| Antimony: An Unlikely Confounder in the Relationship between Well Water Arsenic and Health Outcomes in Bangladesh Kathleen M. McCarty,1 David B. Senn,1 Molly L. Kile,1 Quazi Quamruzzaman,2 Mahmuder Rahman,2 Golam Mahiuddin,2 and David C. Christiani1 1Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 2Dhaka Community Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh Abstract
Recent in vitro studies have suggested a potential role for antimony as a confounder in human health studies related to arsenic in drinking water. We measured tube-well water concentrations of antimony and arsenic in the Pabna region of Bangladesh, where arsenic concentrations are known to be elevated and the concentrations of antimony have not yet been thoroughly documented. Two hundred forty-five tube-well water samples were collected from various regions in Pabna, Bangladesh, as part of an ongoing case-control study. Water samples were analyzed for arsenic and antimony concentrations by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency method 200.8. The arsenic concentrations in the tube-well water samples ranged from < 1 µg/L to 747 µg/L. All 245 water samples had antimony concentrations < 1 µg/L. Based on consideration of the concentrations used the in vitro studies compared with field-observed concentrations, our results do not support the hypothesis that antimony would be a significant confounder in observed relationships between arsenic exposure through drinking water and potential health outcomes in Pabna, Bangladesh. Key words: antimony, arsenic, Bangladesh, drinking water, tube well. Environ Health Perspect 112:809-811 (2004) . doi:10.1289/ehp.6800 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 12 February 2004]
Address correspondence to D.C. Christiani, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Building I 1408, 665 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115 USA. Telephone: (617) 432-1260. Fax: (617) 432-3323. E-mail: dchristi@hsph.harvard.edu We thank the Dhaka Community Hospital field team and the Harvard School of Public Health Molecular Epidemiology laboratory research team for their collaborative efforts on this project. This work was supported by grants ES 05947, ES 00002, and ES 11622 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) . K.M.M. is supported by training grant T32ES 06790 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 14 October 2003 ; accepted 11 February 2004.
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