LEAD AND ORGANOCHLORINES

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This collaborative, multidisciplinary, Superfund Hazardous Substances Basic Research Program will study the current urban sources, environmental distribution and toxic effects on human health of lead and persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons--in particular PCBs and DDT. The research Program will be undertaken in New York City. The environment of New York is heavily contaminated with lead and organochlorines. Lead-based paint coats hundreds of bridges and thousands of apartments, and lead is abundant in the sediments of New York Harbor. PCBs contaminate the Hudson River from north of Albany to the bottom of Manhattan, and in consequence of its contamination by PCBs, the lower Hudson is the nation's largest Superfund site. Specific studies in this Program will examine: * The current sources of lead in the Hudson River and New York Harbor. * The mobilization of lead during pregnancy from endogenous skeletal sources in urban women. * The mobilization of lead during surgically induced menopause in urban women and its possible association with neuropsychological dysfunction. * The sources and distribution of chlorinated hydrocarbons in the Hudson River and New York Harbor. * The possibility that chlorinated hydrocarbons in New York harbor sediments exhibit hormonal activity. * The possibility that PCBs or PCB-contaminated harbor sediments may enhance carcinogen metabolism in normal human mammary cells in vitro. These Projects focus on women, children, minority populations and the aging. They will provide a scientifically sound basis for exposure attenuation and disease prevention. They will be supported by an administration core and by support cores providing statistical and data management expertise, stable lead isotope analysis, trace metal analysis and chemical analysis. The Program will also contain a community outreach core for introducing inner-city high school students to environmental studies and a student summer fellowship program in environmental research for college undergraduates.