By Janet Raloff
In Taiwan, a 1979 industrial accident known as Yu Cheng contaminated rice oil with huge quantities of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and furans. Both are types of dioxinlike compounds.
Children born to women who had eaten much of the tainted oil exhibited a host of developmental problems (SN: 11/11/95, p. 310). A new follow-up study has found hints that fertility will be impaired in young men who had received substantial exposure to the toxic pollutants while in the womb.