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MAY 22, 2001

Dangerous toxins that originate hundreds of miles away in industrial countries like the United States are poisoning Inuit Natives in the Arctic.

For years, scientists have noted that Inuit often have twice the levels of certain chemicals in their body. Chemicals gather in the fat of animals the Inuit depend on to subsist and then gather in the fat of humans.

The United States is one of the countries that will be signing a treaty to ban the so-called "dirty dozen" chemicals. These include PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides, otherwise known as persistent organic pollutants, or POPs

Get the Story:
Toxic-tainted Arctic animals passing poisons on to Inuit (The Washington Post in the Seattle Times 5/22)

Relevant Links:
How POPs threaten the Natural Environment and the Future of Indigenous Peoples - http://www.ienearth.org/pops_threat-p1.html
The Indigenous Environmental Network - http://www.ienearth.org
Contaminants in Alaska - http://www.state.ak.us/dec/deh/contaminants.htm
Persistent Organic Pollutants, the United Nations - http://irptc.unep.ch/pops

Related Stories:
Bush to sign toxins treaty (4/20)
AP: Bush to sign toxin treaty (4/19)
EPA dioxin report opposed (4/12)
Alaska hails pollutant treaty (12/13)
Negotiations begin to ban pollutants (12/5)
Alaska Natives call for toxin study (10/13)
Scientists trace Arctic pollution to US (10/4)
Dioxins are everywhere (10/4)