Prenatal and childhood exposure to flame retardant compounds are linked to poorer attention, fine motor coordination and IQ in school-aged children, a finding by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health that adds to growing health concerns over a chemical prevalent in U.S. households. More:
ScienceDaily

Couples with high levels of PCBs and similar environmental pollutants take longer to achieve pregnancy in comparison to other couples with lower levels of the pollutants, according to a preliminary study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. More:
NIH News - USA

In a sobering study published in the journal Environmental Health, researchers at UC Davis and UCLA measured food-borne toxin exposure in children and adults by pinpointing foods with high levels of toxic compounds and determining how much of these foods were consumed. The researchers found that family members in the study, and preschool children in particular, are at high risk for exposure to arsenic, dieldrin, DDE (a DDT metabolite), dioxins and acrylamide. More:
UCDavis Health System - California, USA

Legacy contaminants are decreasing more quickly than previously reported in three of the Great Lakes, but have stayed virtually the same in two other lakes, according to new research. “These are very positive results. The lakes are improving and slowly cleaning themselves up,” said Thomas Holsen, co-director of Clarkson University’s Center for the Environment. In all of the lakes, the older contaminants are being replaced by newer ones, mostly flame retardants, that are building up in fish and wildlife. More: 
Environmental Health News

A pregnant woman's exposure to chemicals that make consumer products stain and water resistant may affect the growth and weight of her daughter at birth and later in life as a toddler. A British study has found that newborns whose mothers had higher levels of the polyfluoroalkyl compounds PFOS, PFOA and PFHxS during pregnancy weighed between 3 and 5 ounces less than girls born to mothers with lower levels. At 20 months, the girls born to mothers with higher exposures to PFOS were heavier when compared to those with lower exposures. Prior animal and human studies show similar trends. More: 
Environmental Health News

The long running saga of DuPont and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), often called simply C8, has passed an important milestone with the delivery of the final report from an independent panel of experts tasked with determining its health effects. More: 
Chemistry World

C’est par la ville de Buea que le centre de Recherche et d’Education Pour le Développement (CREPD) a lancé, lundi dernier, la vaste campagne régionale contre les Polluants Organiques Persistants (POP), produits chimiques dangereux et toxiques pour l’homme et l’environnement, selon les experts. More: 
La Nouvelle Expression - Cameroun Actu (French)

Interview with Jim Willis, Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions - As the Global Chemical Outlook points out, the 20th century led to the invention and worldwide use of thousands of synthetic chemicals whose global footprint has accumulated in almost every living thing, including human being. More:
Geneva International Cooperation

Geneva - Scientific experts meeting under the aegis of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) concluded a five-day meeting in Geneva Oct. 19 with an agreement to advance proposals that would lead to eventual restrictions on the production and sale of four chemicals. More:
Bloomberg BNA 

New Bedford, USA — A long-departed manufacturing company will pay $366 million to clean the PCB-laden harbor here, the largest cash settlement for a single site in the history of the federal Superfund program, government officials announced Wednesday. More:
The Boston Globe

Pesticides pervade the environment, from the air we breathe to the food we eat, and they are making children sicker than they were a generation ago, a new report warns. The authors' conclusions were based on dozens of recent scientific studies that have tied chemicals to children's health, and their report sought to bring collective meaning to those findings. More: San Francisco Chronicle
See also: A Generation in Jeopardy: How pesticides are undermining our children’s health & intelligence.

L'Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire (Anses, France) avait été saisie en septembre 2010 par la Direction générale de l'alimentation d'une demande d'avis relatif aux analyses de retardateurs de flamme bromés à mettre en œuvre dans le cadre des prochains plans de surveillance. Le 14 septembre dernier, elle rendait son avis sur cette question. More: 
www.actu-environnement,com (French)

Un mobile peut renfermer jusqu'à 40 éléments contenant des métaux lourds et des polluants organiques persistants. Armés de pinces, de ciseaux et de tournevis, les chercheurs de l'Ecology Center ont intégralement démonté les appareils pour soumettre tous leurs composants – processeur, circuits imprimés, écran, boutons, batteries... – à une analyse. More: 
Le Monde (French)
See also: 2012 Mobile Phone Study (English)

Even if all the dioxin were eliminated from the planet, Washington State University researchers say its legacy would live on in the way it turns genes on and off in the descendants of people exposed over the past half century. More:
Science Daily

It has been four decades since one of the most catastrophic agricultural disasters in U.S. history unfolded in the heart of Michigan, forcing the destruction of tens of thousands of cattle contaminated with polybrominated biphenyl, or PBB, and allowing the chemical to slip onto the dinner plates and into the drinking glasses of nine out of 10 Michiganders. More:
Detroit Free Press - USA

En Honduras estos químicos tienen varios referentes, entre ellos el DDT, legendario plaguicida utilizado para el combate de la malaria, y los bifenilospoliclorados o PCBs, incorporados dentro de transformadores y aparatos eléctricos. More:
La Tribuna - Honduras (Spanish)

A fifth-grader on Staten Island, New York, was exposed last week to a polychlorinated biphenyl-laced chemical that has been leaking from aging light fixtures in some New York City classrooms, officials said. More:
NBC New York - USA

Professor Hideshige Takada of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, which analysed industrial plastic pellets collected from 200 beaches in 40 countries said that samples from Isipingo beach reflected the highest concentration of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) in the world. HCH compounds cling to the pellets, making them a reliable indicator of levels of toxicity, Takada said. More: 
The Independent on Saturday  - South Africa

Hartwell Lake, 50 years old this year, was the catch basin for about 400,000 pounds of the cancer-causing material that flowed downstream from the Sangamo Electric Co. plant in Pickens during the past six decades. Most of it is now buried under about 72 inches of sediment. More:
IndependentMail.com - USA

A chemical used in the manufacture of common household products -- such as some food packaging, carpets, paint, and nonstick cookware -- may be associated with an increased risk of heart disease, a new study suggests.More:
CNN