I just finished reading "Determinants of polychlorinated biphenyl levels in
plasma from 42-month-old children," by Lanting et al.   It is a part of the
Dutch PCB/Dioxin Breast Milk Study.  I would highly recommend reading it.
http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/medicine/c.i.lanting/c3.pdf

The conclusion of this study is that "lactation is a major souce for the
child's PCB body burden at 42 months."  I found this a rather shocking
conclusion for a number of reasons.  Mostly shocking because they state,
"Among the infants of mothers who decided to breast-feed, the median PCB
level in cord plasma was significantly higher than that among children whose
mothers preferred formula-feeding."  Hm...sounds like "loaded dice syndrome."
 The breastfed infants in this study were the infants who were more
chemically exposed in utero than the infant formula infants.  They explain
this by saying that in the Netherlands, formula-feeding mothers consume less
dairy products and beef (which they explain is high in PCBs).  They also
state that in the Netherlands dairy products are the major contributors to
the daily intake of PCBs.  Yet they state that infant formula milks have no
detectable amounts of PCBs because cow's milks lipids are replaced by fats of
vegetable origin. [infant formulas vary and some formulas have cow's milk fat
and some even use beef fat--but they don't seem to realize this].  Nutrica (a
formula company) provided the infant formula from a single batch.  Now the
interesting thing is that they state under methods that they measured for
levels of PCB congeners in cord plasma, breast milk and plasma from 42-month
old children.  No mention of measuring of infant formula.  So who gave them
the data on infant formula?  Nutricia?  Hm...

This study does not define breastfeeding, yet uses the terms "fully"
breastfed and "partially" breastfed.  I don't know what they mean by these
terms.  PCB contamination in breastmilk was determined by examining frozen
"pooled" breastmilk. They mention that they had no data on the intake of food
products other than breast and formula milk on the infants in this study.

My opinion is that this is a worthless study because the breastfed infants
were the infants who had the most exposure in utero to PCBs.  And because
breastfeeding is not defined, we cannot assume that breastfeeding was
exclusive in the breastfeeding group.  Thus we are not comparing exclusive
breastfeeding to exclusive formula feeding, only exclusive formula feeding to
mixed feeding.  So how can one say that it was breastmilk alone that
contributed to the high levels of PCBs.  And where did the data on infant
formula come from?   Maybe others on this list who read this study might be
able to explain to me why this (obviously series of studies) is considered
proof that lactation is a major source of PCB body burden in children.
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC


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