News Coverage
Study of breast milk finds it contains fire retardant
Research group says benefits to children still outweigh risks
Published September 24, 2003
Meredith Buhalis was a little concerned about what she would learn when she agreed to have her breast milk tested for chemicals by a national environmental advocacy group. As it turned out, she had good reason to be concerned.
Buhalis, of Ann Arbor, and 19 other women from around the United States all had detectable levels of commonly used but toxic chemicals, including a fire retardant.
Buhalis was surprised to find her results showed 35 parts per billion of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a common fire retardant used in everything from furniture and bedding to textiles and appliances.
"I was on the lower end there, which I guess is good," Buhalis said. "But I am concerned about where they came from."
The study, released by the Washington, D.C.- based Environmental Working Group, showed concentrations in breast milk between 9.5 and more than 1,000 parts per billion. There is no federal standard for an overload of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs. The group is not advocating stopping breast feeding; on the contrary the group says the benefits of breast-feeding still outweigh the risks of even very high concentrations of PBDEs in breast milk.
But the group is recommending expansion of programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that monitor people and chemicals, and for more research on fire retardants and how they get into the body.
The average level found in participants was 75 times the average found in recent European studies, according to the Environmental Working Group. Milk from two study participants contained the highest levels of fire retardants ever reported in the United States, and milk from several of the mothers had among the highest levels of these chemicals yet detected worldwide.
The Environmental Working Group says the report confirms University of Texas research and other studies that have shown American babies are exposed to far higher amounts of fire retardants than babies in Europe, where some of the chemicals are banned. (California and Maine have restricted the use of the chemicals.)
It is not entirely clear what pathways the chemical uses to get into the body. Of the two most highly exposed participants in the study does computer research; the other is a registered nurse. One had recently replaced cushions in her furniture. But another woman with much lower levels had also reupholstered home furniture.
Fish consumption is thought to be a major exposure route for Scandinavians; one study found that frequent fish-eaters had 5 times higher levels than non-fish eaters. But most of the women tested said they didn't eat fish more than once a week. The chemicals are frequently found in household dust as well.
According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, exposure to the chemicals comes from airborne particulates near waste sites, low levels that are found in food and air or through workplaces producing or manufacturing flame-retardant-containing products.
Rita Loch-Caruso, a University of Michigan professor of environmental health sciences who specializes in toxicology and reproductive health, said the key objection to PBDEs is likely to be its bioaccumulative nature. PBDEs remain in body fat, accumulating over time.
And like its chemical cousin polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, it is persistent in the environment. PCB concentrations magnify as PCBs move up the food chain, when a big fish eats a smaller fish and a mammal eats the big fish and so on.
"Just the fact that these are being persistent and bioaccumulating and biomagnifying is cause for concern," Loch-Caruso said. The manufacture of PCBs was outlawed in 1977 because of its environmental persistence.
An acquaintance told Buhalis about the study. Researchers were looking for women with new babies, 12 weeks old or younger. Buhalis decided to participate since her daughter, Zoe, now age 6 months, fit the age guidelines at the time. Researchers sent a kit to participants and asked for a certain amount of milk, which Buhalis sent in June.
Buhalis hopes the study will help focus attention and research dollars on PBDEs.
"It's in everybody's body. It seems sort of backwards when things are introduced into the environment and we wait until things start happening or going wrong before paying attention to what the potential impacts are," she said.