Report of working group on toxicology of chlorinated bornane compounds

The toxicology working group (Toxaphene Workshop, Burlington Ont Feb. 4–6, 1993) met to consider the toxicology of toxaphene as it might apply to questions associated with the contamination of northern ecosystems and people. The working group noted that because the composition of toxaphene-like materials differs among animal groups, the toxicology of commercial toxaphene is unlikely to be applicable to an assessment of risks associated with consumption of tissues of northern animals. To obtain toxicologically relevant information, it was recommended that the experiments be conducted to develop the GABA receptor bioassay further by calibrating it against conventional residue measures and that experimental studies be conducted by feeding fish from the most highly contaminated northern location (possibly Lake Laberge, Yukon Territory) to laboratory animals. Future toxicology studies with toxaphene or with fish bearing high levels of toxaphene should also be conducted with vitamin C in the diets to determine whether Vitamin C (or tocopherols or retinol) does antagonize the toxicology of toxaphene. If the research is to be successful in the broad societal sense rather than in the narrow academic sense, then the people of the north, and their institutions, must be - and be seen to be - full partners in it.