Between climate change, human conflict and habitat loss, polar bears have more than enough to worry about. But it turns out these vulnerable conservation icons also face a more unlikely threat: industrial chemicals that were banned almost 40 years ago. More:

• Decades-Old Chemicals May Be Threatening Polar Bear Fertility, As If They Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About – Smithsonian
• Allee effect in polar bears: a potential consequence of polychlorinated biphenyl contamination (Research article)

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are endocrine disruptors and have been suggested as possible risk factors for diabetes. This study examined the relationship between the serum concentration of POPs and glucose metabolism to investigate this association among children. More:

• Serum Levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants and Insulin Secretion among Children Age 7–9 Years: A Prospective Cohort Study (Research article)

Commentary – It is important to know how industry arrives at their conclusions regarding hazard and risk of their substances, especially since risk assessments are known to be dependent on expert judgement and may be biased. Transparency is particularly important under REACH (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) since the information that industry registers with the European Chemicals Agency is used for identifying potentially hazardous substances that need to be regulated further. More:

• Commentary: Transparency on chemical risks under REACH needs to be improved – Environmental Health News
• Transparency of chemical risk assessment data under REACH (Research article)

The EU would not be breaking World Trade Organization (WTO) rules if it chose to extend REACH’s authorisation scheme on substances of very high concern (SVHC) to products imported to Europe, a recent legal analysis concludes. At present, the scheme — which is effectively a ban on SVHC, with some exceptions — applies only to products made within the European Economic Area (EEA).

• Legal analysis finds REACH authorisation ruleson imported substances of ‘very high concern’would not violate WTO law - Science for Environment Policy
• SVHC in imported articles: REACH authorisation requirement justified under WTO rules (Legal analysis)

The health hazards of brominated flame retardants lurking in household dust have made the news for years because of the ease with which humans can be exposed to the endocrine-disrupting compounds. Now, researchers show that flame retardants in dust are dwarfed by another class of brominated compounds, azo dyes, that are known mutagens and commonly used to color clothing and furniture. More: 

• Bromine-containing dyes dwarf flame retardants in house dust - ACS C&EN
• Mutagenic Azo Dyes, Rather Than Flame Retardants, Are the Predominant Brominated Compounds in House Dust (Research article)

Typically, scientists don't air their grievances against one another publicly. They stick to the facts and let the peer review process ferret out the truth. But the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Drinking Water Quality Institute bucked that tradition on its recently proposed PFOA drinking water limit. The institute recommended a drinking water limit of 14 ppt for PFOA, just one-fifth of the EPA's. But even that may not be totally protective, according to the institute. More:

• Determining safe PFOA level an uncertain science - Currier Times
• Health-based Maximum Contaminant Level Support Document: Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) (PPT presentation) - New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute

Low-income and Latina pregnant women who seek care at Zuckerberg San Francisco General have widespread exposure to environmental pollutants, many of which show up in higher levels in newborns than the mothers, according to a new study from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Biomonitoring California. The study is the first in the United States to measure exposure to 59 toxic chemicals in pregnant women and their newborns. More:

• Study finds wide exposure to environmental toxics in cohort of pregnant women - UC Berkeley
• Environmental Chemicals in an Urban Population of Pregnant Women and Their Newborns from San Francisco (Research article)

It started in Long Island, New York. An apparent cluster of breast cancer cases had been discovered in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and some residents worried that pesticide applications on former farmland could be to blame. The U.S. Congress asked the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to research the potential role of environmental exposures in these cases. More:

• Institutes in the Lead: Identifying Environmental Factors in Breast Cancer - Environmental Health Perspectives

The Next Generation (NexGen) of Risk Assessment effort is a multi-year collaboration among several organizations evaluating new, potentially more efficient molecular, computational, and systems biology approaches to risk assessment. The following article summarizes their findings, suggests applications to risk assessment, and identifies strategic research directions. More:

• The Next Generation of Risk Assessment Multi-Year Study—Highlights of Findings, Applications to Risk Assessment, and Future Directions (Scientific review)
• Next Generation Risk Assessment: Incorporation of Recent Advances in Molecular, Computational, and Systems Biology - US EPA Report

Common household chemicals found in a wide range of products from carpets to cleaning products can alter hormones and contribute to type-2 diabetes—likely costing Europeans billions of dollars annually. Scientists looked at data from seniors in the Swedish city of Uppsala on how exposure to chemicals known to disrupt the endocrine system, like phthalates, PCBs, pesticides and perfluoroalkyls, contributes to obesity and diabetes. More:

• These Common Chemicals Are Linked to Type-2 Diabetes: Study - Time
• Population attributable risks and costs of diabetogenic chemical exposures in the elderly (Research article)

