KETTLEMAN CITY, Calif. – The Environmental Protection Agency says a central California landfill that local residents blame for birth defects can continue accepting hazardous waste. The EPA says it decided to allow more hazardous waste after an area where cancer-causing PCBs or polychlorinated biphenylswere found was cleaned up. Kettleman City residents have blamed the toxic waste dump for at least 11 birth defects since 2007. State waste management officials say no evidence links the landfill to the deformities.
Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are now-banned transformer-oil fluids widely used up to the early 1970s. They have a similar molecular shape to flame retardants and reduce thyroid hormone levels. Research has linked low PCB exposures to reduced impulse control and lower intellectual capacity in children. The most recent study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives in May, found that a mere one-part-per-billion increase in PCB concentration in a baby's placenta was associated with a three-point IQ drop at the age of 9.
Another news!
Studies find heart deformities, higher mortality rates in PCB-affected wildlife.
April 3, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Recent studies of wildlife in the Bloomington area have found serious health problems with embryonic development in animals exposed to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) released from local PCB-contaminated sites. These problems include heart deformities in birds and reproductive problems in fish. The studies were conducted by researchers in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University and other institutions (http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/3224.html).
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