Non-legacy PCBs: pigment manufacturing by-products get a second look
Author:
E.S. Grossman
Date Published:
2013
Description:
The EPA’s Design for the Environment Program, which is conducting alternative assessments on various chemical products, is not currently involved in any research on pigments. That the EPA initiate such research is one of the recommendations put forth in the ECOS resolution. As rulemaking continues for the EPA’s reassessment of current PCB regulations, an EPA spokeswoman provided no information on the status of the agency’s ongoing assessment of non-dioxinlike health effects of PCBs.
Although questions remain about the potential human health effects of the PCB congeners associated with manufacturing by-products, the presence of these compounds at sites across North America is worrisome, given what is known about PCBs overall and giventhat, as ECOS notes, PCB-contaminated fish continue to be a primary source of human exposure to these chemicals, with 1,084 fish advisories for PCBs issued by 40 states in 2010.37 Among the remaining questions is how exposure to these PCBs may act in combination with exposure to legacy PCBs and other chemicals with similar potential for endocrine-disrupting activity.
At the same time, a growing body of scientific research is emerging to suggest that low-level exposure to some of these PCBs may have potentially profound effects on biological mechanisms vital to healthy development. What is being learned about the potential health effects of the less-well studied PCBs, says Zoeller, could yield important information about the role these chemicals might play in increasing prevalent chronic diseases.
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