Research Findings

 

FY 2000

• Maternal consumption of highly chlorinated PCBs a risk to newborns
  Significant relationships between the most highly chlorinated polychlorinated PCBs (PCBs) and performance impairment on habituation and autonomic tests of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) in newborns at 25 to 48 hours after birth (Stewart et al. 2000 ¹).
• Significant relationship between exposure to PCBs and poor performance
  The same children were tested on the Fagan Test of Intelligence (FTII) at 6 months and 12 months. The results indicated a significant relationship between exposure to PCBs and poor performance on the FTII (Darvill et al.2000 ²).
• Fertility in some women are lower who consumed Great Lakes fish
  Conception rate and the incidence of a live birth are lower in some women who are fish consumers (Buck et al. 2000 ³).

FY 2001

• Serum PCB levels and fish consumption were associated with low thyroxine
  Serum PCB levels and consumption of Great Lakes fish were significantly associated with lower levels of thyroxine (T₄) in women and men. In contrast, fish consumption, but not PCB serum levels, was significantly and inversely associated with triiodothyronine (T₃) in men (Persky et al. 2001 ⁵).
• Exposure to PCBs, not DDE was associated with low scores on tests
  PCBs and dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethene (DDE) were markely elevated in an adult fish eating cohort. Exposure to PCBs, not DDE, was associated with lower scores on several measures of memory and learning (Schantz et al. 2001 ⁴).

FY 2002

• Parents exposed to PCBs and DDE had more male children
  Parents exposed to PCBs and DDE had a higher than expected proportion of male children than female children if the father had elevated PCB levels (Karmaus et al. 2002 ⁹).

FY 2003

• Mothers with serum PCB levels of 4.7 (ppb) less likey to have a male child
  Mothers who have serum PCB levels of 4.7 parts per billion (ppb) were less likely to have a male child than mothers with the lowest serum level of 0.7 ppb (Weisskopt et al. 2003 ⁷).
• Children with small splenium, did worst on test
  Over one hundred children from the Oswego Study were tested using a continuous performance test. The researchers measured the splenium in these children. Results indicated the smaller the splenium, the worst the children did on these tests (Stewart et al., 2003b ⁸).

FY 2004

• Mothers of newborns had decline in weight
  A significant decline in birth weight approximately 500 grams was observed in newborns of mothers who had PCB serum levels greater than 25 ppb (Karmaus and Zhu, 2004 ⁹).

FY 2005

• Mothers who consumed two or more fish meals have elevated risk that the male child may have a birth defect
  For mothers who consumed two or more fish meals per month the risk of a male child having a birth defect was significantly elevated (OR =3.01) in comparison to females (OR = .73) [Mendola et al. 2005 ¹⁰].
• Long term diet consumption of Great Lakes fish contributes to body burden
  Long term dietary consumption of Lake Ontario fish even at comparatively low levels contributes significantly to the body burden of organochlorine compounds in western New York anglers and sportsmen (Bloom et al. 2005 ¹¹).
• Prenatal PCB exposure associated with impulsive response inhibition
  The Oswego Children were tested at 8 and 9½ years of age using the NES2 Continuous Performance Test (CPT). Prenatal PCB exposure was associated with increased impulsive response inhibition and not impaired sustained attention (Stewart et al. 2005 ¹²).
• Awareness of consumption advisories varied by gender and race
  Among residents who had eaten Great Lakes fish, awareness of consumption advisories varied by gender and race and was lowest among women (30%) and black residents (15%) [Imm et. al. 2005 ¹³].

FY 2006

• Women have higher PCB serum levels than men
  In women, but not men, higher PCB serum levels were associated with increased incidence of diabetes (Vasiliu et al. 2006 ¹⁴).

FY 2007

• Women who delivered before 35 weeks more likely to have higher mercury levels
  Women who delivered before 35 weeks gestation were more likely to have mercury levels at or above the 90th percentile (≥ 0.55 µg/g) (Xue F et al. 2007 ¹⁵).
• Lifetime consumption of fish was positively associated with serum PCB
  A study on elderly individuals indicated no detectable differences in serum PCB levels according to proximity to the Hudson River or wind direction relative to local point sources, but lifetime consumption of Hudson River fish was positively associated with serum PCB concentration (Fitzgerald et al. 2007 ¹⁶).

