Will biomonitoring change how we regulate toxic chemicals?

Biomonitoring is the assessment of human exposure to environmental chemicals by measuring the chemicals or their metabolites in human specimens such as blood, urine, saliva, or tissue. It has become a powerful public health tool. This article discusses the practical application of biomonitoring to address a public health problem in a state, to explain how biomonitoring differs from predicting exposure through environmental monitoring, to describe the influence biomonitoring has had on promulgating regulations aimed at protecting public health, and to discuss the position biomonitoring holds in the legal landscape as well as its promise in forging laws that will regulate toxic chemicals more effectively.