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Study Led by UT Researcher Detects Toxins
in Mothers’ Milk in Texas
Researchers sampling nursing mothers in Texas have detected levels of a toxic synthetic chemical in breast milk that is 10-100 times higher than those found in Europe and the highest found to date worldwide, raising concern for health effects on nursing infants.
The new study, published in the Aug. 7 online issue and November hard copy of Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Institutes of Health, was led by Arnold Schecter, M.D., professor of environmental sciences at the Dallas campus of The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston.
Different commercial products use polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) for its flame-retardant properties in such consumer items as television sets, computers, computer monitors and printers, carpets and upholstery. The use of PBDEs is permitted in the United States but banned in some European countries because of presumed toxicity, demonstrated persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation.
“These persistent organic pollutants in animals can lead to cancer, nervous system problems and endocrine disruption,” Schecter said. “Some are banned in some countries in Europe – and California recently passed legislation to phase out production and use of PBDEs, to take effect in 2008.”
Researchers analyzed individual milk samples from nursing mothers, ages 20 to 41, from a milk bank in Austin and a community women’s health clinic in Dallas.
Up to 13 PBDE congeners were measured. The sum of the PBDE congeners varied from 6.2 to 419 parts per billion (ppb) lipid, with a mean of 73.9 ppb lipid.
“All of the women sampled –100 percent – showed some degree of contamination with this toxic and persistent synthetic chemical,” Schecter said.
The PBDE levels in mothers’ milk in Texas were similar to levels found in blood and adipose tissue lipid from California and Indiana – which are 10 to 100 times greater than human tissue levels in Europe.
“No previous reports have been done on PBDE congeners in individual mothers’ milk in the United States,” Schecter said. “Their detection in breast milk raises concern for potential toxicity to nursing babies and indicates a need for more detailed investigation of the levels in people and food, as well as determining if animal fat in food is the major route of exposure of the general U.S. population.”
Co-authors of the study were from the UT School of Public Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Germany and Canada.
— By David R. Bates, Public Affairs