LOWER MANHATTAN — Doctors at Mount Sinai are hoping to take a new look at potential toxic exposure to children in the aftermath of 9/11 — but first, they need some baby teeth.
Dr. Roberto Lucchini, who runs the World Trade Center Health Program Data Center at Mount Sinai, along with exposure biologist Dr. Manish Arora, are hoping to analyze baby teeth from kids who lived in Lower Manhattan in Sept. 2001 or in the months immediately following. They are also accepting teeth from children who were still in utero during 9/11.
The researchers say teeth capture traces of chemicals and metals, and can help scientists better understand how babies and children living in Lower Manhattan were affected by the toxic dust clouds that overwhelmed the area nearly 15 years ago in the wake of the terror attacks.
Arora said that with new laser technology, scientists can not only understand what types of chemicals are locked in the teeth, but also know exactly when children were exposed to those substances.
“The idea is very similar to mapping growth rings in a tree,” Arora said. “In a sense baby teeth have growth rings, even before they are born, starting around the second trimester — especially in that early time and right after they are born, children are extremely susceptible to what surrounds them.”
The link between toxic exposure and long-term health problems after Sept. 11, including asthma and cancer, has now long been studied, especially in recovery workers — but the effects on young children who lived near the World Trade Center site have not been deeply researched, the doctors said.
"We know that exposure to pollution is very bad in those early stages, and we want to understand what these children were exposed to," added Lucchini. "And with that information, we can better look into what, if any, lasting issues this exposure has caused."
They hope this method will give a better understanding of what potential toxins, like increased levels of lead, for example, babies and young children may have been in contact with back in 2001 — and how that exposure affects their health today.
Arora has used his baby-teeth studies to link toxic exposure to the children of migrant workers using pesticides — and the IQ deficits that resulted from those chemicals.
Lucchini and Arora are also working on linking certain exposures in children in Italy with autism through the baby teeth method.
The doctors are looking to start with a sample of teeth from about 100 children for their 9/11 study, then work to make it into a larger study, depending on what they find.
They are still in the early stages of planning the study and are asking any parents that lived in Lower Manhattan at the time of the attacks, and that have held onto baby teeth, to contact them via email: manish.arora@mssm.edu and roberto.lucchini@mssm.edu.
