PCB levels higher in breast-fed than bottle-fed babies

["Pat Costner" <pat.costner@dialb.greenpeace.org>]

 J.R., Breast milk:  A leading source of PCBs, Science News 152 (22): 
344, November 29, 1997.

    Exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - oily compounds
    that have been used as lubricants and insulating fluids - can
    diminish a child's ability to learn (SN: 11/11/95, p. 310).  A
    new Dutch study now indicates that Rotterdam preschoolers who
    were breast-fed during infancy possess 3.6 times as much of
    these neurotoxic chemicals in their blood plasma as do children
    who had been fed infant formula only.

    The study followed 173 children, slightly more than half of whom
    had been breast-fed as infants (usually more than 3 months).  By
    42 months of age, all the children carried at least some PCBs in
    their blood.  While prenatal exposures and childhood diet
    contributed some PCBs, breast milk proved the richest source,
    Svati Patandin of Sophia Children's Hospital in Rotterdam and
    her collegaues report in the October "American Journal of Public
    Health."  In fact, their data suggest that while the breast-fed
    infants were nursing, PCB concentrations in their blood "must
    have reached levels as high as their mothers."

    "To our knowledge," they observe, "no other study has measured
    plasma PCB levels in children - either formula-fed or breast-fed
    during infancy - in relation to environmental exposures to
    PCBs."

    While many earlier studies attempted to quantify childhood
    exposure overall to the 209 PCBs, the Dutch researchers focused
    on just four representatives of this family of related
    chemicals.  As such,  notes Corine Koopman-Esseboom, a coauthor
    at Sophia Ch dren's Hospital, it's hard to directly compare the
    Rotterdam exposures to those reported for U.S. populations. 
    However, she says, the Dutch exposures "would appear comparable"
    to those linked with IQ deficits in Detroit youngsters last year
    (SN: 9/14/96, p. 165).

    Koopman-Esseboom administered developmental tests to the
    Rotterdam infants at ages 3, 10, and 18 months.  While the
    breast-fed babies had poorer muscle tone than the bottle-fed
    infants - something that she says was also sseen in the
    PCB-exposed Detroit children - the Dutch youngsters exhibited no
    mental delays when compared to formula-fed peers.  However, she
    notes that unpublished data from a follow-up looking for IQ
    deficits in the Dutch preschoolers "did find something."

    The solution, she and her coauthors argue, is not to forgo
    breast-feeding but to lower PCB concentrations in the food chain
    so mothers accumulate less in their milk. 
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Pat Costner
P.O. Box 548, or 512 CR 2663
Eureka Springs, Arkansas 72632 USA
ph:  501-253-8440
fx:  501-253-5540
em:  pat.costner@dialb.greenpeace.org
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