Tom Hale very eloquently describes the issues and take-home points
associated with the recent article that was reported on GMA, NPR and I'm
sure many others as well this morning.
There is great interest presently in the new data just being published
concerning the transfer of polybrominated diphenyl ether flame retardants.
This family of chemicals is commonly used in soft foam pads, and many many
plastics used in the computer industry.
The paper is being published by Arnold Schecter MD, MPH for The UT Health
Sciences Center Dallas Texas. Basically this paper shows that in a small
population of central Texas women, that levels of Polybrominated diphenyl
products were present in milk. If you look at the distribution curve, the
vast majority of women were less than 50 ng/g lipid, and only a few 13 of 47
were about this amount.
These products have been around for over 30 years, but due to their ability
to bioaccumulate in fat tissues in humans, and some reported neurobehavioral
abnormalities in mice and rats, we are becoming more interested in this
groups of compounds. This paper suggests that the levels in this Texas
subgroup were much higher than in Europe where these compounds are banned.
While it is concerning that they are present in Americans, the data with the
rat and mice studies were as you would expect done using extraordinarily
high levels. All of the abnormalities occured in the first trimester in
utero, not while breastfeeding or afterward. Secondly the dose was acute,
and ranged from 3 to 20 mg/kg.
These studies don't necessarily correlate with what occurs in humans at all
(that is slow accumulation). The 50th percentile concentration in human milk
was 34 nanograms/gram of lipid in milk. If an infant ingested 150 cc/kg/day,
and the milk contained an average of 5% fat...then the infant would ingest
about 255 nanograms of PBB per day. This is 1/78,000 that the poor rats
received. These levels are so extraordinarily low that I can't imagine they
would cause untoward effects in an infant. Some have suggested that the high
levels of polyunsaturated oils (arachidonic and docosohexenoic acids) would
more than counteract any problems with these low levels of PBBs.
Nevertheless, this study does suggest why all of us should support better
environmental controls of these bioaccumulative compounds, such as the PCBs
and PBBs. For those of us who support breastfeeding, environmental pollution
is a major risk for future generations of breastfeeding babies.
Tom Hale, Ph.D.
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