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Animals as Sentinels of Environmental Health Hazards (Free Executive Summary)

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/1351.html

Free Executive Summary

ISBN: 978-0-309-04046-4, 176 pages, 6 x 9, paperback (1991)

This executive summary plus thousands more available at www.nap.edu.

Animals as Sentinels of Environmental Health

Hazards

Committee on Animals as Monitors of Environmental

Hazards, Board on Environmental Studies and

Toxicology, National Research Council

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Studying animals in the environment may be a realistic and highly beneficial approach to

identifying unknown chemical contaminants before they cause human harm. Animals as

Sentinels of Environmental Health Hazards presents an overview of animal-monitoring

programs, including detailed case studies of how animal health problems--such as the

effects of DDT on wild bird populations--have led researchers to the sources of human

health hazards. The authors examine the components and characteristics required for an

effective animal-monitoring program, and they evaluate numerous existing programs,

including in situ research, where an animal is placed in a natural setting for monitoring

purposes.

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This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu

Animals as Sentinels of Environmental Health Hazards

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/1351.html

Executive Summary

Birds and mice may be used to detect carbon monoxide, because they are

much more sensitive to the poisonous action of the gas than are men.

Experiments by the Bureau of Mines show that canaries should be used in

preference to mice, sparrows, or pigeons, because canaries are more sensitive

to the gas. Rabbits, chickens, guinea pigs, or dogs, although useful for

exploration work in mines, should be used only when birds or mice are

unobtainable, and then cautiously, became of their greater resistance to carbon

monoxide poisoning.

Many experiments have shown that if a canary is quickly removed to good

air after its collapse from breathing carbon monoxide it always recovers and

can be used again and again for exploration work without danger of its

becoming less sensitive. Breathing apparatus must be used where birds show

signs of distress, and for this reason birds are of great value in enabling rescue

parties to use breathing apparatus to best advantage (Burrell and Seibert, 1916).

INTRODUCTION

Like humans, domestic animals and fish and other wildlife are exposed to

contaminants in air, soil, water, and food, and they can suffer acute and chronic

health effects from such exposures. Animal sentinel systems—systems in which

data on animals exposed to contaminants in the environment are regularly and

systematically collected and analyzed—can be used to identify potential health

hazards to other animals or humans.

Sentinel systems can be designed, for example, to reveal environmental

contamination, to monitor contamination of the food web, or to investigate the

bioavailability of contaminants from environmental media; these types of

systems can be designed to facilitate assessment of human exposure to

environmental contaminants. Other sentinel systems can be designed to

facilitate assessment of health hazards resulting from such exposure; e.g.,

systems can be designed to provide early warning of human health risks or can

involve

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1

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