Polar Bears Face New Toxic Threat: Flame Retardants

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-polarbears9jan09,0,4066814.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Already imperiled by melting ice and a brew of toxic chemicals, polar bears throughout the Arctic, particularly in remote dens near the North Pole, face an additional threat as flame retardants originating largely in the United States are building up in their bodies, according to an international team of wildlife scientists.

The flame retardants are one of the newest additions to hundreds of industrial compounds and pesticides carried to the Arctic by northbound winds and ocean currents. Accumulating in the fatty tissues of animals, many chemicals grow more concentrated as larger creatures eat smaller ones, turning the Arctic's top predators and native people into some of the most contaminated living organisms on Earth.

In urban areas, particularly in North America, researchers already have shown that levels of flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyls, or PBDEs, are growing at a rapid pace in people and wildlife. Although they have been found in much lower concentrations in the Arctic, scientists say their toxic legacy will persist there for years because they are slow to break down, particularly in cold climates.

In polar bears, the effects are unknown. But in tests on laboratory animals, PBDEs disrupted thyroid and sex hormones and damaged developing brains, impairing motor skills and mental abilities, including memory and learning.

Wonder what the effect is on our children? Any connection to the increases in Autism, Aspergers, ADD, ADHD, etc?

[gumby]

1. Same thing in mother's milk

In the first nationwide tests for chemical fire retardants in the breast milk of American mothers, Environmental Working Group (EWG) found unexpectedly high levels of these little-known thyroid toxins in every woman tested. http://www.ewg.org/reports/mothersmilk/release_20030923.php

"In every woman tested." The entire world is poisoned.

[mom cat]

2. We will destroy most living things, then the amoeba can start again.

[rodeodance]

4. oh oh.

[The Roux Comes First]

3. We have finally (sort of) wised up to PCBs and Freon

and set some limits on their usage, how could it be any surprise that analogous brominated compounds tend to bioaccumulate and like the chlorine- and fluorine-based analogs also be suspected cancer-causers? These are chemicals that are very resistant to breakdown once released into nature. PCBs have I believe been detected in both the Artic and Antartic, as well as virtually everywhere else on Earth we have looked for them.

I say "wised up" advisedly because there is still an amazing resistance to acknowledging that science (or even reality) should play a role in decisionmaking by large corporations that tend to be major lobbyism-abusers and hence recipients of largesse from the present "any corporation favored over any actual person" administration. General Electric comes to mind. That organization has fought cleanup of the Hudson River tooth and nail despite from what I hear dumping hundreds of thousands of pounds of PCBs in the river.