During their peak use period, PBBs represented under 1% of the total sales of fire retardant chemicals, and very probably would have escaped intensive study if they had not been mixed accidentally with animal feed preparations. Instead, international attention was drawn to PBBs by the state-supervised killing of over 35,000 cattle which had been contaminated with PBBs. Interestingly, low doses ...

Organic contaminants [polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), nonylphenols], organotin compounds and trace metals (cadmium, chromium, mercury and zinc) were determined in flounder (Platichthys flesus) liver and sediment from the Amsterdam harbour (North Sea Canal) and Rotterdam harbour (Euromonding) and off the Dutch coast betwe...

Pregnant rodents were fed concentrations of a mixture of polybrominated biphenyls (Firemaster BP-6) during the pregnancy. The material appears to be weakly teratogenic, causing exencephaly and cleft palate in mice. Decreasing birth weight with increasing dosage of the material was seen in both mice and rats. Nonpregnant mice fed 1000 ppm Firemaster BP-6 for 11 days had a marked increase in live...

*Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 1989. Decision guide for identifying substance-specific data needs related to toxicological profiles. Effect of polybrominated biphenyls, B-naphthoflavone and phenobarbital on arylhydrocarbon hydrolase activities and chloroform-induced nephrotoxicity and hepatotoxicity in male C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice. Toxicology 31:343-352. An overview of comm...