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Toxic Chemicals in the Oceans and Their Impact on the Health of Humans and Marine Mammals

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Toxic Chemicals in the Oceans and Their Impact on the Health of Humans and Marine Mammals A Shared Fate Toxic chemicals in the oceans and their impact on the health of humans and marine mammals www.bluevoice.org © 2008 bluevoice.org ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the following people and organizations for their participation and generous support for this project: Brian Durie, M.D. and the International Myeloma Foundation; John and Jennifer Nolan; Deborah Adams and LegaSeaS International; Sigrid Lueber and OceanCare; and Michael Ezawa BlueVoice.org 24 Dolphin Drive St. Augustine, Florida 32080 (904) 819-5509 www.bluevoice.org contact: [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction 3 Toxins In Marine Mammals An Impending Global Catastrophe 7 Dolphins Are Not Food - Health Consequences for Japanese Consumers 19 Cancer In Dolphins – An Emerging Threat 26 Multiple Myeloma in Dolphins 28 POPs Fact Sheet 29 Mercury Fact Sheet 35 Glossary 38 Appendices: The Inability Of Dolphins To Metabolize Certain PCBs 43 CYP1A1 - A Telltale Gene 44 The Striking Similarity Between Human and Dolphin Genomes 45 The International Myeloma Foundation Identifies Potential Link Between Genetic Pathways And Environmental Risks For Myeloma 46 New Bioaccumulations of Toxins in Resident Coastal Dolphins Signal Dangers of Human Myeloma 47 Multiple Myeloma, Clusters, Clues and Dioxin 49 INTRODUCTION The growing presence of toxic mammals feed at the top of the chemicals in the marine environment ocean food chain and thus are presents a crisis unlike any ever sentinels of the health of the waters faced on this planet. Vast quantities in which they swim. Because humans of toxic chemicals enter the eat many of the same fish as marine waterways and oceans of the world mammals we are well advised to be each day and accumulate then bio- aware of the plight of marine magnify in the marine food chain. In mammals around the world. We are a time when we have reduced the only one step removed from them number of large pelagic fish by only because we eat fewer fish than ninety percent and the bio-mass of they. the oceans by seventy percent, we are poisoning much of the living Those eating marine mammals are marine resources that remain. This leveraging the concentrations of has staggering global implications toxins they ingest – a top predator for ocean life and human health. (human) eating another top predator (a dolphin). We document the levels A level of 100 ppm of mercury of contaminants in dolphins killed has been found in a bottlenose and eaten at Taiji, Japan. This is dolphin killed for food in Japan among the last of the villages where – a level more than 100 times dolphins are hunted and where the that accepted by Japanese meat is commonly eaten. We find that to have to use evidence of health authorities contamination levels in dolphins as a way of ending one of the most There are many ways by which barbaric hunts of wild animals on humans absorb, ingest or inhale earth to be tragically ironic. dangerous chemicals. We intend to show in this report that fish, One dolphin eater at Taiji was contaminated by organochlorines and heavy metals, are a newly found to have more than 30 recognized delivery system for ppm of mercury in his body. A chemicals which may cause a range medical specialist advised that of negative impacts on human he be hospitalized immediately. health, including cancer, suppressed immune function and endocrine Though industrialized nations disruption which affects fertility. banned many persistent organic pollutants (POPs) three decades ago, Dolphins, toothed whales, large tuna their persistence plagues marine and swordfish are among the marine mammals and, increasingly, human creatures with highest levels of beings worldwide. Today contamination because they feed at overwhelming evidence indicates the apex of the food chain. that heavy metals such as mercury and persistent organic pollutants This report will document many, but such as polychlorinated biphenyls by no means all, the locations where (PCBs), dioxins and more recently chemical toxicants have been found PBDEs (flame retardants) have an in marine mammals. Marine adverse impact on reproductive health, immune and endocrine 3 © 2008 BlueVoice.org function and are carcinogenic for Some 100,000 synthetic marine mammals and human chemicals are in use today beings. around the world with another 1,000 being introduced into the Carcinogens are present in the environment each year. More environment of the St. Lawrence than 90% have never been Estuary Belugas. Sediments of the Saginaw River, part of Beluga tested for their effects on habitat, contain 500 – 4500 ppb of human health. There is total PAHs dry weight. abundant evidence that many of these chemicals have Scientists have been finding higher serious, even deadly impacts and higher levels of man-made on wildlife and humans. chemicals in