Human Biomonitoring
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Recent advances in analytical chemistry allow us to
better detect both natural and synthetic substances in human tissues
through an advanced technology called biomonitoring. This promising
public health tool can help us better understand human exposure to
a wide range of substances. Biomonitoring is defined as one method
for assessing human exposure to chemicals by measuring the chemicals
or their metabolites in human tissues or specimens, such as blood
or urine. Biomonitoring has identified and confirmed human exposure
to environmental substances, such as the presence of lead in children’s
blood. Biomonitoring can be applied in various ways, including evaluation
of the presence of chemicals in body tissues, and to track spatial
variation and temporal trends in chemical exposure. Biomonitoring
may also be helpful in identifying at-risk populations. However,
human biomonitoring data requires careful interpretation. In
particular, the presence of an environmental chemical in a person’s
blood or urine does not by itself mean that the chemical causes disease
an environmental chemical in a person’s blood or urine does not
by itself mean that the chemical |
causes disease. Human biomonitoring
is a tool with great potential to contribute to our understanding of
human exposure to environmental substances. However, there is a need
for consideration of ethical issues relating to the collection of human
tissues for biomonitoring purposes at all stages of a biomonitoring program.
Effective communication is among the biggest challenges currently in
the field. Research is needed to support the interpretation of biomonitoring
results. It is critical that biomonitoring study designs be carefully
constructed in order to ensure that informative biomonitoring results
be obtained.
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