In 1988, a Health Risk Assessment Study was performed as part of a negotiated settlement with General Motors. The study focused primarily on Mohawk infants and mothers living in the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation in northern New York State. Dr. Fitzgerald directed the epidemiological study of health effects and exposure of PCBs, polychlorodibenzofurans (PCDDs), polychlorodibenzofuran (PCDFs),and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on these mothers and children.
Dietary, residential and occupational exposures were assessed through interviews and environmental monitoring. Body burdens were estimated through serum, breast milk, and urine analysis; and cychrome P-450 liver enzyme activity was measured through the use of a highly sensitive caffeine breath test. These methods are now being used at other NPL sites with similar contaminants.
Using PCB congener-specific analysis for both body burden and environmental sample measurements, researchers found that the PCB congeners in the environmental samples were also present in the breast milk of Mohawk women. Results of these studies have shown that the mothers have been exposed to PCBs by eating local fish and this contamination was passed to their infants by breast milk. With a reduction in the consumption of local fish, the breast milk PCB concentrations for most new mothers are no longer elevated to high levels. These studies have shown that it is possible to identify sources of PCB contamination through the use of congener-specific analysis.
In 1993, a study was initiated to access exposure of Akwasasne Mohawks to airborne PAHs from the General Motors Foundry site and from the the nearby Reynolds and Alcoa aluminum manufacturing facilities. Twelve months of air PAH data was collected from six locations across the Akwasasne Mohawk Nation and at a distant control site. This study was initiated because of the concern by the Mohawk population that local stack emissions from the three alu minum foundries might contain PAHs and thus pose an additional health risk. It found significant elevations of 17 specific PAHs at several monitoring stations.
