Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study. Children under 5, who are exposed from drinking water as well as their mothers’ breast milk, had 44 percent more of the perfluorinated chemical in their blood than their mothers.
More: Environmental Health News

A study finds disturbing evidence that chemicals found in furniture, fast-food packaging and microwave popcorn bags may hinder children’s ability to mount proper immune responses after they are vaccinated.
More: TIME Healthland

Children's health advocates are calling on state legislatures to ban flame retardants in baby's products after testing found the toxic chemicals in 85 percent of items it tested.
More: The Baltimore Sun

Basée à Grez-en-Bouère (Mayenne, France), l'usine de retraitement de déchets souillés aux PCB (interdits depuis 1987) est accusée d'avoir contaminé les terres, les cours d'eau ainsi que la biodiversité de la Mayenne.
More: BIOaddict

Overall concentrations of some persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in soil have declined, according to research conducted in Norway and the UK. The researchers suggest that there has been a reduced influence of primary sources of some POPs on soils for these two countries in recent years.
More: Science for Environment Policy

Fish exposed to low levels of common flame retardants called PBDEs for most of their lives pass the chemicals – and more surprisingly, the associated toxic effects – along to their progeny. While parents' health effects were minimal, the exposures reduced hatch rates and altered the thyroid hormone system of the next generation.
More: Environmental Health News

As factories have moved out of Chinese cities, housing and public buildings have been built on contaminated sites. Former industrial land is referred to in Europe and the United States as “brownfield”. It is a more refined term for this often polluted land than its routine designation in the Chinese media: “toxic land”. 
More: chinadialogue.net

Montevideo, 11 ene (PL) El Gobierno uruguayo prohibió la entrada del insecticida Endosulfan, un tóxico con efecto nocivo para la salud humana, vida silvestre, suelos y medioambiente, informó hoy la Secretaría de Comunicación (SC).
More: Prensa Latina (Spanish)

In some Keralan villages half the families have a severely disabled child: the legacy, locals say, of pesticide spraying. The villagers see the dust rising from the track and know that Dr Mohammed Asheel is on his way.
More: The Guardian

Endosulfan is the pesticide of choice for farmers in rural India trying to control insects threatening cashew nut and other crops - but the chemical can have devastating health impacts.
More: The Ecologist

Elevated circulating levels of POPs have been linked to hypertension, obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and myocardial infarction in humans. A new study now shows an association between increased circulating levels of POPs and markers of atherosclerosis in the carotid artery.
More: Environmental Health Perspectives

"There are rising B2B demands for green chemicals,” says Rich Liroff, executive director of the Investor Environmental Health Network. Nike is now highlighting preferred green chemicals in its purchasing requirements. Several Group Purchasing Organizations in the health care sector, with buying power estimated at roughly $20 billion, developed a questionnaire for suppliers that focused on various sustainability questions, including the presence or absence of specific chemicals of concern.
More: Forbes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new report links remnants of a once-common pesticide to lung infections and wheezing in kids exposed to the chemical before birth. Known as DDE, the compound is a broken-down form of the harmful pesticide DDT and is found in many places around the world. It is absorbed into a person's body when they eat contaminated food or breathe contaminated dust.
More: Reuters

Compounds used in new flame-retardant products are showing up in the environment at increasing concentrations, according to a recent study by researchers at Indiana University Bloomington.
More: Science Daily

The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), on Tuesday launched a comprehensive toolkit on Contaminated Sites Managements on Persistent Organic Pollution (POP) to aid developing countries with the detection, cataloging and prioritisation of contaminated sites.
More: VIBE Ghana
See also: Toolkit for investigating and managing POPs-contaminated sites

Patented as a flame retardant for plastics, and banned in food throughout Europe and Japan, a brominated chemical called BVO has been added to sodas for decades in North America. Now some scientists have a renewed interest in this little-known ingredient, found in 10 percent of sodas in the United States. Research on its toxicity dates back to the 1970s, and some experts now urge a reassessment. More:
Environmental Health News

A question nagging researchers is closer to being answered by a large-scale reanalysis of European data. The study finds that exposure during pregnancy to now-banned persistent chemicals may affect fetal growth and reduce birth weight of newborns.
More: Environmental Health News

Chiapas, Mexico -Detectaron una sustancia con alto potencial cancerígeno en el 5 por ciento de los más de 90 transformadores de Chiapas, analizados por un grupo de trabajo del Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD).
More: El Heraldo de Chiapas (Spanish)

The concentrations of potentially dangerous chemicals in the blood of east metro residents exposed to 3M Co. pollution have fallen significantly since 2008, state health officials reported Wednesday.
More: Star Tribune, Minneapolis, USA

Levels of DDT – a mostly banned pesticide still allowed for malaria control in some tropical regions – increased three-fold in breastfeeding mothers after one indoor spraying, finds a study in Mozambique, Africa.
More: Environmental Health News