Improving the risk assessment of lipophilic persistent environmental chemicals in breast milk
BACKGROUND: A breastfeeding infant’s intake of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) may be much greater than his/her mother’s average daily POP exposure. In many cases, current human health risk assessment methods do not account for differences between maternal and infant POP exposures or for lifestage-specific effects of exposure to these chemicals.
OBJECTIVES: Our goal was to develop and describe innovative approaches to assess early life exposure to and potential health effects of POPs in breast milk.
METHODS: A workshop entitled "Improving the Risk Assessment of Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Chemicals in Breast Milk" was conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Participants were asked to develop and evaluate innovative approaches to the assessment of risk to breastfeeding infants from POPs in breast milk.
SYNTHESIS: POP persistence and accumulation in adipose tissue and partitioning into breast milk present unique challenges for each component of the human health risk assessment process, including hazard identification, dose-response assessment, and exposure assessment. Specific biological modeling approaches are available to support both dose-response and exposure assessment for lactational exposures to POPs. Yet, lack of data limits the application of these approaches. Participants identified key issues that, if addressed, could improve efforts to apply available approaches to risk assessment of lactational exposure to POPs.
CONCLUSIONS: Selection of an appropriate modeling approach may depend on how much information is known about a given POP. For most POPs, identification of hazards to health or development that are associated with early life exposure remains limited by a paucity of data.