Notice of RetractionConcentrations, Patterns and Risk Assessment of Representative Organochlorines in Biotic Samples from Taihu Lake, China

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

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Concentrations of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in a batch of aquatic organisms from Taihu Lake were determined with GC-ECD. Meanwhile, a preliminary human health risk assessment was conducted. The concentrations of hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and PCBs were in the following ranking order: DDTs >; HCHs >; PCBs >; HCB in snail and DDTs >; PCBs >; HCHs >; HCB in white shrimp and silver fish, respectively. The levels of organochlorines (OCs) were in the following ranking order: snail <; white shrimp <; silver fish. The results may indicate the bioaccumulation of OCPs and PCBs in aquatic organisms. Referring to the reference values given by USEPA Integrated Risk Information System, calculated hazard ratios (HRs) based on contaminants´ carcinogenic and non carcinogenic health effects in adults in the general population were all <;1. The results indicated that exposure of HCHs, HCB, DDTs and PCBs was unlikely to result in any adverse health effects.