House bill wants review of Fort McClellan Army base

According to the Albany Times Union:

"A bill introduced by Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, would have the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs investigate the health of soldiers who trained at Fort McClellan in Alabama to see if they were made ill by toxic substances at and around the former Army base."

Read the full story here.

Native American teenagers have legacy of PCB pollution

Environmental Health News reports that:

"Youths from the Mohawk Nation are contaminated with persistent organic pollutants at levels higher than the young adults studied in another national survey. Both past and current lifestyle factors – especially diet through eating fish and being breast-fed – influence exposure to and the concentrations of both the long-lived and less persistent POPs varieties in the Akwesasne Mohawk youth."

Read the full article here.

Pollutants still leak from plant property

Greenville Online reports that:

"Carcinogenic PCBs still seep into Pickens County waters 20 years after a Superfund cleanup of a capacitor manufacturing site where the toxins contaminating the Twelve Mile River and Lake Hartwell originated."

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More PCB Fish Contamination in California

According to the Las Angeles Times:

"Mercury and PCBs contamination is widespread in sport fish in urban coastal waters across California, though mostly in moderate concentrations, a survey released Thursday by the state Water Board found.
Nineteen percent of the urban coastline sampled by researchers had fish with mercury in such high concentrations that they shouldn’t be eaten by young women and children. Fourteen percent of locations had similarly elevated levels of PCBs.
The findings are part of the largest statewide survey to date of contaminants in sport fish along the California coast. The report was based on the first year of a two-year survey, which examined more than 2,000 fish from threedozen species gathered in 2009 from waters near Los Angeles and San Francisco, including San Francisco Bay."

Read the entire story here.

Postnatal exposure to PCB 153 and PCB 180, but not to PCB 52, produces changes in activity level and stimulus control in outbred male rats

The 7th Space Interactive reports on a recent study dealing with the certain effect of postnatal PCB exposure:

"Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of organic compounds that bioaccumulate due to their chemical stability and lipophilic properties. Humans are prenatally exposed via trans-placental transfer, through breast milk as infants, and through fish, seafood and fatty foods as adolescents and adults.

Exposure has several reported effects ranging from developmental abnormalities to cognitive and motor deficiencies. In the present study, three experimental groups of rats were orally exposed to PCBs typically found in human breast milk and then behaviorally tested for changes in measures of stimulus control, activity level, and responses with short IRTs."

Read the results of the study here.

93% of Unborn Babies Have GMO Food Toxins in their Blood

According to a recent Salem News article:

A new medical study on the impacts of genetically modified (GM) foods, shows that toxins from GM crops designed to strike down pests are actually showing up in the bloodstreams of women and unborn babies.
The new study, "Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada" by Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Canada, brings to light many of the fears that GMO food awareness groups and writers like our own April Scott, have been attempting to illuminate to the public.

Read the full story here.

State of California fines Chemical Waste Management for PCBs

According to a recent San Fransisco Chronicle article:

State officials have ordered the operators of a massive toxic waste dump in Central California to pay $46,000 in penalties for failure to report releases of hazardous waste.
The Department of Toxic Substances Control on Friday fined Chemical Waste Management for failing to report four separate releases of PCBs into the ground in early 2010.

Read the full article here.