Environmental health and justice and the right to research: institutional review board denials of community-based chemical biomonitoring of breast milk.

Recently, conflicts and challenges have emerged regarding environmental justice and research ethics for some indigenous communities. Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) responded to community requests for breast milk biomonitoring and conceived the Breast Milk Pilot Study (BMPS). Despite having community support and federal and private funding, the BMPS remains incomplete due to repeated disapprovals by the Alaska Area IRB (Institutional Review Board).

Community-based participatory research projects and policy engagement to protect environmental health on St Lawrence Island, Alaska.

Objectives: This article synthesizes discussion of collaborative research results, interventions and policy engagement for St Lawrence Island (SLI), Alaska, during the years 2000-2012.

Methods: As part of on-going community-based participatory research (CBPR) studies on SLI, 5 discrete exposure-assessment projects were conducted: (a) a biomonitoring study of human blood serum; (b-d) 3 investigations of levels of contaminants in environmental media at an abandoned military site at Northeast Cape--using sediment cores and plants, semi-permeable membrane devices and blackfish, respectively; and (e) a study of traditional foods.

Results: Blood serum in residents of SLI showed elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) with higher levels among those exposed to the military site at Northeast Cape, an important traditional subsistence-use area.

Polychlorinated biphenyls in serum of the Siberian Yupik people from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.

Objectives: To determine serum levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Siberian Yupik adults from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, and to determine the relative contribution of atmospheric transport of PCBs and local contamination to body burdens.

Study Design: Siberian Yupiks of various ages were recruited from three populations: residents of the village of Gambell, residents of the village of Savoonga who did not have family hunting camps near the Northeast Cape (NEC), a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) known to be contaminated with PCBs, and residents of Savoonga whose families had a hunting camp at the NEC.