POPs and Human Health

S.S.Yufit, Professor, Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences

If I were a poet, I would write an ode to breast milk. I would especially emphasise that breast milk is a continuation of a strong link between a mother and her child, that develops even before the child's arrival in our grim World. I would definitely stress, that it is impossible to substitute breast-feeding by anything else, without breast milk, a child develops badly, catches more diseases and becomes whiny. A mother becomes irritated and, alas!, incidence of breast cancer - the plague of modern women - is higher among women, who do not breast-feed their children. But I am not a poet, therefore I would better cite a passage from an interview of a famous film-director (all of them are definitely poets) to "Obschaya Gazeta" (October 1997. No. 42). In particular, Andrei Konchalovsky refers to the topic of our interest: "A baby looks for his mother's face every 20 seconds. Eye contact makes him comfortable. It was found that artificial milk mixtures, made with use of an ideal modelled mother's milk formulae, are of no use. In India breast milk contains one mix of antibodies, in Norway it contains another. Natural breast milk of an Indian woman makes her child immune to cholera and diarrhoea, while in Norway a child becomes resistant to scorbutus and shortage of solar rays. Science returns us to natural habits".

As you can see from the above foreword, I am a zealous supporter of breast-feeding of children. All the below information on contamination of breast milk is a harsh truth, and one must know the truth, but it is mere a spoon of tar on a barrel of honey. By the way, relative shares of good and bad constituents of breast milk follow similar pattern: one barrel of honey (about 300 000 grams), and a small spoon of tar (about 0.3 grams). We call the ratio (1:1 000 000) ppm (part per million, mg/kg), i.e. one part (of tar) per 1 million parts (of honey). Later we will discuss far smaller concentrations, e.g. micrograms per kilogram (part per billion, ppb), nanograms per kilogram (ppt, part per trillion), and even picograms per kilogram (ppq, part per quadrillion or 1: 1 000 000 000 000). We will have to use these unbelievably small units of measure, because dioxins - the subject matter of our discussion - are extremely potent toxicants and produce adverse effects even at these negligible concentrations.

Contamination of breast milk

Why do scientists discuss issues of breast milk contamination so intensely at their different conferences, symposia and other meetings? Why do "greens" wage their war for the right to know how much dioxins and other toxic substances are present in breast milk? There are two reasons. First - it is the simplest one - is associated with the fact that breast milk is formed in contact with a mother's blood and concentrates all contaminants, circulating in her body. The range of these contaminants incorporate so dangerous compounds as dioxins (a generic term for a large group of polychlorinated aromatic compounds), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs, closely similar to dioxins) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, potent carcinogens, high levels of these compounds are observed in exhaust gases), and, naturally, different pesticides. All these compounds are highly soluble in fat and oil ("lypophilic" means fat affinity) and poorly soluble in water. White colour of milk is determined by microscopic fat globules, and there are these fat globules that accumulate all the above mentioned toxins.

A woman is a part of the whole population and she, as well as men and children, bears all pollutants, which are present at a given territory and are accumulated by local residents. In other words, a woman - or, to be more precise, her breast milk (or blood) - is an indicator of human contamination levels in the locality. Naturally, the indicator is of major importance for assessment of health impacts of environmental factors.

However, the indicator is not free of some deficiencies. The main deficiency is associated with the fact, that people intake pollutants from air an water (children also intake pollutants from dust and dirt), but food is nevertheless the major source of the contaminants in question - i.e. dioxins, PCBs and organochlorine pesticides. Food is responsible for 70-90% of all supply of dioxins. Moreover, intake of dioxins depends of particular food products - dioxins may be found only in those food products, which contain fat: butter, milk and dairy products, fish and all fish-based products, meat and all meat products (a degree of potential dioxin contamination depends on fat contents). Therefore, greasy meet contains more dioxins than meagre meet, and skim cheese contains less dioxins than ordinary cheese. You surely take note, that the discussion so far is focused on animal fat only - it is really so, plant food (and plant oil) contain extremely low levels of dioxins. This is associated with poor digestion of lyophilic substances by plants - to be transported by a plant circulation system, these compounds must be soluble in water. The above assumption is clearly confirmed by results of tissue analysis of strict vegetarians (these persons absolutely exclude animal food from their rations) - these persons were found to accumulate far less dioxins than we - ordinary omnivorous people. Average toxicity levels for average US women were found to be 3.4 times higher than for vegetarians (in the case of average US men, the excess toxicity factor reached 5.5 times). Judge for yourself …

Therefore, we have identified a weak point in our assumptions on possibility to assess local pollution, based on analysis of breast milk samples. The results are distorted, because food is the main source of contaminants, and the food may be produced far away. Therefore, cow milk is a better object for these assessments - a cow cannot choose nutrition patterns freely and eats grass where it stays. Unfortunately enough, farmers now feed their cows with imported feed-stuffs and other daintries, so in this case it is also necessary to be cautious.

