarried, nearly 30% did not complete high school, and almost half were overweight or obese before their pregnancies. "To date, there is little data with regards to exposures [to PBDEs of infants] in inner-city, largely African-American populations," the researchers write.

The main PBDE compounds in the infants' umbilical-cord blood were associated with the Penta and Octa formulations, which have not been used in new U.S. products since the end of 2004. The samples were collected from November 2004 to March 2005.

Studies show that PBDEs are unlike most other persistent organic pollutants in that a small percentage of people harbor concentrations significantly higher than the median. Infants in the Johns Hopkins study also followed this pattern; 5% of the population was born with overall PBDE concentrations that were three to five times higher than the median.

Younger mothers in the study tended to have higher PBDE levels, a result similar to that reported in another recent study (J. Occup. Environ. Med. 2005, 47, 199–211).

The Baltimore babies' levels of BDE-209, the main compound in the Deca formulation currently used in the U.S. and Europe, were below the level of detection. In contrast, in a recent study of Spanish infants, BDE-209 was the dominant congener in some tissues (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2007, DOI 10.1021/es0714484). —KELLYN BETTS

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