Exposure to PCE-Contaminated Water Linked to Increased Risks of Teenage Drug Use.
Cape Cod residents who were exposed prenatally to both their mothers’ alcohol use and contaminated drinking water had higher risks of using multiple illicit drugs as teenagers, according a recent study by School of Public Health researchers.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health, found that residents born between 1969 and 1983 who were exposed in utero to tetrachloroethylene (PCE)-contaminated drinking water in eight Cape Cod towns had higher risks of drug use than those not exposed. Similarly, those with alcohol exposure had increased risks. Teenagers exposed to both had the highest risks of using multiple illicit drugs, suggesting an “additive effect of early life exposure” to both substances, the study says.
The authors cautioned that because of study limitations, further research is needed to examine the long-term behavioral effects of the early-life exposures.
Prior studies have demonstrated that exposure to PCE affects neuropsychological function and risk-taking behaviors, while prenatal alcohol exposure has been shown to increase the risk of alcohol disorders later in life. The authors said that, since PCE and alcohol are both solvents, “it is plausible that they act by similar mechanisms on the behaviors under study.”
But, they added, because the risk-taking behaviors occurred many years after the exposures, further research is needed to determine the roles that social factors, such as the level of parental supervision, might play in the increased rates of drug use.
Researchers at SPH have been studying the health effects of PCE-contaminated drinking water that flowed through vinyl-lined pipes in eight Cape Cod towns from 1968 through 1980. The current study was based on self-reported information on illicit drug use from more than 660 children born to mothers exposed to PCE, about half of whom also were exposed to alcohol.
Co-authors on the study were: Lisa Gallagher, research assistant professor of epidemiology; Ann Aschengrau, professor of epidemiology; and Thomas Webster, professor of environmental health. The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Research Program.