Released June 27, 2005
John Giesy, a world-renowned expert in industrial pollutants and their effect on people and the environment, has been appointed Canada Research Chair in Environmental Toxicology at the University of Saskatchewan, the federal government announced today. ......
Giesy was the first to identify the presence in the environment of perfluorinated compounds, a class of POPs used in common products such as paints, cosmetics, and electronics. Though it had been thought that these chemicals didn’t migrate through the environment, Giesy and his colleagues detected the compounds in animal tissues from all over the world -- from Ganges River dolphins to North American bald eagles. It is still unclear what effect these chemicals may have on wildlife and people.