Measuring up: examining the need to establish state-based biomonitoring Programs.

* How should the United States begin to address human exposures to environmental chemicals?

* And how should we interpret what those exposures mean in terms of human health?

* A means of addressing these environmental health quandaries is the laboratory-based tool called human biomonitoring.

* Biomonitoring measures levels of chemicals or their metabolites in samples of blood, urine, saliva, breast milk, and tissues such as hair.

* To date, the primary focus at the state level has been prevention of childhood lead poisoning.

* The time has come to expand beyond lead programs and to begin monitoring for new and emerging hazards.

* The Association of Public Health Laboratories and the NCEH Division of Laboratory Sciences have launched the State Public Health Laboratory Biomonitoring Planning and Implementation Grant Program.

* The purpose is to build biomonitoring capacity at state public health laboratories.

* The program has distributed $5 million to 25 applicants (covering 33 states), several of which represented multistate consortia.

* The grants gave most states the funding needed to plan biomonitoring programs.

* Additional resources are needed if those states are to implement and sustain their plans.

* The amount of federal funding being made available to these states continues to decline, however.

* Finding money for states without biomonitoring programs is even more critical.