Breast milk awash in chemicals

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Breast milk awash in chemicals

 

By ANDRÉ PICARD

PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTER

Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - Page A17

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TPHealth/

 

A new study conducted in British Columbia and the U.S. Northwest has found

chemical flame retardants in the breast milk of every woman tested.

 

Not only were the chemicals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs,

omnipresent, but they were among the highest levels recorded in humans.

 

" Contamination with PBDEs is ubiquitous, " said Clark Williams-Derry,

research director for Northwest Environment Watch (NEW), the Seattle-based

group that conducted the research.

 

" The levels we found were 20 to 40 times higher than what you find in

Europe and Asia, " said Mr. Williams-Derry, who heads up NEW, which

describes itself an independent, not-for-profit research and communication

centre.

 

Earlier this year, Health Canada released a survey that found that women in

Canada had levels about five to 10 times higher than those in other

advanced industrial countries, such as Japan, Sweden and Germany. The

survey indicated that Canadian women have the second-highest levels in the

world, after the United States.

 

PBDEs are chemicals widely used as flame retardants in furniture foams,

industrial textiles, and consumer electronics. It is not known exactly how

PBDEs migrate from household products into human tissue. They have been

found in household dust and sewage sludge, in many fatty foods such as meat

and fish, and in wildlife.

 

Mr. Williams-Derry said that while there is little research on human health

and PBDEs, animal experiments have linked the chemicals to learning

difficulties, memory impairment, and changes in thyroid hormone levels.

 

The similarity of these effects to those of childhood attention-deficit

disorders, and the rising tide of adult thyroid problems, have led to

suggestions that PBDEs play a role in these ailments.

 

" You can't avoid exposure to flame retardants any more, even if you have

the cleanest lifestyle. That calls for some public safeguards, some

regulatory action, " he said.

 

Alexis Doctor, a Vancouver woman whose breast milk was tested as part of

the research, said that she was shocked to learn of the contamination, and

that her 14-month-old son, Ethan, could be ingesting chemicals.

 

" I don't have a safe feeling any more, " she said. " I work in an office, not

a chemical factory, so I can't believe that all this stuff is in my body. "

 

Ms. Doctor was one of 40 women in British Columbia and the states of

Montana, Oregon, and Washington whose breast milk was tested as part of the

research. Her milk contained 23 parts per billion of PBDEs, well below the

median level of 50 ppb, but still not negligible. The highest level

recorded in British Columbia was 381 ppb.

 

The researchers stressed that women should continue to breastfeed because

the benefits of doing so almost certainly outweigh the risks. They tested

breast milk only because it is a simple means of determining environmental

exposure to chemicals.

 

Paul Muldoon, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law

Association, said that while the sample was small and tests were done only

on the Pacific Coast, there is every reason to believe this level of

contamination exists across North America. " People in Eastern Canada should

be just as alarmed about these findings as people in Western Canada and

people in Central Canada, " he said.

 

Mr. Muldoon said while it is unclear what safe levels of PBDEs might be for

humans, regulators should not be complacent. " We need to take a

precautionary approach, and that requires some direct intervention. "

 

Mr. Muldoon said that, legally, PBDEs are a tough substance to regulate.

Environmental laws tend to target emissions, while in this instance the

potentially dangerous chemicals are discharged from common household products.

 

Mr. Williams-Derry said that there should be a rapid phase-out of the use

of PBDEs in manufacturing, and a push to find alternatives. He noted that

countries like Sweden have banned PBDEs without difficulty. " This is not an

insurmountable problem. "

 

Until PBDEs are banned, or phased out, Mr. Williams-Derry said consumers

should try to minimize their exposure by buying furniture and carpeting

made with natural fibres, or sold at companies such as IKEA, which has

stopped using the chemicals.

 

Health Canada and Environment Canada recommended earlier this year that

some forms of PBDEs be declared toxic and eliminated from use.

 

International comparisons done by Health Canada scientists show that breast

milk has about 100 times more PBDEs today than 30 years ago.

 

Over the past three decades, increasing amounts of PBDEs have been added to

consumer products such as televisions, computers, and to the polyurethane

foam used in furniture. The good news, according to health and

environmental experts, is that the problem can be fairly easily reversed.

After Sweden banned PBDEs, contamination levels in breast milk declined

sharply.