References

1. Stewart P, Reihman J, Lonky E, Darvill T, Pagano J. 2000. Prenatal PCB exposure and neonatal behavioral assessment scale (NBAS) performance. Neurotoxicol Teratol. 22: 21-29.
2. Darvill T., Lonky E., Reihman J., Stewart, P., and Pagano, J. 2000. Prenatal exposure to PCBs and infants’ performance on the Fagan Test of Intelligence. Neurotoxicology 21(6):1029-1038.
3. Buck GM, Vena JE, Schisterman EF, Dmochowski J, Mendola P, Sever L et al. 2000. Parental consumption of contaminated sport fish from Lake Ontario and predicted fecundability. Epidemiology 11(4):388-393.
4. Schantz, SL, Gasior DM, Polverejan E, McCaffrey RJ et al. 2001. Impaired memory and learning in older adults exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls via consumption of Great Lakes fish. Environ Health Perspect 109: 605-611.
5. Persky V, Turyk M, Anderson HA, Hanrahan LP, Falk C, Steenport DN, Chatterton Jr, R, Freels S, and the Great Lakes Consortium. 2001. The effects of PCB exposure and fish consumption on endogenous hormones. Environ Health Perspect 109(12):1275-1283.
6. Karmus W, Huang S, and Cameron L. 2002. Parental concentration of dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethene and polychlorinated biphenyls in Michigan fish eaters and sex ratio in offspring. Journal of Occupational Environmental Medicine 44: 8-13.
7. Weisskopf MG, Anderson HA, Hanrahan LP. Decreased sex ratio following maternal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls from contaminated Great Lakes sport-caught fish: a retrospective cohort study. Environ Health 2003; 2-14.
8. Stewart PW, Fitzgerald S, Reihman J, Gump B, Lonky E, Darvill T, Pagano J,Hauser P. 2003. Prenatal PCB exposure, the corpus callosum, and response inhibition. Environ Health Perspect 111(13):1670-1677.
9. Karmaus W, Zhu X. 2004. Maternal concentration of polychlorinated biphenyls and dichlorodiphenyl-dichlorethylene and birth weight in Michigan Fish Eaters: a cohort study. Environmental Health 3:1.
10. Mendola P, Robinson LK, Buck GM, ....Vena JE. 2005. Birth defects associated with maternal sport fish consumption: potential effect modification by sex of offspring. Environ Res 97:133-140.
11. Bloom MS, Vena JE, Swanson MK, Moysich KB, Olsen JR. 2005. Profiles of ortho-polychlorinated biphenyl congeners, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, hexachlorobenzene, and mirex among male Lake Ontario sport fish consumers: the New York state angler cohort study. Environ Res 97(2):177-193.
12. Stewart P, Reihman J, Gump B, Lonky E, Darvill T, Pagano J. 2005. Response inhibition at 8 and 9 ½ years of age in children prenatally exposed to PCBs. Neurotoxicology and Teratology 27:771-781.
13. Imm P, Knobeloch L, Anderson HE, and the Great Lakes Sport Fish Consortium. 2005. Fish consumption and advisory awareness in the Great Lakes basin. Environ Health Perspectives:113(10):1325-1329.
14. Vasiliu O, Cameron L, Gardiner J, DeGuire P, and Karmaus W. 2006. Polybrominated biphenyls, polychlorinated biphenyls, body weight, and incidence of adult-onset diabetes mellitus. Epidemiology 17(4): 352-359.
15. Fei Xue, Claudia Holzman, Mohammad Hossein Rahbar, Kay Trosko and Lawrence Fischer. 2007. Maternal fish consumption, mercury levels and risk of preterm delivery. Environ Health Perspect. 115(1):42- 47.
16. Edward Fitzgerald, Erin E. Belanger, Marta I. Gomez, Robert L. Jansing, Syni-an Hwang and Heraline E. Hicks. 2007. Environmental exposures to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) among older residents of the Upper Hudson River communities. Environ Res. 104: 352-360.

• Links to non-federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.