marine mammals.In recent years marine mammals have Chemicals enter the marine been victims of mass mortalities and environment in many ways – alarming population declines. These fertilizer run off and use of events have caused marine mammal pesticides in agriculture and home science to expand their studies of gardening and maintenance; the impact of chemically induced industrial waste, dumping and immune suppression, which is airborne emissions, even chemicals emerging as a contributing factor in such as flame retardants used in epizootic events, condemning everyday products are carried marine mammals to death from viral around the globe by wind and ocean agents that are common in the currents. environment and normally harmless. San Francisco Bay harbor seals have During the late winters of 2007 some of the highest levels of PBDEs and 2008 in two separate ever recorded. A doubling time of Unusual Mortality Events (UME) 1.8 years was reported in blubber of more than two hundred harbor seals from San Francisco Bay bottlenose dolphins washed between 1989 – 1998. ashore near Galveston, Texas. The contaminants in our waters are The cause of this UME is as yet not limited to heavy metals and unknown. organochlorines. When drinking water for some 41-million In a report that stunned many, the Americans was tested by the February 2008 issue of Science Associated Press during 2007, reported, “The impact of humans pharmaceuticals were found in has now reached every square mile alarming quantities. Those reported of earth’s oceans and strongly include antibiotics, mood stabilizers impacted 40% of marine ecosystems. and six hormones. Tests were The implications are ominous for conducted in the nation’s 50 largest ocean creatures and humans alike. “ cities and smaller water providers in all 50 states. 4 ©2008 BlueVoice.org A major focus of In the spring of 1987 bottlenose BlueVoice.org’s work is to dolphins began washing up on the identify the locations in which coast of New Jersey. This enormous marine mammals have and highly alarming die-off of hundreds – perhaps thousands of displayed high levels of toxic dolphins – has never been chemicals or been victims of satisfactorily explained. anomalous mortality events. In many of these areas, we see The Center for Disease Control human cancer clusters. We are and Prevention conducts a collaborating with experts in large, ongoing survey that has human medicine to identify found 148 chemicals in correlates between Americans of all ages, including contamination in marine lead, mercury, dioxins and mammals and diseases, PCBs. including cancers, in humans. Other scientists have detected Scientists working at Texas A & M antibacterial agents from liquid have found that the dolphin genome soaps in breast milk, infants’ cord and the human genome as “basically blood and the urine of young girls. the same.” Estrogen excreted by women taking birth control pills has proven to alter Dr. Gregory Bossart of the Harbor the sex of fish. In 2005, the Branch Research Institute and his Environmental Working group found colleagues have found orogenital an average of 200 chemicals in the neoplasia in Atlantic bottlenose cord blood of 10 newborns, dolphins in Florida. Lingual including carcinogens and papillomas and squamous cell neurotoxins. carcinoma and genital papillomas have also been found in Indian River Chemicals such as PCBs can be dolphins. virtually undetectable in water but magnify exponentially up the food It is important to remember that chain so that a top predator may clean fish are an important have 25-million times the component of a healthy diet, concentrations found in the water it providing Omega 3 fatty acids and lives in. These toxicants are many other benefits. But that is lipophylic and concentrate in the ONLY TRUE if the fish are relatively fatty tissues of mammals. free of contamination. While fish with high levels of Omega 3 fatty Chemicals present in many acids are regarded at heart healthy, pesticides, petroleum products, they are not so when they contain plastics, and products such as high levels of mercury which furniture, computers and baby’s disrupts the nervous system’s clothing can disrupt the endocrinal control of the heart. They then or hormonal systems of mammals. become a serious detriment to the These chemicals are known as hearts of both humans and marine xenoestrogens because they mimic mammals. the action of naturally produced estrogens. 5 ©2008 BlueVoice.org Examples of hermaphroditism have This report is part of an effort at been found in fish in the U.K. in prevention of cancers such as Polar bears in Svalbard and alligators multiple myeloma and other B cell with diminutive lymphomas – cancers that have been penises have been reported in clearly proven to be caused by Florida. exposure to toxic chemicals. To date prevention of cancer has largely Man-made chemical pollutants been ignored in favor of treatment. have now made their way into the deep-sea food web We call on government to contaminating squids and address the introduction of octopods.
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