Environmental Arsenic Exposure of Children around a Former Copper Smelter Site

Hwang, Yaw-Huei; Bornschein, Robert L.; Grote, JoAnn; Menrath, William; Roda, Sandy

doi:10.1006/enrs.1996.3691

Cited by 82 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(21 reference statements)

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“…Since composite house dust only differed from house dust in that it was a sample taken from the householder's vacuum cleaner rather than from their carpet it was perhaps surprising that the correlation was not stronger between these two measures. The relationship between arsenic in house dust and in garden soils was moderate, and similar to those found between soils and house dusts around the Anaconda copper smelter (Hwang et al, 1997 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…This may be explained by the low level of urinary arsenic in the study region. A similar study found that in an area where the arsenic content of soils and house dusts near the source were raised (267 mg /g in soil, 83 g/ g in dust ), the population's total urinary arsenic reached 20 mg /g creatinine ( Hwang et al, 1997 ); thus a 10-fold increase in soil arsenic and 8-fold increase in house dust arsenic resulted in a 3 -fold increase in total urinary arsenic. In that study, carried out around the Anaconda copper smelting plant in the United States, there was a 10 -fold difference between arsenic levels in ''high'' areas compared to those in ''low'' areas, whilst between those same areas there existed only a 2 -fold difference in urine arsenic concentrations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

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Assessment of environmental arsenic levels in Prievidza district

Keegan

Hong

Thornton

et al. 2002

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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A coal -burning power station in the Nitra Valley in central Slovakia annually emitted large quantities of arsenic ( up to 200 tonnes ) between 1953 and 1989. Since then, pollution -control measures have reduced arsenic emissions to less than 2 tonnes a year. However, the power station was still a source of airborne arsenic pollution. As part of an EU -funded study on exposure to arsenic and cancer risk in central and Eastern Europe we carried out a study of environmental levels of arsenic in the homes and gardens of residents of the district. Garden soil samples ( n = 210 ), house dust samples ( n = 210 ) and composite house dust samples ( n = 109 ) were collected and analysed using inductively coupled plasma atomic absorption spectroscopy ( ICP -AES ) at Imperial College. The mean arsenic content of coal and ash in samples taken from the plant was 519 g / g ( n = 19 ) and 863 g / g ( n = 22 ), respectively. The geometric mean ( GM ) arsenic concentration of garden soils was 26 g / g ( range 8.8 -139.0 g / g ), for house dust 11.6 g / g ( range 2.1 -170 g / g ) and for composite house dust 9.4 g / g ( range 2.3 -61.5 g / g ). The correlation between the arsenic levels in soil and in house dust was 0.3 ( P < 0.01 ), in soil and composite house dust 0.4 and house dust and composite house dust 0.4 ( P < 0.01 for both ), i.e., were moderate. Arsenic levels in both house dust and soil decreased with distance from the power station. Overall, levels in both fell by half 5 km from the point source. Weak correlations were seen between the total urinary arsenic concentrations and arsenic concentrations in composite house dust.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Assessment of environmental arsenic levels in Prievidza district

Keegan

Hong

Thornton

et al. 2002

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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“…Speciated and total urinary arsenic concentrations were predicted for each child using the EPA exposure assessment equation, the CTE and RME assumptions presented in Table 2, arsenic concentrations from soil and interior dust for each individual child's exposure unit, the site-specific bioavailability for soil and dust, and the estimated daily urinary output. The soil and interior dust concentrations used were from Hwang et al (7).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Site-specific data confirm arsenic exposure predicted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Walker¹,

Griffin²

1998

Environ Health Perspect

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The EPA uses an exposure assessment model to estimate daily intake to chemicals of potential concern. At the Anaconda Superfund site-in Montana, the EPA exposure assessment model was used to predict total and speciated urinary arsenic concentrations. Predicted concentrations were then compared to concentrations measured in children living near the site. When site-specific information on concentrations of arsenic in soil, interior dust, and diet, site-specific ingestion rates, and arsenic absorption rates were used, measured and predicted urinary arsenic concentrations were in reasonable agreement. The central tendency exposure assessment model successfully described the measured urinary arsenic concentration for the majority of children at the site.The reasonable maximum exposure assessment model successfully identified the uppermost exposed population. While the agreement between measured and predicted urinary arsenic is good, it is not exact. The variables that were identified which influenced agreement included soil and dust sample collection methodology, daily urinary volume, soil ingestion rate, and the ability to define the exposure unit. The concentration of arsenic in food affected agreement between measured and predicted total urinary arsenic, but was not considered when comparing measured and predicted speciated urinary arsenic. Speciated urinary arsenic is the recommended biomarker for recent inorganic arsenic exposure. By using site-specific data in the exposure assessment model, predicted risks from exposure to arsenic were less than predicted risks would have been if the EPA's default values had been used in the exposure assessment model. This difference resulted in reduced magnitude and cost of remediation while still protecting human health. Key wordk: arsenic bioavailability, arsenic biomarkers, exposure assessment, soil and dust ingestion, urinary arsenic concentrations.

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“…If we assume that around 40 million individuals are working in the mining industry, then millions of children (including the children of the miners) may be directly exposed to environmental contaminants produced during mining. Most studies on children living in mining or smelter sites are limited to exposure assessments (Díaz-Barriga et al, 1997b;Hwang et al, 1997;Murgueytio et al, 1998). Few of them have described biological effects in the exposed children (Counter et al, 1997;Calderón et al, 2001).…”

Section: Soil Exposure Pathwaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Expressing urine from a gel disposable diaper for biomonitoring using phthalates as an example

Liu

Xia

Guo

et al. 2012

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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The urinary metabolites of phthalates are well-accepted exposure biomarkers for adults and children older than 6 years but are not commonly used for infants owing to non-convenient sampling. In the light of this situation, a novel sampling method based on monitoring the urine expressed from the gel diaper was developed. The urine was expressed from the gel absorbent after mixing the absorbent with CaCl2 and then collected by a laboratory-made device; the urinary phthalate metabolites were extracted and cleaned using a solid-phase extraction (SPE) column and analyzed with high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry / mass spectrometry. To evaluate the method's feasibility, the following factors were investigated: the proportion of CaCl2 to gel absorbent, the urination volume variation and the target compounds' deposition bias in the diaper, the matrix blank of the different diaper brands, the storage stabilities and the recoveries of creatinine and phthalate metabolites in the expressed urine. Mono-methyl phthalate, mono-ethyl phthalate, mono-butyl phthalate, mono-benzyl phthalate, mono-2-ethylhexyl phthalate and mono-2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl phthalate were involved. 70-80% of the urine can be expressed from the diaper, and the expressed spiking recoveries and the limit of detection of mono-phthalates ranged from 88.5-115% and 0.21-0.50 ng/ml. The method was applied to measure phthalate metabolites in 65 gel diaper samples from 15 infants, and the pilot data suggests the infants are commonly exposed to phthalates. In summary, the method for monitoring of infant exposure to phthalates is sound and validated, and the potential health effects from the vulnerable infants' exposure to phthalates should be concerned.39th Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars (SRF for ROCS); Hundred Talent Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams [KZCX2-YW-T08

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Environmental Arsenic Exposure of Children around a Former Copper Smelter Site

Cited by 82 publications

References 26 publications

Assessment of environmental arsenic levels in Prievidza district

Assessment of environmental arsenic levels in Prievidza district

Site-specific data confirm arsenic exposure predicted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Expressing urine from a gel disposable diaper for biomonitoring using phthalates as an example

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