A Massachusetts study suggests that
exposure to toxic compounds may be routine in American
homes.
By MARLA CONE
LOS ANGELES TIMES
In a study of 120 homes in Cape Cod,
Mass., scientists found dozens of toxic chemicals in
indoor air and dust, suggesting that exposure to potentially
hormonealtering compounds is commonplace in American
homes.
The scientists, in a comprehensive
look at home-based contaminants, found 67 different
compounds in dust and air, dominated by chemicals found
in plastics, cosmetics such as nail polish, perfumes
and hairsprays and detergents. Flame retardants used
in foam furnishings and insecticides were also commonplace.
The household sampling is part of
a broader, decade-long study of 2,100 women that aims
to determine why Cape Cod has a high prevalence of breast
cancer unexplained by genetic factors.
Nine chemicals were found in every
house tested - six phthalates, found mostly in cosmetics
and hard plastics, and three alkylphenols, including
one used most- in detergents and cleaners.
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The household sampling, conducted
by the Silent Spring Institute of Newton, Mass., and
Harvard University's School of Public Health, provides
new information that should help the government prioritize
which compounds might pose a high risk. But because
the compounds are ubiquitous in household products and
they are rarely listed as ingredients, there is little
people can do to limit their exposure except to avoid
indoor pesticides.
The findings suggest that consumer
products expose people to chemicals that have been shown
to alter hormones in laboratory tests. But for most
of them, including phthalates and alkylphe- little is
known about what effect they have on human health or
what levels put people at risk.
Tests on animals and human cells
have demonstrated that some of the compounds, called
endocrine disruptors, mimic estrogen or block testosterone,
which guide development of reproductive organs and sexual
characteristics, while others alter thyroid hormones,
which control how the brain of a fetus develops.
"This is a wake-up call,"
said Linda Birnbaum, chief of experimental toxicology
at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "These
chemicals are all over, and are these things that we
really want all over? That's the question we have to
address."
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The results, published over the weekend
in the online version of the journal Environmental Science
and Technology, are valuable because the sampling was
in residential neighborhoods, not in areas with smokestack
industries or farms where pollutants might be coming
from outdoors.
"People spend most of their
time indoors, and chemical concentrations build up indoors
- so much so that they- typically exceed outdoor concentrations,"
said Ruthann Rudel, the study's lead investigator and
a senior toxicologist at the Silent Spring Institute.
"A lot of [the chemicals found] seem to be inescapable."
The researchers said there is no
reason to believe that contaminants in Cape Cod homes
would be more prevalent than elsewhere in the country,
although levels could vary from place to place.
The most prevalent pesticide in the
air and dust was permethrin, an active ingredient in
many household insecticides.
The study does not determine whether
people in the homes studied are actually ingesting or
inhaling the chemicals from the dust and indoor air,
but an earlier study by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention found many of the same chemicals
inside the bodies of Americans.
The Los Angeles Tunes is a Tribune
Co. newspaper.
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