From India, scare article par excellence:

http://www.centralchronicle.com/20051031/3110302.htm
We should be worried

Mother's milk should be pristine. After all that's the one food that
provides newborns with all the nutrients and benefits their growing
bodies require.

Nutrition experts recommend that babies be breast fed for at least the
first six months after birth. Organisations such as the United Nations
Children's Emergency Fund and the World Health Organization are strong
votaries of breast feeding, and many countries even have laws that
forbid breast milk substitutes, such as lactogen, in maternity wards
of public hospitals. But now there are aspersions that pesticide
residues have compromised breast milk.

Writing in the US daily, New York Times, Florence Williams -
environmental journalist and a nursing mother herself - notes, "When
we nurse our babies we feed them not only the fats, sugars and
proteins that help the immune system we also feed them...minuscule
amounts of paint thinners, dry cleaning fluids, wood preservatives,
cosmetic additives, gasoline by-products, termite poisons and
fungicide. Ocean and marine foods contain high mercury levels and
mothers who eat them pass on to their children in one form or the
other". Williams' worries are not unfounded. She got her own milk
tested for polybrominated diphenylthers (PBD), a flame retardant. The
PBD levels were found to be 36 parts per billion (PPB). That's seven
times below the safe-level, but lets not forget that Williams'
breastfeeding daughter is likely to be exposed to PBD-laced milk
throughout her infancy.

Scientists believe that each suckle would add to the PBD levels in the
infant's body. Says Michael Dourson, a toxicology expert consulted by
Williams, "The infant is receiving one-seventh the exposure of the
maximum PBD level believed to be safe. Above that level, we're not
sure, but we become less confident. And at some point, it becomes
unsafe." Arnold Schecter, of the University of Texas School of Public
Health has a similar opinion. "No one at this time knows at what
levels nursing is not the best approach, and in fact becomes harmful
to babies. But such levels must exist,'' he contends.

Experts estimate that PBD levels in Williams' milk are on the rise and
at current rates of increase, they could reach 300 PPB in the next 15
years. That's the level that Tom McDonald, of the California Office of
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, says corresponds to endocrine
and thyroid dysfunction in lab animals. What this means, though, in
human terms, remains unclear.

The worried mother's article caused much consternation. Mothers in
many parts of the world had their milk tested. And to their horror,
Williams was not the only one whose breast milk was contaminated.
Tests on breast milk and food in many parts of Australia showed
alarming levels of PBDS - up to five times higher than in Europe,
where some of these chemicals have already been banned.

Environmental activists here are more concerned with toxic crops and
toxic cow milk, but not with toxic mother's milk. It's now well known
that arsenic and many other deadly chemicals and minerals contaminate
food and water in many parts of the country. So, worries about
residues of such chemicals in mother's milk should not be dismissed as
unfounded.

Before things take a turn for the worse, leading maternity and
children's hospitals in India such as the All India Institute of
Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Post-Graduate Medical Institute,
Chandigarh and the Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu,
should begin collecting milk samples of mothers undergoing ante natal
care sessions. The samples should be tested for PBD, arsenic and other
toxic contaminants, and adequate preventive steps should be taken.

More importantly, the analysis of these samples should form the basis
for revamping maternity care programmes in the country. It is quite
unfortunate that premier national clinical bodies such as the
Federation of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians of India have chosen to
be silent. This is a wake up call to them to save our mothers from
such deadly toxins in their milk.

Manu N Kulkarni (Former UNICEF representative to India and professor
emeritus, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur, Karnataka) Down
to Earth Feature

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