Researchers from UB have found no link between consumption of PCB-contaminated sport fish and a history of spontaneous fetal death or spontaneous abortion in humans, despite evidence of fetal harm in other mammals from PCB exposure.

Their study of live-birth certificates from 1,820 women who gave birth from 1986-91 and had a history of eating fish from Lake Ontario showed no relationship between consumption of lake-caught fish and greater risk of recognized spontaneous fetal death at any level of exposure. Chemical contamination of wildlife in Lake Ontario is estimated to be twice that of the other Great Lakes.

Results of the study were published in a recent issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Services.

Pauline Mendola, UB research instructor of social and preventive medicine and lead author on the study, said the results were surprising. "I thought we were going to see some evidence of risk," she noted. The author cites several reasons why this investigation may have found no adverse outcomes from eating contaminated fish, including the possibility that PCBs affect human reproduction in ways other than causing spontaneous fetal death.

UB researchers Germaine M. Buck, John Vena and Maria Zielezny, all from the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, also participated in the study, along with Lowell E. Sever from the Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, Seattle, Wash.

-Lois Baker, News Bureau Staff