Environmental biomonitoring monitoring

Environmental-exposure monitoring is not conducted in coordination with the biomonitoring. 

Marked, B., Oehlmann, J., Roth, M 1997b. General aspects of heavy metal monitoring by plants and animals. In Subramanian, K.S., Iyengar, G.V. (Eds.), Environmental Biomonitoring - Exposure Assessment and Specimen Banking. ACS Symp Ser 654, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, pp. 18-29. 

Furthermore, biomonitoring, as already a well-established field of environmental analysis (especially for monitoring of pollution caused by heavy metals), can serve as a basis and the first step towards the development of "living sensors". 

Ivanchenko, O. Ilinskaya, O. Kruglova, Z. Petrov, A. Genotoxicity monitoring of environmental samples in Tatarstan, Russia. In New Microbiotests for Routine Toxicity Screening and Biomonitoring Persoone, G., Janssen, C., De Coen, W., Eds. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers New York, 2000 511-516. 

L. Campanella, G. Favero, D. Mastrofini and M. Tomassetti. In T. Vo-Dinh and R. Niebner (Eds.), Respirometric biomonitor for the control of industrial effluent toxicity, Environmental Monitoring and Hazardous Waste Site Remediation, Proceeding Europto Series, SPIE, Washington, 2504, 1995, pp. 221-227. 

Current biomonitoring efforts can be categorized as survey projects and research projects. The objective of survey projects typically is to advance public health by producing information about the prevalence of exposure to environmental toxicants based on periodic monitoring (European... 

Since the 1960s, NHANES has been monitoring nutritional and clinical factors in the U.S. population chemicals in blood and urine were included recently. In addition, CDC s National Reports on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, based on NHANES data, have been influential in setting priorities for future biomonitoring research (Schober 2005). 

Jakubowski, M. 2004. Biological monitoring of environmental exposure to lead—an example from Poland. Presentation at the Session on Biomonitoring, The European Environment and Health Action Plan 2004-2010 Implementation, December 2-3, 2004, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands. 

However, the communication challenge of results below the limit of detection is not quite so easily resolved. Each environmental-monitoring technique, including those of biomonitoring, has a limit in the amount of a chemical that it can reliably and validly measure in a given matrix. Below that limit, it is impossible to tell how much of the substance, if any, is in the sample. Experience with or modification of the technique or invention of a new one can lower the detection limit eventually, but in the short run it is fixed. That is one reason, when multiple biomonitoring methods are available, that the method chosen can have an appreciable effect on the results and their interpretation (Helsel 1990, cited by Bates et al. 2005). 

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