Sludge Watch ==> Canada to test 5,000 people for toxins

[Maureen Reilly]

StatsCan to test 5,000 people for toxins


Ottawa to map out pollutants in body

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
>From Friday's Globe and Mail
Toronto, Canada

Statistics Canada will test the blood and urine of 5,000 Canadians, ages
6 to 79, so the government can for the first time chart the chemicals
that pollute our bodies.
The federal government's first large-scale survey mirrors similar
efforts in the United States that have found that virtually the entire
population carries a complex burden of pollutants in their tissues.
The blood and urine will be subjected to a battery of expensive tests
that will check for 70 metals and chemicals, including DDT, the once
widely used insecticide that has been banned for decades.
DDT is still found throughout the environment because it degrades so
slowly.

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Those who participate will be given an abbreviated summary of the
contaminants they carry. If curious, they can ask to receive a complete
breakdown of all the chemicals.
Many of the substances to be monitored have only recently emerged as
potential health threats, and are a worry because the chemicals appear
to be leaking out of common consumer products and getting into people.
Bisphenol A, for instance, is a compound that mimics the female sex
hormone estrogen and is the main component of polycarbonate, used to
make hard-plastic water bottles and dental sealants.
Phthalates are a ubiquitous plastic softener found in many cosmetics and
which contribute to the distinctive smell of new cars.
Phthalates concern researchers because they appear able to interfere
with the normal functioning of male hormones.
The tests will also look at brominated flame retardants, a widely used
family of chemicals that reduce the fire hazard of mattresses and
computers, but have been linked in animal experiments to problems
resembling attention-deficit disorders in children.
It is unknown whether current exposures to these substances or their
interactions in people's bodies is harmful, although animal
experimentation has found that during early life and fetal development
even trace exposures to some of the substances can skew development in
ways that increase the chances of cancers and other health problems
later in life.
Given this experimental evidence, environmentalists have long called for
the government to conduct this type of broad population testing. It's
hoped that the volunteers, chosen from 15 areas across the country, will
yield enough exposure information to allow researchers to estimate with
reasonable accuracy the amount of harmful substances present in 97 per
cent of the population.
Health Canada is calling it the first nationally representative sample
"that will allow for the proper analysis of the environmental chemicals
found in the bodies of Canadians."
The first samples will be taken from residents of Clarington, a Toronto
bedroom community, then Montérégie outside Montreal and Moncton.
Federal officials say the survey will close a huge gap in Canadian
public-health measurements, the lack of comprehensive information on the
amount of pollutants such as phthalates, bisphenol A and flame
retardants that people are carrying in their bodies. Until now, health
authorities have had to rely on U.S. testing to try to estimate how
exposed Canadians have been to these substances.
"We have no national data on any of this," said Jeanine Bustros, a
spokeswoman for the monitoring program at Statscan.
"It's long overdue," observed Rick Smith, executive director of
Environmental Defence, a Toronto-based organization that has conducted
some small-scale contaminant tests on a few dozen people and found that
everyone carries pollutants.
He said this finding is a sign that governments have to do more to limit
public exposures to potentially harmful chemicals. "The fact that we do
have these things inside us is a condemnation of our current regulatory
system."
Some prominent federal politicians have recently undergone tests similar
to those that Statistics Canada will do and the results will be out
soon. Environmental Defence has taken samples from Health Minister Tony
Clement, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose and NDP Leader Jack Layton,
in a bid to show that contaminants know no political boundaries and are
present in everyone.
The U.S. has been issuing results of large-scale testing for
contaminants, a process known as biomonitoring, since 2001.
The testing has discovered that the public carries a bewildering
cocktail of chemicals from day-to-day exposures to substances
originating in consumer products, polluting industries and residues on
food. However, the U.S. work has also shown that efforts to ban harmful
substances, like the end of the sale of leaded gasoline, have been
quickly reflected in reduced levels of the brain-damaging heavy metal in
children.
Canada hadn't done similar testing until now because federal authorities
blanched at the huge logistical effort involved and the great cost of
this type of work. It costs about $1,000 a person for extensive checks
for chemical contaminants. Statscan will be using big trailers, a kind
of mobile medical centre, where those selected will give their samples.
As part of the survey, the government will also be looking at people's
height, weight, blood pressure, physical fitness and lung function,
among other health factors. Tests will also be run for the presence of
weed killers and cotinine, which indicates exposure to cigarette smoke.
The program will take about two years to move across the country, and
although no follow-up survey has been announced, it is widely expected
that at regular intervals the government will be taking new samples to
track how contaminant levels change over time.
While the government has never before undertaken such a widespread
program, tests have been done involving a few hundred people looking at
specific problems, such as contaminants in breast milk or mercury levels
in those who eat fish caught for sport. The government has also done
biomonitoring of wildlife, including polar bears, seals and gulls.
When the sampling is completed some time in 2009, researchers will have
a national chemical snapshot for how contaminated Canadians were at this
point, which will become the baseline for subsequent tests. It will
allow rankings on the amount of pollution in Canadians, compared with
people in other countries.
Once the database on the contaminants is set up, the government will
also be able to use this information to monitor the results of any
regulatory efforts to ban these substances or limit exposure.
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