HandIe with care - ŚNew Scientistą No. 2148, 22 August 1998

[Alan Watson <alanwatson@gn.apc.org>]

>From ŚNew Scientistą No. 2148, 22 August 1998

HandIe with care
Debora Mackenzie

NEW chemicals should not be granted licences unless their persistence and toxicity have been thoroughly assessed, says the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

In a major review of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), published for an international meeting on dioxins in Stockholm this week, the SEPA concludes that containing the dangerous effects of chemicals can prove impossible once they have been released. Sweden is at the forefront of international efforts to ban POPs under a recently concluded UN treaty (This Week, 4 July, p 6).

The SEPA warns that very little is known about newer POPs. It says that polybrominated flame retardants known as PBDEs, which are used in clothing, were increasing in the environment until recently. Small amounts have been shown to cause brain damage in baby mice.

POPs continue to cause harm even after they are banned, says the agency. Environmental levels of PCBs and DDT are falling by between 5 and 15 per cent per year, and there have been calls to stop studying them. But recently, PCBs have been found to cause brain damage in animals at lower doses than previously suspected.

Meanwhile, researchers in the US have found neurological damage in the children of mothers with PCB levels "not much higher" than those in most Swedes. PCBs also appear to be behind reproductive failure in Baltic seals, and could be why people on Sweden's Baltic coast have more breast cancer and smaller babies than other Swedes.	Debora MacKenzie




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