However, breast milk analysis provides a valuable opportunity - we may assess human pollution loads in a region under study. But even there we may face of problem. It was found (and it was really surprising) than a breast-feeding mother releases with milk (and other products) far more dioxins than she intakes with food and by all other routes of exposure. The paradox puzzled scientists very seriously. Active research works allowed to identify the hidden source of excess dioxin supply - it was found to be a mother herself.

While we live, we accumulate dioxins in our bodies (mainly in fatty tissues) - the process continues life-long. However, when a mother starts to lactate, a new process intervenes. Milk extracts dioxins from a mother's body, these substances are concentrated in milk fat, resulting in milk enrichment by dioxins. Below we will consider their further fate. According to experimental data, in the period of lactation (breast-feeding) a mother may release 20-40% of her previous stock of dioxins. Moreover, the second child allows a mother to release further 20-30% of dioxins, etc., etc. Maybe this explains, why professional wet nurses (there are some) belong usually to fairly healthy women.

Therefore, we have found, that:

Breast milk contamination by dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Russia (in toxic equivalents - pg I-TEQ per 1 gram of fat)

So, if we estimated (see Table 1), that dioxin contents (in so called "toxic equivalents" - I-TEQ) in breast milk of women from Dzerzhinsk with its numerous chemical facilities reach 30.35 pg I-TEQ per 1 gram of fat, while in Archangelsk with its large pulp and paper mills the figure reach 32.7 pg I-TEQ per 1 gram of fat, it is fairly clear that these both cities are almost equally contaminated. Naturally enough, we would not be surprised by much lower levels of breast milk contamination in a small northern town of Kargopol - 15.1 pg I-TEQ per 1 gram of fat - cleaner environment means cleaner milk. But if you identify, that in Suzdal - a small clean town without any industrial capacity - breast milk contamination levels are fairly close to Dzerzhinsk figures (28.61 in Suzdal vs. 30.35 in Dzerzhinsk), you will be absolutely right to conclude that Suzdal residents and the city authorities must become seriously concerned and should try to identify a source of so heavy pollution, because one can hardly assume that nutrition patterns of residents of all these towns differ dramatically.

Now it is the time to consider the second reason of our close attention to dioxin levels in breast milk. This is associated with the fact, that dioxins from a mother's milk are consumed by her child. Intake of dioxins surely is not good for a child. It is harmful and dangerous, but to what extent is it harmful?

Permitted daily dose

Now we logically approach the issue of dioxins' intake by a human body. It is really logical, because, as we already said, the major share of dioxins comes with food. The issue of relative shares of meet, fat, and other component in rations of different populations is fairly complicated. In Western countries, the bulk of dioxins come with meat and dairy products. In the case of our country the situation is obscure. Therefore, let us define the main concept of dioxin-related problems - Permitted Daily Dose (PDD), as it is determined in Russia. In the United States, US EPA uses term "acceptable daily dose" - the term is criticised by "greens". While their (US) dose is the most strictly set - 6.4 femtorgams per 1kg of weight per day (1 femtogran is 1000 times smaller than 1 picogram). In Russia, the following standard exists (approved by the Chief Sanitarian of the Russian Federation): 10 picograms of I-TEQ per 1 kg of weight per day. In other words, PDD for an adult man with 70kg of weight reaches 700pg/day. If this average man will live for 70 years, in the whole his life, he can consume "without visible harm" (it is an official definition) 17885000pg of dioxins or 0.00002g for all life! To illustrate these negligible amounts, Linda Birnbaum - a famous US toxicologist - proposes to divide a standard aspirin pill (0.325g) into 32 million parts, and one part will represent US PDD for all your life. Any higher dose will inevitably produce a some disease. The above estimate is of fundamental importance, because these figures should be used for all considerations of dioxins' impacts, emission standards, etc. If you know, that Russian water pollution MAC is set as 20pg of dioxins per 1 litre, you understand that you cannot consume a lot of these compounds with water (because you cannot drink more than 2 - 3 litres of water daily), so with water you will consume maximum 60 picograms of dioxins from 700 “allowed”. However, it you like sea fish, which may contain up to 49pg/g (in terms of fat), 500g of fish could give you a high dose of dioxins. Estimates should account for fish fat contents. If a fish contains 5% of fat, the relevant dose will reach: 5% of app. 25000pg, or 1250pg - this figure substantially, almost twice exceeds you daily "norm".

