PCBs are a group of synthetic organic chemicals that contain 209 possible individual chlorinated biphenyl compounds. These chemically related compounds are called congeners and vary in their physical and chemical properties and toxicity. There are no known natural sources of PCBs. Although banned in the United States from further production in 1979, PCBs are distributed widely in the environmen...

The Belgian PCB incident occurred at the end of January 1999 when a mixture of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) contaminated with dioxins was accidentally added to a stock of recycled fat used in the production of animal feeds. Although signs of poultry poisoning were noticed by February, 1999, the source and the extent of the contamination were discovered only in May 1999, when it appeared tha...

Polychlorobiphenyls (PCB’s) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) are persistent organic pollutants in the Great Lakes and other aquatic ecosystems. Currently in North America, human exposure to these compounds occurs primarily through the ingestion of contaminated fish, meat and dairy products. Many of these compounds have interacted with the estrogen receptor, but the interactions are com...

Concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hydroxylated metabolites of PCBs (HO-PCBs) and octachlorostyrene (4-HO-HpCS), and pentachlorophenol (PCP) were determined in umbilical cord plasma samples from three different regions of Québec. The regions studied included two coastal areas where exposure to PCBs is high because of marine-food-based diets--Nunavik (Inuit people) and the Lower...

Consumption of fish and shellfish from contaminated areas may be an important source of human exposure to persistent organohalogen compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). We determined concentrations of 2,3,7,8-substituted PCDDs and PCDFs and 19 PCB congeners in whole blood samples from three group...

BACKGROUND Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in wildlife and humans remain a cause of global concern, both in regard to traditional POPs, such as the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and emerging POPs, such as the polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). To determine the time related concentrations, we analyzed human milk for these substances at three time points between 1987 and 1999. Polyc...

Persistent organic pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pose a serious risk for human health and the environment. In this study, PCBs contamination sources of ambient air, road dust, sediments in most polluted city India, Raipur, has been measured over period 2008–2015. The seasonal variations particulate matter (PM), elemental carbon (EC), (OC), carbonate (CC) were studied, ma...

The reductive dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) by anaerobic bacteria has recently been established as an important environmental fate of these compounds. This process removes chlorines directly from the biphenyl ring with replacement by hydrogen, resulting in a product mixture in which the average number of chlorines per biphenyl is reduced. In this study, dechlorination of co...

Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners are constituents of flame retardants, and there is growing concern regarding their persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. We collected breast milk samples between late 2001 and early 2003 from 54 U.K.-resident mothers. Of these, 27 originated from southeast England (London), and the other 27 originated from northwest England (Lancaster). Analy...

BACKGROUND Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent environmental pollutants that preferentially accumulate in lipid-rich tissues of contaminated organisms. Although the adipose tissue constitutes a major intern reservoir of PCBs and recent epidemiological studies associate PCBs to the development of obesity and its related disorders, little is known about the mechanisms involved in thei...