ACS Position Statement

Statement on Biomonitoring

Summary

The ACS Statement on Biomonitoring reviews the science and interpretation of biomonitoring data in a human health context that calls for research to improve the utility of biomonitoring information in science and policy.

ACS Position

Biomonitoring involves the measurement of chemicals in humans (and other species) and is rapidly advancing our ability to detect and quantify potentially hazardous exposure to a wide range of chemicals. Biomonitoring studies now routinely yield novel, and sometimes surprising, information about the accumulation of chemicals into living receptors.

In recent years, it has become clear that many anthropogenic chemicals, including some that are widely used, can interfere with the cellular signaling mechanisms controlling development, even at the low levels of environmental exposure experienced by the general population. Both animal and human studies link altered cellular signaling to developmental impairments. Biomonitoring may have its greatest value in dealing with chemicals that impair the development of living things.

Advances in analytical chemistry now allow affordable measurement of environmental chemicals, both natural and synthetic, and their metabolites in tissue, blood, urine, hair, milk, and other biological samples. Newly developed measurement devices that facilitate sample collection and analysis will propel the field forward in the near future. Such biomonitoring produces data which provide study participants, public health and environmental scientists, policy makers, and the general public with information about patterns of human exposure to chemicals. Biomonitoring can also help to identify high-exposure populations, detect unknown exposures, quantify and track trends, and guide prevention strategies. It can have a direct bearing in channeling the advancement of the chemical enterprise away from hazardous chemicals. How best to enhance and utilize biomonitoring is an important policy issue.

The analytical chemist’s ability to measure substances in humans is often greater than our ability to interpret the information in a scientific context (toxicology, pharmacokinetic modeling, epidemiology, and exposure assessment). The classical toxicology picture has been made more complicated by recently discovered dose responses for certain toxicants where impairment-related effects are observed at lower, but not at higher, doses. The resulting uncertainties in environmental effects and cumulative and chronic health impacts justify more vigorous research efforts. Biomonitoring has recently been evaluated by the National Research Council in a report entitled Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Chemicals. Some of the recommendations presented below are aligned closely with the findings and counsel in this report.

California’s September 2006 law, Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program, marked the launch of the first state-sponsored program to measure specific chemical levels in residents across a state. The rapidly increasing interest in collecting and using biomonitoring data for public health decisions highlights the need to refine this tool. The associated data analysis and interpretation techniques should be developed expeditiously and with full scientific rigor.

The American Chemical Society endorses the expansion of the field of biomonitoring as a significant tool for better identifying and understanding the potential environmental and human health risks associated with chemical exposures. As part of this endorsement, the ACS specifically encourages expansion of funding for the following:

Continued development of biomonitoring as a methodology for tracking the fate of chemicals, their exposure pathways, uptake mechanisms, and trends in human exposures.
Improvement in our ability to design, interpret, and communicate biomonitoring studies, including the development of a coordinated strategy to ensure that the selection of target chemicals and biomarkers focuses on the potential of chemicals to cause harm, with special concern for widespread population exposures, including exposures of susceptible subpopulations such as children.
Use of biomonitoring data to help guide the funding of experimental toxicological research to better understand atypical dose responses, toxicity thresholds, endocrine disruption, and its mechanisms of action, and other health implications of low-level exposure of animals and humans to chemicals.
Development of biomonitoring-based epidemiologic, toxicologic, and exposureassessment methods to enhance public-health surveillance and further the scientific community’s ability to interpret the risks posed by low-level exposure to environmental chemicals.
Use of biomonitoring data in conjunction with other appropriate health and environmental data to foster research and development of greener alternatives guiding the transition of chemical processes and products away from hazardous substances.
Expanded educational opportunities for the scientific community—especially chemists, as well as the general public—emphasizing the importance of biomonitoring, its strengths and limitations, and how it can be used to advance the development of a less hazardous technology base.

The ultimate objective of biomonitoring research is to understand the public health implications of exposure to environmental chemicals by linking biomarkers of exposure to biomarkers of effect and susceptibility. The ACS supports this objective and the application of the resulting knowledge to motivate and guide the design of green alternatives to chemicals that biomonitoring helps to identify as threats to human health and the environment.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization, chartered by Congress, with more than 160,000 chemical scientists and engineers as members. The world’s largest scientific society, ACS advances the chemical enterprise, increases public understanding of chemistry, and brings its expertise to bear on state and national matters.