Packaging Chemical Exposure May Affect Immunity

Chemicals used in certain types of food packaging can inhibit the effectiveness of routine childhood vaccines against two diseases, a new study from the US suggests.

Focusing on these two medical conditions in particular - tetanus and diphtheria - the study highlights a link between lowered immunity levels in children and the presence of PFCs (perfluorinated compounds), as found in a wide spread of packaging forms.

The link was made from research carried out in the Faroe Islands - a part of the world where marine life is widely eaten and, therefore, the level of PFC exposure is raised. Here, 587 children born over a three-year period, starting in 1999, were assessed.

PFC Chemicals: Immune Systems

Once these infants had reached five and seven years of age - the researchers looked at how immune they were to tetanus and to diphtheria and they also examined the PFC chemical levels present in their mothers.

Given that tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations are almost universally given to children, what the researchers found alerted them to a public health threat in-waiting. Where PFC exposure had taken place, the immune systems' protective antibody levels were significantly reduced.

Packaging Chemical Exposure

"The clinical importance of our findings is that PFC exposure may increase a child's risk for not being protected against diphtheria and tetanus, despite a full schedule of vaccinations", the researchers explained in their packaging chemical exposure study, adding that the immunity shortfall might be much wider than that.

PFCs come in a variety of forms: among the most widely employed are PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic Acid), PFOS (Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid) and PFHxS (Perfluorohexane Sulfonic Acid). These, according to the research team, figure within ‘thousands of important industrial and manufacturing applications and occur widely in surfactants and repellents in food packaging and textile impregnation.'

The new study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA).

Image copyright Pilarek - Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

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