TY - JOUR
T1 - Sources of dioxins in the environment
T2 - A study of PCDDs and PCDFs in ancient, frozen eskimo tissue
AU - Schecter, Arnold
AU - Dekin, Albert
AU - Weerasinghe, N. C.A.
AU - Arghestani, Saleh
AU - Gross, Michael L.
N1 - Funding Information:
The research was supported in part by the Midwest Center for Mass Spectrometry, a U.S. National Science Foundation Regional Instrumentation Facility (Grant CHE-8620177) and by a grant from the CS Fund to the Research Foundation of the State of New York. Thanks are extended to Professor Curt Pueschel of the State University New York at Binghamton for first suggesting the chemical analysis of Eskimo tissue.
PY - 1988
Y1 - 1988
N2 - According to the trace chemistries of fire theory, small amounts of polychlorodibenzodioxins (PCDDs), including the most toxic 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, and polychlorodibenzofurans (PCDFs) are generated from combustion of natural products. The implication is that PCDDs and PCDFs have existed in nature prior to the large scale manufacture of chemicals that has occurred during the past few decades. However, on the basis of Hites' et al. studies of lake sediment, it has been concluded that nearly all PCDDs and PCDFs are either synthetic in origin, or arise from the incomplete combustion of synthetic chemicals. In the present work, few if any PCDDs and PCDFs were found in human tissue samples and other samples that have been preserved for greater than 400 years. The samples were from a Barrow, Alaska, Inupiat Eskimo household that was destroyed by an ice overflow, trapping two women. The analytical chemistry evidence is consistent with the Czuczwa and Hites' conclusion that the majority of PCDD/Fs in the environment today are of anthropogenic origin.
AB - According to the trace chemistries of fire theory, small amounts of polychlorodibenzodioxins (PCDDs), including the most toxic 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, and polychlorodibenzofurans (PCDFs) are generated from combustion of natural products. The implication is that PCDDs and PCDFs have existed in nature prior to the large scale manufacture of chemicals that has occurred during the past few decades. However, on the basis of Hites' et al. studies of lake sediment, it has been concluded that nearly all PCDDs and PCDFs are either synthetic in origin, or arise from the incomplete combustion of synthetic chemicals. In the present work, few if any PCDDs and PCDFs were found in human tissue samples and other samples that have been preserved for greater than 400 years. The samples were from a Barrow, Alaska, Inupiat Eskimo household that was destroyed by an ice overflow, trapping two women. The analytical chemistry evidence is consistent with the Czuczwa and Hites' conclusion that the majority of PCDD/Fs in the environment today are of anthropogenic origin.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/0023923628
U2 - 10.1016/0045-6535(88)90242-1
DO - 10.1016/0045-6535(88)90242-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0023923628
SN - 0045-6535
VL - 17
SP - 627
EP - 631
JO - Chemosphere
JF - Chemosphere
IS - 4
ER -