Chapter 7 – HUMAN EXPOSURE BIOMARKERS : PERMETHRIN AS A MILITARILY - RELEVANT MODEL by

Soldiers in operational environments are exposed to a variety of chemical substances. During deployment, they often move very rapidly from one “environment” to the other. Therefore ambient monitoring is very difficult and its outcome very complex to assess. Just as occupational and environmental assessments are becoming more common in industry, biomonitoring of chemical substances and their metabolites in body fluids of soldiers is the best way to calculate individual exposures. Urine is the preferred choice, because it is readily available, can be produced on a regular basis, and is simply processed for further analysis. For most of the exposures to militarily relevant substances, there exist laboratory methods to assess the soldiers’ body burden. For distinct exposures, methods have to be developed, and additional scientific research is needed. These assays should be adopted in the military area, even when only the sample taking will occur in the deployment area and analysis and assessment will be done at home. Procedures for use in operational environments have to be introduced by national and international military institutions. International standards of laboratory and quality assurance procedures are required. The implementation of these procedures by international military organizations would have a great benefit for soldiers’ health and military operability as well. Preor post-deployment medical examinations will only provide a significant benefit to soldiers’ health if the implementation of overall and individualized biomonitoring is part of them. Biomonitoring procedures for short-term and long-term markers of permethrin exposures could act as a good model for other militarily relevant substances.