MSACL 

Use of Newborn Screening Blood Spots for Measurement of Neo-natal Exposure Status to Environmental Chemicals
Wed 11:00 AM - Track 3: Environmental Biomonitoring
Kenneth Aldous
NY State Dept of Health
Kurunthachalam Kannan and Kenneth M. Aldous.

Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health and Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University at Albany, P.O. Box 509, Albany, NY 12201
Newborn Screening Programs (NSPs) collect blood as dried spots on filter paper from nearly all infants born in the United States. Blood spots archived on these Guthrie cards from state newborn screening programs are a valuable resource for studies that investigate the impact of neo-natal status on developmental progress and childhood health. The levels of environmental chemicals in newborn blood are indicators of exposure during gestation and may also provide a measure of geographical and temporal variation in exposure. We have reported on the analysis of perfluorinated compounds (PFC) in pooled blood spots obtain in New York State to determine the changes in background levels over a ten year period (1997-2007). In this study, 6 mm diameter dried blood spot punches obtained from archived cards of 2,640 infants were pooled (n=24) to generate 110 composites to represent 11 dates spanning the 10 years. The 24 pooled blood spot punches were extracted into Milli-Q water and sonicated, allowed to stand overnight and re-sonicated before extraction and analysis for the PFCs by LC/MS/MS. Detection limits for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) was 0.2ng/ml of whole blood and perfluorooctane sulfonamide (PFOSA) was 0.04ng/ml whole blood based on the dried blood spot punch whole blood volume equivalent to 13.4 ul.

In this current pilot study there are two goals. Firstly to expand the number of target compounds and measure levels of perchlorate and persistent organic compounds including bisphenol A, non-polar organochlorine pesticides, PCBs and PBDE marker congeners. Secondly, to use only punches from a single dried blood spot on the newborn screening card to obtain exposure measurements for individual infants. Detection limits will be sample limited and we will report on the methods used and method detection limits obtained using both LC/MS/MS and GC/High Resolution MS for the proposed polar and non-polar target analyte groups.
Email: aldous@wadsworth.org