Drop in Male Births in Indigenous Peoples Tied To Industrial Pollution

"A strange reality exists in at least one indigenous community – babies that should be born boys are instead, born girls.

Research in 2007 showing skewed birth ratios in the villages of northern Greenland exposed earlier studies that found indigenous mothers living in the northern most reaches of the Arctic Circle were giving birth to daughters.

The studies linked the skewed sex ratios with human exposures to PCBs and other persistent organic chemicals. ...

Toxic pollutants travel from industrialized countries and accumulate in the marine food chain of the Arctic region, and in the traditional diet of indigenous peoples. Blood levels of such pollutants as PCBs and mercury were several times higher in residents of Arctic Canada and Greenland than measured in residents of industrialized areas of North America."

Terri Hansen reports for Indian Country Today March 13, 2010.