Provided by: www.ewg.org
Detailed Findings
In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 204 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in 10 newborn babies, with a total of 287 chemicals found in the group. To our knowledge this work represents the first reported cord blood tests for 261 of the targeted chemicals, and the first reported detections of at least 209 chemicals. Scientists refer to this contamination as a person's body burden.
The study found a broad array of pollutants that collectively are known to present potential risks to nearly every organ and system in the body:
- Of the 287 chemicals found in newborn umbilical cord blood, 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause developmental problems. The dangers of exposure to these chemicals in combination has never been studied.
- We detected 287 chemicals of 413 tested (69 percent) in umbilical cord blood samples from 10 newborn babies, with a range of between 154 and 231 for each child. We found 101 chemicals in all babies tested.
- Our tests targeted nine chemical classes; we detected at least half of the analyzed chemicals in each class.
The chemicals we found span organochlorine pesticides (DDT and dieldrin, for example), chemicals currently or formerly used in a wide range of consumer products (perfluorochemicals, brominated fire retardants, PCBs), and chemical pollutants from waste incineration and fossil fuel combustion (polyaromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated and polybrominated dioxins and furans, polychlorinated naphthalenes, mercury).
View results
Summary of tests by chemical family
Summary of tests by chemical family and subclass
Summary of tests by potential health effects
Fetal exposures to mixtures. The few published biomonitoring studies that measure fetal and newborn exposures among the general population confirm work that the pharmaceutical industry conducted more than 40 years ago establishing that the placenta is permeable not just with respect to oxygen, nutrients and fetal waste materials, but also with respect to xenobiotic chemicals. These chemicals move through the placenta via passive diffusion and, less frequently, active transport mechanisms from maternal to fetal blood (Syme et al. 2004).
The few published cord blood biomonitoring studies of the North American general population target a range of chemical classes, including polybrominated biphenyl ethers, or PBDEs (Mazdai et al. 2003); polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs (Stewart 1999,2000; Schecter 1998); organochlorine pesticides (Walker et al. 2003, Rhainds et al. 1999, Lagueux et al. 1999): polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs (PAH—DNA adducts were analyzed in Bocskay et al. 2005); methylmercury (Rhainds et al. 1999, Belles-Isles et al. 2002, and Bilrha et al. 2003); and polychlorinated dioxins and furans, or PCDD/PCDFs (Schecter 1998). Although these studies each target a fairly limited number of contaminants, collectively they confirm the findings of the current study: babies are exposed to hundreds of industrial chemicals even before birth.
The mixtures comprising a typical baby's body burden create an environment in the body that is drastically different from what is produced in toxicology studies, nearly all of which focus on single chemicals. Studies that target mixtures most often investigate simple mixtures at high doses encompassing only a handful of chemicals, rarely outside the same chemical class. In a few cases, scientists have investigated the toxicity of mixtures designed to mimic chemical combinations found in the environment. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), for instance, has begun to develop "interaction profiles" — assessments of the evidence on joint toxic actions of mixtures — for some common chemical combinations found in the environment (de Rosa et al. 2004, ATSDR 2004). But as a rule, toxicologists have not investigated mixtures that are considered representative of those found in people, much less in sensitive subpopulations such as developing children.
The results of our investigation raise questions with respect to the role of exposures in utero both in a range of children's health problems and in diseases developed in adulthood that may have their origins in early life exposures; the study also reinforces the importance of explicit consideration of fetal and childhood exposures in developing public health policies.
More From Body Burden — The Pollution in Newborns
Executive Summary
Babies are Vulnerable
Human Health Problems on the Rise
Guide to testing.
Adult Blood Test Results.
Why are babies born polluted?
Guest Commentary
Peer Statement