PDDs may be used to assess comparative toxicity of dioxins and well studied toxic elements - cadmium and arsenic. In the case of dioxin, PDD (US) is app. 0.000 000 001mg/kg/day, while PDDs for cadmium and arsenic reach only 0.001mg/kg/day, i.e. dioxin is million times more potent toxin than these elements.

Infants face the same problems as heavy eaters of fat sea fish face. If we know, that average levels of dioxins in breast milk of Russian women reach about 20pg per 1 gram of fat, we may try to estimate a dose of breast milk, which may be consumed by an infant without harmful consequences. 1 litre of breast milk contains 30 grams of fat and, respectively, 30•20 = 600pg of dioxins. Assuming that a child's weight is 5kg, and PDD cannot exceed 5•10 = 50pg per day, we come to the conclusion, that 1 litre of milk contains 600:50 = 12 PDDs - therefore, "without harm" the child may consume 1000:12 » 100ml or 1 small bottle of mother's milk.

The above estimate entails very serious consequences, because infants appear to belong to "risk group", i.e. the group of people, who are under the highest threat of dioxins. The risk group incorporates fishermen (or individuals, who consume high quantities of fish), workers of some chemical facilities, US veterans of the Vietnam war and Vietnamese peasants, who were sprayed with dioxin-containing Orange Reagent by these war veterans, victims of emergencies, accompanied by dioxin releases and ... infants.

Now you understand, why it is so important to know dioxin levels in breast milk. Sad PDD estimates for infants, that suggest their incorporation into the risk group, require some actions to address the situation. How should we exclude them of the risk group, how should we save them from dioxin threat, what should a mother do, who releases toxins and transfers them to her child? The questions are fairly hard for answering. I am not ready to give answers, because I am not sure that I know the right ones. However, other researchers also hesitate to give clear and definite answers. The threat really exists, but there are no answers. So far, mothers are told that analysis of dioxin accumulation processes in a child's body reveals, that by the age of about 20 years all differences between nursed and "bottle" babies become levelled (artificial milk mixtures do not contain dioxins - these mixtures are made from plant oil and soymilk). But 20 years of life is a long time.

It is fairly surprising to find how long a child bears a mother's trace, maybe this is the reason why mother is the strongest love in human life? Unfortunately, in our particular case, the trace is of toxic nature. Even 10 years after completion of 3 months of breast-feeding, concentrations of dioxins and PCBs (in TEQ) in the body of a nursed child exceed contamination levels of a "bottle" child almost by 20%, and only after 15 years these levels become closer. However, the maximal levels of dioxin contamination coincide with the most vulnerable stage of a child's development, the stage of basic physical and mental formation. This stage is of decisive importance for all future life of a child. An apparent conclusion might emerge - it is necessary to terminate breast-feeding as early as possible or to avoid breast-feeding altogether, but the conclusion is poorly in line with the well proven fact - the less a women feeds her child with breast milk, the higher risk of breast cancer she faces.

We live is a perverted world - what is good for a mother, is bad for her child. We themselves are responsible for this unnatural state of affairs, because we have contaminated our environment with dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, chlorinated pesticides and other persistent organic pollutants. So I must repeat again and again, that your health and health of your children is in your hands - you should make all you can to reduce environmental contamination - breast milk must be clean.

