The GEF supplies funds under a number of global environmental conventions to tackle environmental challenges, such
as persistent organic pollutants, but is also mandated under the UNFCCC to distribute grants and help countries build on skills and knowledge.
Then on May 3, 2007, Maria Neira, director of the WHO's public - health and environment department, said at a Dakar, Senegal, meeting of the ratifiers of the Stockholm Convention — an international treaty that went into effect in 2004 that controls the use of
persistent organic pollutants like DDT — that the WHO's goal was to reduce the use of DDT and eventually eliminate it.
Our results suggest that much more work is needed to mitigate PCB contamination of the marine environment, and to comply with the Stockholm Convention that requires the reduction and eventual elimination of large sources of PCBs and
other persistent organic pollutants.
The treaty
on persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, as they're known, will ban or phase out 12 pesticides and other chemicals that are still used in many developing countries.
Recent studies have detected the presence of significant levels of dioxins in the commercial shrimp Aristeus antennatus [253] and significant levels of
persistent organic pollutants in mesopelagic and bathypelagic cephalopods [254].
She said the planned research
into persistent organic pollutants in the sea, in particular, is a vital aim that could help advance science in that arena, eventually raising awareness in the mainstream about the consequences of consumption.
Specifically, SUPERB homed in on 44 foods known to have high concentrations of toxic compounds: metals, arsenic, lead, and mercury; pesticides chlorpyrifos, permethrin, and endosulfan;
persistent organic pollutants dioxin, DDT, dieldrin, and chlordane; and the food processing byproduct acrylamide.
Persistent Organic Pollutants: One study recently in the news looked
at persistent organic pollutant (POP) levels in the U.S. food supply.This study, conducted by cientists at the University of Texas School of Public Health, showed that there are chemicals like Perfluourinated Compounds (PFCs), Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides like DDT found in many types of food, even though their use has been banned.
A unique study of frozen ice cores from the Tibetan Himalayas has shown that international agreements on phasing out the use of
toxic persistent organic pollutants are working.
United Nations countries are evaluating endosulfan for inclusion in the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty which bans or
restricts persistent organic pollutants — chemicals that can build up in the environment.
«Moreover, in the absence of information regarding levels of
persistent organic pollutants across participating cohorts, our hypothesis that fish - associated contaminant exposure may play a role in the observed associations remains speculative,» the authors write.
Fatty fish like salmon and sardines serve as a middleman by eating algae and storing these fats, along
with persistent organic pollutants and mercury, in their fat stores.
He
said persistent organic pollutants, called «POPs» for short, are most worrisome because, once consumed, they tend to adhere to organisms» fat cells where they are metabolized by the body and cause health problems.
In the journal The Lancet, Drs. Oliver Jones and Julian Griffin highlight the need to research the potential link
between persistent organic pollutants (POPs, a group which includes many pesticides) and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes.
WHO is continuing these studies in collaboration with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), in the context of the «Stockholm Convention», an international agreement to reduce emissions of
certain persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including dioxins.
The report says the water «in and around the Union Carbide factory site in Bhopal still contains extremely unsafe levels of carbon tetrachloride and
other persistent organic pollutants, solvents, nickel and other heavy metals».
A new global analysis of seafood found that fish populations throughout the world's oceans are contaminated with industrial and agricultural pollutants, collectively known
as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
The Updated Tables are represented in two separate volumes: Volume One contains data tables for chemicals measured in the general U.S. population; Volume Two contains data tables
for persistent organic pollutants and pesticides measured in pooled samples and adult cigarette smokers and nonsmokers.
A study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology has revealed a new and troubling aspect to climate disruption — as glaciers melt, they are releasing
persistent organic pollutants like DDT, PCBs, other pesticides, and synthetic musks (chemicals that mask body odor).