14 Jul
2006 - As Environmental Science and Technology
reports, infants imbibing breast milk may also
be sucking down a high dose of phthalates, the
ubiquitous toxic plasticizers that are in many
consumer products, from lipstick to vinyl flooring.
The new research provides one of the first snapshots
of phthalate delivery through breast milk. For
6 months, scientists tracked phthalate levels
in the breast milk of Canadian mothers, but the
health implications remain unclear and the data
show that the amount of the toxic ingested by
infants can vary from feeding to feeding.
As Environmental Science and
Technology reads, the preliminary results of the
long-term study show significant levels of phthalates
in breast milk from more than 80 women. Overall,
the work is “another piece of evidence that phthalates
are being detected in biological samples of many
types, from urine to blood", says Gary Adamkiewicz,
a research associate at the Harvard School of
Public Health. He adds that the results raise
more questions than they answer. “The fact that
you’re seeing it in breast milk highlights the
fact that you need to understand the effects of
a significant dose during that first year of life,”
he says. “What are the health effects down the
road? What are the health effects for that child?
That is the one big question highlighted.”
Read the full story and new research results in
Environmental Science and Technology
