- Full (HTML) - Related EHP Articles - Purchase This Issue

Pauline Mendola,¹ Germaine M. Buck,¹ John E. Vena,¹ Maria Zielezny,¹ and Lowell E. Sever²

¹Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214 USA; ²Battelle Seattle Research Center, Seattle, WA 98105 USA

Abstract
Spontaneous fetal death has been observed among various mammalian species after exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) . Our exposure-based cohort study assessed the relationship between consumption of PCB-contaminated Lake Ontario sport fish and spontaneous fetal death using 1820 multigravid fertile women from the 1990-1991 New York State Angler Cohort Study. Fish consumption data were obtained from food frequency questionnaires and history of spontaneous fetal death from live birth certificates. Analyses were stratified by number of prior pregnancies and controlled for smoking and maternal age. No significant increases in risk for fetal death were observed across four measures of exposure: a lifetime estimate of PCB exposure based on species-specific PCB levels ; the number of years of fish consumption ; kilograms of sport fish consumed in 1990-1991 ; and a lifetime estimate of kilograms eaten. A slight risk reduction was seen for women with two prior pregnancies at the highest level of PCB exposure (odds ratio = 0.36 ; 95% CI, 0.14-0.92) and for women with three or more prior pregnancies with increasing years of fish consumption (odds ratio = 0.97 ; 95% CI, 0.94-0.99) . These findings suggest that consumption of PCB-contaminated sport fish does not increase the risk of spontaneous fetal death. Key words: fetal death, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) , reproductive toxicity, spontaneous abortion. Environ Health Perspect 103:498-502(1995)

Address correspondence to P. Mendola, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, 270 Farber Hall, Buffalo, NY 14214 USA.

Received 6 December 1994 ; accepted 21 February 1995.