Environmental organochlorines

Wolff MS, Toniolo, PG. 1995. Environmental organochlorine exposure as a potential etiologic factor in breast cancer. Environ Health Perspec 103(7) 141-145. 

Moysich KB, Ambrosone CB, Vena JE, et al. 1998. Environmental organochlorine exposure and postmenopausal breast cancer risk. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 7(3) 181-188. 

EPA. 1991b. Method 608 - organochlorine pesticides and PCBs. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Code of Federal Regulations. 40 CFR 136, Appendix A. 

Borga, K., Gabrielsen, G.W., and Skaare, J.U. (2001). Biomagnification of organochlorines along a Barents sea food chain. Environmental Pollution 113, 187-198. 

Elliott, J.E., Norstrom, R.J., and Keith, J.A. (1988). Organochlorines and eggshell thinning in Northern gannets Sula bassanus) from Keith, Eastern Canada. Environmental Pollution 52, 81-102. 

Landrigan PJ Mount Sinai School of Medicine of CUNY, New York, NY Lead and organochlorines in New York City study the current urban sources, environmental distribution and toxic effects on human health of lead and persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons—in particular PCBs and DDT National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences... 

Environmental distribution After 40 years of continuous application of DDT to vegetation (80%) and soil (20%), 73% of the total mass present in the environment in December 1990 are stored in soil, 24 % in the ocean, 2 % in vegetation, and less than one percent in the atmosphere (Table 3.2).The high storage in soil is caused by its strong absorptive capacity of organochlorine compounds, which is related to its organic matter content. The only source of DDT and DDE in the ocean is deposition... 

Shoeib, M., Harner,T. (2002) Using measured octanol-air partition coefficients to explain environmental partitioning of organochlorine pesticides. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 21,984-990. 

Sum Chi Lee received her B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto. She has conducted environmental research at various government organizations and the University of Toronto. Her research activities have included establishing the physical-chemical properties of organochlorines and understanding the sources, trends, and behavior of persistent organic pollutants in the atmosphere of the Canadian Arctic. 

Wilson and co-workers [332, 333] have discussed the determination of aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, lindane, o,p and p,p isomers of DDT and its metabolites, mirex, and toxaphene in seawater and molluscs. The US environmental Protection Agency has also published methods for organochlo-rine pesticides in water and wastewater. The Food and Drug Administration (USA) [334] has conducted a collaborative study of a method for multiple organochlorine insecticides in fish. Earlier work by Wilson et al. [333, 335] in 1968 indicated that organochlorine pesticides were not stable in seawater. 

Maximum concentrations of chlordanes in American oysters (Crassostrea virginica) taken in the Gulf of Mexico in 1976 were near 0.1 pg/kg dry weight (Table 13.2). Chlordane concentrations were substantially lower than concentrations of other organochlorines measured in oysters, such as DDT (28 pg/kg) and polychlorinated biphenyls (90 pg/kg), suggesting a need for additional studies on interaction effects of chlordane residues with those of other environmental chemicals (Rosales et al. 1979). 

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