For more than half a century along the Ohio River, the chemical company DuPont provided jobs for thousands of people. One chemical they produced is PFOA, commonly known as C8. It was a remarkably useful compound, used in “Teflon” non-stick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, and even in some food wrappers. Over time, researchers have found that C8 is also toxic. DuPont and other companies phased out U.S. production a few years ago. More: 

• Toxic Legacy: “Teflon” Chemical Sticks Around In Water Supplies - Ohio Valley ReSource
• Studies Highlight Toxic Chemicals in Drinking Water - West Virgina Broadcasting
• C8 Study Publications - C8 Science Panel

Bringing a new chemical to the market under the new TSCA will be a very different process to that which manufacturers have grown accustomed to. As amended by the Chemical Safety Act, TSCA now requires an "affirmative finding" of safety for pre-manufacture notices (PMNs). If the agency decides a substance poses an unreasonable risk, it must issue an order to prohibit or restrict it. More:

• Chemical notification process ‘very different’ under new US TSCA - ChemicalWatch
• Summary of the Toxic Substances Control Act - US EPA

Researchers estimate the United States economy takes a $340 billion hit annually as endocrine-disrupting compounds lower IQs, increase behavior problems and exacerbate health woes like obesity and diabetes. More:

• Toxic economy: Common chemicals cost US billions every year - Environmental Health News
• Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the USA: a population-based disease burden and cost analysis (Research article)

Every year, small-scale Kenyan farmers produce thousands of tonnes of mangoes only to watch them rot on orchard floors. Despite its prevalence, the mango industry barely contributes to rural incomes because of the fruit fly problem. Some producers are starting to reduce their reliance on chemicals and develop alternative controls for fruit fly, in the hope of reaching the quality standards required for western export markets. A small Kenyan biopesticide company has developed a pioneering fruit fly control based on a common insect-killing fungus that occurs naturally in the soil. More:
Kenya’s mango farmers ditch chemicals to boost exports - The Guardian

PCBs are industrial chemicals so toxic that were banned 40 years ago. Research has shown that they can cause a range of health concerns, including cancer and neurological problems such as decreased IQ. And yet, because they were commonly used in building materials for decades, they continue to contaminate classrooms in between 13,000 and 26,000 schools nationwide. More:
The Washington Post

Under the EU chemicals legislation REACH, all chemicals manufactured or imported above 10 tonnes per year must be assessed for persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) properties. For persistence assessment of chemicals a software system was developed combining multiple computational models to predict persistence in several environmental compartments (e.g. water, soil). More:

• New computer modelling tool to identify persistent chemicals - Science for Environment Policy
• VEGA: Virtual evaluation of chemical properties and toxicity (Software platform)
• PROMETHEUS – Prioritization of chemicals: a METHodlogy Embracing PBT parameters into a Unified Strategy (Project report)
• A new integrated in silico strategy for the assessment and prioritization of persistence of chemicals under REACH (Research article)

When the U.S. phased out PFOA, long used to make Teflon, China's production and use of the toxic chemical soared. More:

• The Teflon Toxin goes to China - The Intercept
• Shifts in production of perfluoroalkyl acids affect emissions and concentrations in the environment of the Xiaoqing River Basin, China (Research article)

Household items like televisions, furniture, beauty products, cleaning products, and flooring materials shed chemicals that end up in the air and in the dust on our floors. These chemicals can enter our bodies from air and dust when we breathe and touch contaminated surfaces, accidentally transferring them to our food or mouth with our dusty hands. And some of these chemicals can contribute to health problems. More:

• Not Just Dirt: Toxic Chemicals in Indoor Dust – NRDC
• DetoxMe smartphone application – Silent Spring Institute
• Consumer Product Chemicals in Indoor Dust: A Quantitative Meta-analysis of U.S. Studies (Research article)
• The National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS): a resource for assessing exposure to environmental pollutants (Research article)
• Changes in indoor pollutants since the 1950s (Research article)
• Endocrine disrupting chemicals in indoor and outdoor air (Research article)
• Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: An Endocrine Society Scientific Statement (Research article)

The pesticide drove bald eagles, ospreys, and other wildlife toward extinction and should only be used as a very last resort. More:

• Zika Is No Excuse to Bring Back DDT - Take Part
• Top 10 Zika Response Planning Tips: Brief Information for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Health Officials - US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Researchers are continuing to discover associations between environmental contaminants and autism spectrum disorder, which now affects 1 in 68 children in the United States. In particular, children born to mothers with higher blood levels of PCBs during the second trimester of pregnancy had roughly an 80 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with autism than children of mothers with the lowest blood levels of the chemicals. More: 

• Study adds PCBs to list of chemicals linked to autism - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Polychlorinated Biphenyl and Organochlorine Pesticide Concentrations in Maternal Mid-Pregnancy Serum Samples: Association with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability (Research article)