PCBs and the Family Physician.

Pcbs are widespread environmental contaminants present in virtually every mammal on earth. Great controversy and debate has been evoked over the past two decades concerning their potential toxicity. They, along with other organochlorine compounds such as DDT, have been reasonably well studied in field and experimental situations.In general, PCBs are not very toxic, especially in concentrations to which most people are exposed, even those who work in the industrial setting or who eat contaminated fish. In terms of environmental hazards to health, PCBs should be considered as relatively low on the list. The public cannot depend on media information as a source of objective knowledge on controversial compounds like PCBs. The family physician should be able to provide to concerned individuals objective information on the definition, sources and relative toxicity of PCBs.

Occupational health and the family physician part 1: definition and resources.

The field of occupational health is of growing importance to family physicians, yet for many represents a nebulous field. This paper describes the main concepts and shows how a family physician can quickly obtain mastery of the field sufficient for any demands that may be made on his skill in this area. Part 1 names resources in occupational health most useful to family doctors and Part 2, to be published next month, outlines a method of taking an occupational history, and of determining the essential work structure of one's community.

Occupational Health and the Family Physician Part 2: History-taking-How Not to Miss an Occupationally-Related Disease.

In the first part of this article, occupational health was defined as part of the family physician's total care for his or her patient. This part deals with the components of the occupationally related history, the role of stress in the workplace, and knowledge of the work structure in the community.

An environmental chemical, polychlorinated biphenyl, increases the protein synthesizing activity of liver and kidney pH 5 supernatant fractions.

Homogenates of liver and of kidney cortex were obtained from control rats and from rats treated with the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Aroclor 1254, and were separated into ribosomes and into the postmicrosomal supernatant fraction. The latter fraction from liver and kidney was used to prepare the pH 5 supernatant fraction, containing elongation factors 1 and 2 (EF 1 and EF 2) for protein biosynthesis. These fractions were incubated with KCl-washed ribosomes obtained from control rat liver. The incorporation of [14C] phenylalanyl-tRNA into peptide was increased with the liver and kidney preparations derived from the treated rats. The elongation factor 1-dependent binding of [14C] phenylalanyl-tRNA to ribosomes was also markedly increased both with the liver and kidney preparations obtained from the rats that had received PCBs.