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BY MATTHEW STONE
Staff Writer 08/28/2008

Staff Writer

Researchers are recruiting a new set of students from five Augusta-area towns to participate in a study evaluating what -- if any -- effect arsenic has on children's intellectual development.

University of New Hampshire and Columbia University researchers are again recruiting students who attend Fayette and Maranacook-area schools to participate in the ongoing study.

Altogether, the researchers are seeking 500 Maine and New Hampshire students in grades 3 through 5 whose families use private well water. Researchers already are working with approximately 80 Maine families in Fayette and the Maranacook school district towns Manchester, Mount Vernon, Readfield and Wayne, said Joseph Graziano, associate dean of research at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.

The Maranacook and Fayette school systems are the only Maine districts from which the researchers are recruiting participants.

The study, which began in 2000 in Bangladesh and later moved to the United States, concentrates on Maine and New Hampshire children because private wells in the states are at risk for natural arsenic contamination.

Researchers will send information to parents about participation in the study during the first weeks of the school year. Manchester and Readfield students will be the first to receive the notices, said Kim Perrson, a UNH researcher and the study coordinator.

Perrson said the researchers studied U.S. Geological Survey maps before deciding to recruit students from Fayette and Maranacook-area schools.

The study could expand to also include Winthrop students, she said.

"They have identified the area as being particularly high in arsenic," Perrson said.

The region's topography, geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey and Maine Geological Survey have found, features types of rocks that dissolve arsenic -- and other harmful elements, including uranium and radon -- into ground water.

In the Greater Augusta area, according to geologists, the rate of contaminated wells is nearly twice that of the rest of the state.

After beginning the United States portion of the study in New Hampshire, Graziano said, researchers expanded the study to Maine at the beginning of 2008.

"The rate of recruitment was much slower than we had hoped in New Hampshire," he said.

Study participants receive free analyses of their homes' water supply and advice on treating any problems found with their wells.

Researchers conduct one-hour home visits with participating students' mothers. They collect water samples, ask a designated series of questions and conduct reasoning tests, according to information supplied by Perrson.

"One of the biggest predictors of a child's IQ is mom's IQ," Graziano said. "The questions for the mom during the visits home is, in essence, to get a handle on mom's intelligence."

The investigators later meet with student participants at school, when they administer intelligence assessments and collect toe nail samples. Parents receive copies of their children's intelligence exams.

"It's really unintrusive and the information is helpful to the homeowner," Maranacook-area schools Superintendent Rich Abramson said.

"The hope is early intervention can prevent further damage down the road."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com

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