Environmental and occupational exposures and serum PCB concentrations and patterns among Mohawk men at Akwesasne
Author:
EDWARD F. FITZGERALD, SYNI-AN HWANG, MARTA GOMEZ, BRIAN BUSH, BAO-ZHU YANG AND ALICE TARBELL
Date Published:
2007
Description:
A studywas conducted to address the question of how fish consumption, occupation, and outdoor air affected serum PCB concentrations and congener patterns among 139 Native American men living near three hazardous waste sites. Theywere interviewed about their residential, occupational, and
dietaryhist ories, and donated 20 ml of venous blood for congener-specific PCB analysis. The similarityin the congener pattern between that found in the serum and that detected in local environmental samples was measured bycalculating the Euclidean distance between them. The results indicated that
serum PCB concentrations were positivelyassociated with cumulative lifetime exposures to PCBs from local fish consumption and occupation. However, participants who lived in the last 10 years at Raquette Point, which is the area of the Reserve closest to the hazardous waste sites and the only location
where elevated levels of PCBs were found in outdoor air, did not have higher serum PCB concentrations than participants who lived elsewhere at Akwesasne. Regarding pattern matching, Mohawk men with the greatest cumulative lifetime exposure to PCBs from local fish consumption had a serum PCB congener pattern that more closelyr esembled that in fish caught off-shore from one of the hazardous waste sites than did men who ate less local fish. Similarly, Mohawk men who were occupationally exposed to PCBs were more likely than those without occupational exposure to have a serum PCB congener pattern that was similar to that of Aroclor 1248, the commercial PCB mixture used locally. The serum PCB congener pattern of Raquette Point residents more closelyrese mbled the pattern in outdoor air onlyif the men ate relativelyf ew local fish. The studyis among the first to demonstrate that outdoor air mayaffect serum PCB congener patterns, at least in the absence of heavyfi sh consumption.
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