Twice as many girls as boys are being born across much of the Arctic because of pollution from industrialised countries, scientists have found. The study also found that in parts of Russia many newborn boys were sickly or underweight.

The Scandinavian scientists behind the study suspect the same to be the case in Greenland and Canada.

They say that coastal Inuit populations are at particular risk because pollution builds up in the blubber of seals and whales, which are an important part of the traditional Inuit diet. The findings were reported by Lars-Otto Reiersen, head of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, and Jens Hansen, director of the Centre of Arctic Environmental Medicine at the University of Aarhus, at a symposium in Greenland organised by the Orthodox Church.

The scientists examined mothers and children on Russia’s Kola, Taimyr and Chukotka peninsulas, in the Pe-chora river basin and on the Commodore Islands.

They analysed the level of PCBs — polychlorinated biphenyls, known to cause cancer in animals and to affect their nervous, reproductive and immune systems – which the women had ingested. “We saw the most dramatic effects in Chukotka,” Dr Reiersen said. “When the mother had an average of two to four micrograms of PCBs or more per litre of blood, we found she bore on average two girls for every boy.”

Similar sex-ratio changes and neo-natal problems occurred in the northern Italian town of Seveso in 1976 when an accident at a chemical plant exposed local people to high levels of dioxins.

PCB levels are ten times higher in parts of Greenland than in Russia. The pollutants are carried north by winds and ocean currents, and accumulate as they pass up the food chain. Some are endocrine disrupters – chemicals that mimic sex hormones.

Aqqaluk Lynge, the former chairman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and himself a Greenlander, said: “This is a disaster, especially for the 1,500 people who make up the Inuit nations in the far northeast of Russia.

“In the north of Greenland, near the Thule American airbase, only girl babies are being born to Inuit families. The problem is acute in the north and east of Greenland, where people still have the traditional diet. This has become a critical question of people’s survival, but few governments want to talk about the problem.” Dr Reiersen said that pregnant women were being advised to avoid traditional diets, despite the growing problem in Greenland of obesity caused by consumption of processed foods such as chips and cola.

Dr Reiersen and Dr Hansen report that PCBs are at least “an aggravating factor” in the dearth of male infants being born in Greenland, and suspect the chemicals are in fact the direct cause.

They said poor nutrition or alcoholism may also be implicated. They will publish their research next year.

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