Effects on Human Health

The greatest part of human exposure to the 12 POPs is attributed to the ingestion of food. Contamination of food may occur through environmental pollution in the air, water and soil, or through the previous use or unauthorised use of organochlorine pesticides on food crops. Food rich in animal fat, such as meats, fish, and dairy products are the most important means of exposure often due to bioaccumulation through the food chain.

For some POPs, occupational and accidental high-level exposure, through inhalation and dermal contact, is of concern for both acute and chronic worker exposure. In addition to other exposure routes, worker exposure to POPs during waste management is a significant source of occupational risk in many countries. Short-term exposure to high concentrations of certain POPs has been shown to result in illness and death.

The health effects of POPs are generally subtle and can be triggered at extraordinary low concentrations. The latency period for POPs may be very long. Not only can there be may years between exposure and outcome in the exposed individual, but in some cases effects occur in future generations. (WFPHA, World Federation of Public Health Associations, 2000).

Exposure to POPs can be associated with the following health effects in humans:

• Immune system biochemical alterations;

• Reproductive deficits;

• A shortened period of lactation in nursing mothers;

• Neurobehavioral impairment including learning disorders, reduced performance on standard tests, and attention deficits;

• Diabetes;

• Cancer.

The following table shows the evaluation of carcinogenic risk to humans for the 12 POPs made by IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer.

It is possible to document three distinct types of human exposure to POPs.

• High-dose acute exposure: typically results from accidental fires or explosions involving electrical capacitors or other PCB-containing equipment, or high dose food contamination.

• Mid-level chronic exposure is predominantly due to the occupational exposure, and , in some cases, also due to the proximity of environmental storage sites or high consumption of a POPs-contaminated dietary source, such as fish or other marine animals.

• Chronic, low-dose exposure is characteristic for the general population world-wide as a consequence of the existing global background levels of POPs with a variations due to diet, geography, and level of industrial pollution. Low level and population-wide effects are more difficult to study. People are exposed to multiple POPs during their lifetime and most people today carry detectable levels of a number of POPs in their body. (WFPHA, 2000).

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