Contaminant exposure in Montrealers of Asian origin fishing the St. Lawrence River: Exploratory assessment

Fishing and fish consumption are widely practiced among members of certain ethnocultural groups. Informal assessment led us to ascribe high levels of consumption of locally caught sportfish to Montrealers of Asian origin and to hypothesize that their choices of species and fish organs differ from th ose of the majority group. An exploratory assessment of contaminant bioindi cators reflective of St, Lawrence River fish consumption was conducted in l ate 1995 among nine Vietnamese and nine Bangladeshi Montreal sportfishers i dentified by community contacts. Vietnamese participants, six men and three women, were 27-70 (median 36) years of age and had immigrated to Canada 3- 20 (median 7) years earlier. In contrast, the nine Bangladeshi males aged 2 8-41 (median 34) years had been in Canada for 2-13 (median 4) years. Bioind icator concentrations among Bangladeshi and Vietnamese participants are com pared to those found for majority-community Montreal-area high-level consum ers recruited on the St. Lawrence River during winter 1995, All results are presented as the median and 90th percentile. Hair mercury concentrations w ere higher for both Vietnamese (1.2, 4.6 mu g/g) and Bangladeshis (1.1, 2.3 mu g/g) than for majority-community sportfishers (0.7, 1.9 mu g/g). Certai n organochlorine levels, specifically total PCB (estimated by plasma Aroclo r 1260), p,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDE, and B-BHC, were highest in the Bangladeshis co mpared to Vietnamese and to majority community sportfishers, In contrast, p lasma levels of other pesticides were low in all three groups, including mi rex, chlordane, and cis-nonachlor, A correlation between plasma p,p'-DDT le vels and recency of arrival in Canada was found for the Bangladeshis. These data suggest a distinct pattern of tissue organochlorines, which we postul ate relates to exposure prior to arrival in Canada and perhaps to the ongoi ng consumption of foods (other than St. Lawrence River sportfish) specific to these groups. (C) 1999Academic Press.