Toxins in the Oceans
This video of a talk by the marine biology Professor Stephen Palumbi brings home the devastating effect of toxins in the oceans on the food pyramid which bio-concentrates and bio-accumulates toxins up the food chain.
Click to watch Professor Palumbi talk (16 mins)
This means that animals such as dolphins which are at the top of the food chain become repositories for toxins such as PCBs and mercury which are stored in the animal's body fat.
The dolphin mothers then unwittingly pass on the stored toxins in their breast milk to their calves resulting in up to 60% of the first born calves dying as a result. Subsequent calves survive because the mother has effectively had the opportunity to detoxify into her first born.
In Japan, he found that much of the meat labelled as whale meat was, in fact, dolphin meat and whilst this is a tragedy for the dolphins who are supposed to be a protected species, it is also a disaster for the humans who are inadvertently eating meat that may contain up to 400X the permitted amount of toxins allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
This may be a particular human tragedy if the consumer is either pregnant or breastfeeding as the toxins are passed directly to the developing embryo or baby.
Professor Palumbi also talks about how toxins promote the growth of various pathogens in the oceans.
These statistics are very much borne out by the statistics in humans. First, there is a very high miscarriage rate believed to be about 70%. Second, there is also a higher incidence of many disorders including Down's syndrome and autism in children born to older mothers who have had longer to accumulate a significant toxin burden. Finally, the oldest child is more likely to be affected by autism and this is especially the case with boys who are 4 times more likely to be autistic. This is thought to be due to the interaction between testosterone and mercury and other toxins which potentiates the effect of the toxin.
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