Use of Newborn Screening Program Blood Spots for Exposure Assessment: Declining Levels of Perfluorinated Compounds in New York State Infants

Temporal biomonitoring studies can assess changes in population exposures to contaminants, but collection of biological specimens with adequate representation and sufficient temporal resolution can be resource-intensive. Newborn Screening Programs (NSPs) collect blood as dried spots on filter paper from nearly all infants born in the United States (U.S.). In this study, we investigated the use of NSP blood spots for temporal biomonitoring by analyzing perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctane sulfonamide (PFOSA), perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) in 110 New York State (NYS) NSP blood spot composite specimens collected between 1997 and 2007, representing a total of 2640 infants. All analytes were detected in ≥90% of the specimens. Concentrations of PFOS, PFOSA, PFHxS, and PFOA exhibited significant exponential declines after the year 2000, coinciding with the phase-out in PFOS production in the U.S. Calculated disappearance half-live...