Environmental and food contamination with PCB's in Japan

Abstract

In Japan “Yusho”, i.e., poisoning caused by ingestion of rice oil contaminated with PCB's, broke out in October 1968, and produced more than 1200 officially certified cases. Nevertheless, it was only regarded as a kind of food poisoning and its connection with environmental and biological contamination was only imperfectly taken into consideration. Finally, in the autumn of 1970, two study groups, from the Ehime University and the Kyoto City Hygienic Institute, reported on the PCB contamination of salt water and fresh water fishes in Japan. Subsequently many reports about PCB's as an environmental contaminant have been published by several study groups throughout Japan, and nowadays the PCB polluted state of Japan has become rather clearly recognized. This report will present information on environmental, food and human contamination with PCB's in Japan especially also in some typically contaminated local areas, in addition to summarizing some overall aspects of the PCB problem in Japan (e.g., the production, shipment and use of PCB's).