OBJECTIVES. The relationship of behavior and activity levels to the interval between outbreak and year of birth and to age of children is explored in Taiwanese children exposed in utero to heat-degraded polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)--the Yu-cheng children. Additionally, the relationship of the scores to chemical, physical, and cognitive findings is described. METHODS. With Rutter's Child Behavior Scale A and a modified Werry-Weiss-Peters Activity Scale, 118 Yu-chen children and matched controls were followed biannually from 1985 to 1991. RESULTS. At each year, the Yu-cheng children scored 7% to 43% worse (mean = 23%) than control children on the Rutter scale. At any fixed age, the Yu-cheng children scored 11% to 63% (mean = 28%) worse. The effect for children born later did not differ from that for those born earlier; neither was there any improvement as the children aged. A similar but weaker picture was seen for the activity score. These behavioral findings were not related to physical or cognitive findings or to serum PCB levels. CONCLUSIONS. In utero exposure to heat-degraded PCBs appears to cause mildly disordered behavior and increased activity level; the effect persists over time and is similar in children born up to 6 years after the mothers were exposed.
In 1979, a mass poisoning of more than 2000 people occurred in central Taiwan due to consumption of rice-bran oil contaminated with PCBs and their heat-degraded byproducts. The incident was later referred to as Yucheng (oil disease). Serum samples from 56 women with the 1979 exposure were collected in February 1992 and analyzed for their contaminant content using sample enrichment and isotope dilution mass spectrometry. In most of the samples, levels of PCDFs and PCBs were detectable, and the median values of 2,3,4,7,8-PCDFs and 1,2,3,4,7,8-PCDFs were 1,030 and 2,220 ng/kg serum lipid, respectively. The median level of the total PCBs on a whole weight basis was 8,730 ng/kg. The PCB/PCDF concentrations in Yucheng women 14 years after the toxic exposure were still one to two orders of magnitude higher than controls. Concentrations of PCB levels in 1992 were positively correlated with the 1980-1981 measured PCB levels in these women and both PCBs and PCDFs were negatively correlated with the total duration when these women breast fed their children between 1979 and 1992. It is concluded that serum levels of congener-specific PCBs/PCDFs in exposed women are good indicators of previous exposure and may provide important information for more reliable estimation of dose-response relationship.
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