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Good news for Californians--biomonitoring
California First To Implement Bio-Monitoring
State Will Monitor Dangers Toxins
By Lyanne Melendez
Sep. 29 - KGO - A breakthrough measure makes California the first state in the country to monitor the toxins we're exposed to every day from thousands of consumer products. The bill is the first comprehensive statewide effort to measure and catalogue human exposure to chemicals.
In the past 50 years, the risk of breast cancer has nearly tripled. In 1940, one in 22 women ran the risk of getting breast cancer, today it is one in seven. Researchers say something is going on. Could it be the environmental contaminants that we are exposed to? Today the state took a groundbreaking step to try and solve that mystery.
Every day we come in contact with hundreds of chemicals. They are in our food, air, water, and soil, or the products we use. But how do we know which chemicals are harmful? Enter Senate Bill 1379, the bio-monitoring program which was signed today by California's governor.
Karl Tupper, Pesticide Action Network: "To analyze for toxic chemicals in a body, a blood or urine sample is taken."
This kind of testing is already done at a national level by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Through bio-monitoring, the CDC found Mexican Americans have three times the levels of the pesticide DDT, which is said to affect the nervous system.
Children have twice the level of the pesticide dursban than adults, which can cause neurological damage. And women have higher levels of phthalats which can cause birth defects.
State Senator Deborah Ortiz is one of the bill's authors. She says having a local, California bio-monitoring program will help us meet our specific needs.
State Sen. Deborah Ortiz: "Whether certain cancer clusters in Marin County are attributable to certain body burdens of the sample group or whether pesticide exposure of farm worker children in the Central Valley can be linked to outcomes and measurements of body burden."
So the state would confidentially and voluntarily test people in potential hot spots.
Jeanne Rizzo, The Breast Cancer Fund: "Which I believe will provide the answers and remedies to improve the health of all Californians."
It certainly won't be for everyone. Bio-monitoring requires sophisticated lab work which can cost up to $15,000.
There had been some opposition. The American Chemistry Council out of Arlington initially argued bio-monitoring doesn't tell us what effect, if any, a substance may have on human health.
But they have since changed their position after the state came up with new guidelines that include a nine-member panel made up of scientists which will oversee the program. Summary reports of the findings will be released every two years starting in 2010. But in terms of who will be tested, how many, what locations, in other words the logistics have not been hammered out yet.
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