AWARDS | Innovation Grants2005 - 2006 RECIPIENT Exposures to Persistent Contaminants in Food and Fetal Growth and Development Abstract
The use of large-scale production animal agriculture in a chemical world has inadvertently resulted in exposure to significant levels of persistent organic pollutants via the food supply. In recent years, a number of chemical food contaminants have been associated with adverse developmental effects on growth and development and on the brain, in utero and in early life. Of particular interest are chemicals that show thyroid hormone (TH) disrupting activity because of the critical role that TH plays in growth and neurodevelopment.Thus, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which decrease TH, and which are present in animal derived foods, are of particular interest.
The specific aims of this study are t (1) assess neonatal exposure levels of PBDEs, PCBs, and PFCs in an urban Baltimore population; (2) test the hypothesis that exposures to individual PCB, PBDE and PFC compounds (as well as combinations of such compounds as identified above) are related to decreases in T4, free T4, or elevated TSH levels; and (3) test the hypothesis that exposures to individual PCB, PBDE and PFC compounds (as well as combinations of such compounds as identified above) are related to decreases in birthweight and/or gestational age in this population.
We propose to carry out this innovative research in a population of 300 babies born at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2004-2005, and in collaboration with researchers at the JHSPH, the School of Medicine and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These goals are in line with the CLF objective to promote interdisciplinary research that addresses some of the complex interactions between human health and the environment.
Principal Investigator: Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH, Professor, Department of Environmental
Health Sciences, JHSPH (Faculty advisor to Ben Apelberg and Julie
Herbstman)
Benjamin Apelberg, Doctoral Student, Department of Epidemiology
Julie Herbstman, ScM, Doctoral Student, Department of Epidemiology Co-Investigators: Frank R. Witter, MD, Associate Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics
Medical Director, Labor and Delivery Suite, JHSOM Rolf U. Halden, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental
Health Sciences, JHSPH Collaborators:
Larry Lewis Needham, PhD, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention |
