PCBs: Banned toxin found in wood floor finishes - 50 years after the floors were installed

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PCB exposure from wood polish

Environmental Health 2008, 7:2

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/7/1/2

Concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in air, dust and

serum were persistently elevated in two homes. PCB-containing wood

polishes used in the 1950s and 1960s (identified in these homes) may

cause significant exposure.

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Banned toxin found in wood floor finishes

Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:10pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1665067220080117

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A wood floor finish popular in the 1950s and

1960s may be a significant source of the banned, disease-causing

pollutants known as PCBs, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

They did a case study in the homes of older women and found that those

with a PCB-containing wood floor finish sold under the brand name

Fabulon had very high indoor air, dust and blood levels of PCBs -- 50

years after the floors were installed.

" Use of a commercially available PCB-containing wood floor finish in

residences during the 1950s and 1960s is an overlooked but potentially

important source of current PCB exposure in the general population, "

Ruthann Rudel of the Silent Spring Institute near Boston and colleagues

wrote in their report.

Many buildings, including schools, may still harbor PCB-containing floor

finishes or other products, they wrote in the BioMed Central journal

Environmental Health.

Rudel and colleagues tested the bodies and homes of 120 women living on

Cape Cod in Massachusetts who had been taking part in a breast cancer study.

" Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent pollutants identified

worldwide as human blood and breast milk contaminants, " they wrote.

They accumulate in body fat over time.

" In an earlier study, we detected PCBs in indoor air in 31 percent of

120 homes on Cape Cod, " they wrote.

More testing showed the residents had very high blood levels of PCBs --

above the 95th percentile for the U.S. population. The women lived for

10 years or longer in homes where Fabulon had been used.

" Serum concentrations in residents and air and dust concentrations were

especially high in a home where a resident reported use of

PCB-containing floor finish in the past, and where the floor of one room

was sanded and refinished just prior to sample collection, " the

researchers wrote.

Production and use of PCBs was banned in the United States in 1977, with

a very few exceptions, after studies showed they could damage the

immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems, as well as cause

breast cancer.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham)

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