Shouldn t the NYTimes Science section concern itself with, you know, science? Yet here s another toxic alarm from a well-known purveyor of scares about hypothetical chemical threats: this time it s flame retardants, again.
Biomonitoring
Because of improvements in the ability of scientists to measure exceedingly low concentrations of chemicals, it is now possible todetect thousands of substances in human blood, urine, and other bio-logical samples. In recent years, government agencies and other researchers have collected samples from volunteers in communities across the country in order to measure the background level of chemicals in people due to exposures resulting from their environment.These are called biomonitoring programs.