BANGOR – Local activists are calling for Maine to lead the nation in addressing chemicals that linger in the human body in response to a national study released this week that indicated that American babies are born with more than 200 potentially toxic substances in their blood.

Umbilical cord blood from 10 randomly selected newborns was tested for hundreds of suspected pollutants. The tests, which were done over the past year by professional laboratories under contract to the Environmental Working Group, detected 297 different substances – the most ever found in this sort of study, said Mike Belliveau of the nonprofit Environmental Health Strategy Center.

“These chemicals were being found in every baby tested,” he said during a Thursday morning press conference at the Maine People’s Alliance offices.

The laundry list of chemicals included such substances as mercury, brominated flame retardants, pesticides and perfluoronated chemicals, or PFCs, which are key to such products as Scotchgard and Teflon. Of the 297 chemicals, previous research has indicated that 180 are likely carcinogens and that more than 200 can cause birth defects.

Babies’ chemical exposure presumably only increases after birth – whether they are fed human breast milk or cow’s milk, as both tend to concentrate pollutants, Dr. Peter Millard, a Bangor physician, said Thursday.

Both in the womb and as infants, children in the early stages of development are more susceptible to the effects of most chemicals. They are growing rapidly, and the systems that an adult body uses to flush out toxins and protect itself from exposure haven’t fully developed yet, according to Dr. Alan Green, a California pediatrician cited in the report.

Mercury is known to affect brain function, dioxin exposure in the womb has been linked to cancer later in life, while other substances are believed to result in lower birth weights and IQs, the study said.

The umbilical cord blood that was tested came from the Red Cross blood bank, where it is stored to extract stem cells for medical research. Countless samples were available, but at $10,000 per child, testing for nearly 400 chemicals was too expensive to justify a larger study, Belliveau said.

Dozens of studies of different groups of people, however, have reported similar findings over the years. And it’s expected that a research project looking at the chemical concentrations in adult Mainers’ blood later this year will indicate problems here, he said.

We have the evidence and need to pay attention to these “early warnings,” Belliveau said.

“If they’re long-lived in the environment, if they build up in our bodies, they don’t belong in commerce,” he said.

If a reasonable alternative exists, companies should be barred from using harmful chemicals, Millard and Belliveau said, urging state legislators to ban the sale of products containing brominated flame retardants – an issue that was not resolved during this year’s legislative session.

More research into many substances is needed, but the burden should be on companies to prove that the chemicals are relatively safe, rather than asking government to prove the danger, Belliveau said.

U.S. manufacturers produce more than 75,000 different chemicals, and a recent survey by the General Accounting Office indicated that fewer than 10 percent have been fully vetted for public safety.

For government to address each substance, one chemical at a time, would require 10,000 years, Belliveau said.

“We can’t afford to address these one at a time. We need a sweeping law,” he said, citing the example of a new European Union policy requiring that any company manufacturing more than 1.1 tons (a metric ton) of a chemical must provide safety information for a registration database, similar to that used for pesticides in the United States.

The Maine Legislature, which has restricted the use or disposal of products containing mercury, arsenic, lead and other pollutants, could take action on the broad families of chemicals making their way into our bodies, said Belliveau. He proposed a ban on all potentially harmful chemicals that have a reasonably priced nontoxic alternative and suggested the issue could be raised to state lawmakers by 2007.

“Maine is at the forefront and is comfortable being there,” Belliveau said.

“We try to err in favor of protecting human health,” agreed Rep. Ted Koffman, D-Bar Harbor and co-chairman of the Legislature’s Natural Resources committee.

Koffman said that regulating products manufactured nationally, or even internationally, is difficult at the state level. But a grass-roots effort by states may be the best way to spur federal action, he said.

“Someone has to say no to trigger that change,” Koffman said.

To read the full report online, visit http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2. For more information, contact Amanda Sears of the Environmental Health Strategy Center at 772-2181.