I do realise, that I will not convince everybody, but I beg to say. Yes, of course, in our dirty world a mother will always be a source of contamination, but if you cannot afford to have many children (birth rates in Russia are falling), you should do something for your child before birth. I can give you only one advice - if you have decided to have a child, then switch to a vegetarian diet immediately and exclude milk, butter, greasy meat and fish from your rations. Russian Orthodox Church recommends such a diet for a fast, and nobody has proven that the diet resulted in any ill consequences. Animal proteins may be replaced by pea family products (peas, beans, etc) and nuts, besides that, bread also contains many proteins, nothing to say about fruits and vegetables - the more the better. In nine months of expectation you will be able to reduce dioxin levels in your body by about twenty per cent. You will encounter difficulties after the delivery - you will need to break the established tradition. In Russia it is widely believed that the more milk drinks a mother, the more breast milk she will produce. But the scheme, which we are discussing now, demands exclusion of cow milk from your diet - if you succeed, you will be able to reduce dioxin levels in your breast milk by further twenty per cent. To support my proposal I can only tell you that Hawaiian women follow a radically different tradition - when a mother starts to breast-feed, she completely abandons cow milk. I tell you all these things in an act of despair: after all my information on breast milk contamination, I simply have to propose an option. Let nutritionists also think the matter through.

However, there is another answer to the question, another way to resolve the problem.

How can one reduce toxicity of breast milk

In order to identify the core of the problem, we must understand where dioxins come from. In order to do this we should review all published data and make conclusions. It has been already done long ago - garbage incineration plants (GIPs) were identified as the major source of dioxins. Yes, they really are.

In all developed countries, where garbage incineration technology is widely used, GIPs generate the bulk of dioxins. As a result, Western countries, the United States and Japan are heavily contaminated by dioxins and now they enforce the most rigid measures to reduce their emissions. Fortunately enough, in Russia only few GIPs operate, but now municipal authorities are under severe pressure of lobbyist, trying to persuade them in the need to construct new GIPs. If these efforts will succeed, Russia will follow the western path and initiate intensive pollution of the country's territory.

Is it dangerous? I propose the most recent results of studies, conducted in Japan (Dioxin'97, v. 32, p. 155). Nearby a garbage incineration plant, a zone of high cancer mortality was identified. Study of dioxin contamination of the plant's adjacent areas revealed that in the zone up to 1.1km southward from the plant, among 57 persons, who died in 1985 - 1995, 24 persons died from cancer (42%), while in zone from 1.1km to 2.0km, among 167 persons, who died, only 34 persons died from cancer (20%). The latter figure is close to regional averages (25-28%). Heavy dioxin-containing particles fall at ground within the zone, adjacent to the plant's stack, however, smaller particles deliver dioxins to other areas of the country. Dutch researchers have demonstrated that dioxin pollution may clearly be identified even at distances of 24km.

Garbage incinerators, which are operational now in Russia, are relatively dirty, because they were designed and constructed at the time, when dioxins were largely unknown. For example, volatile ash of Murmansk GIP contains 2ng/g of dioxins, or one order of magnitude higher than in the case of Western GIPs. Naturally enough, dioxin emissions must be also one order of magnitude higher. Dioxin levels in breast milk of Murmansk mothers (27.5 pg I-TEQ per 1g of fat) is mainly determined by this garbage incinerator. The situation will aggravate further if a new GIP will be constructed in Murmansk.

I would like to remind once again - dioxins pose a real and very serious threat to the very existence of man as a biologic species.

I will cite the first conclusion from the report of the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States (US ЕРА), the most detailed and fundamental analytical survey of all dioxin-related research works.

Available broad evidence of dioxins' impacts on animals in animal tests and limited evidence of impacts on man suggest, that a wide range of biochemical and biological effects is observed at very low levels, comparatively to other environmental toxicants - at levels, which are hundreds and thousands of times lower that any of the already studied compounds. Laboratory studies confirm linkages between dioxins and other (besides chloracne) serious health impairments, including cancer. Data for humans confirm data of animal tests.

The survey of US EPA contains the list of 19 diseases, caused by dioxin poisoning, however, the list is not exclusive. The list simply cannot be exclusive, similarly to the list of diseases, associated with AIDS. In this sense, the definition of dioxins as "chemical AIDS", invented by journalists, is fairly adequate, but it is of no relevance to mechanisms of their health impact. But the most grave particular feature of dioxins is associated with the fact, that these compounds mainly affect women and children, impair reproductive functions and destroy children's' health long before their birth.

Now there is a marked trend, especially in governmental agencies to underestimate the treat of dioxins. It is associated with the fact, that Russia approved a program on dioxins (for the first time) and the problem is assumed to be under control, second - it might be associated with huge expenses, necessary for implementation of the program, and, finally - steady reduction of dioxin contamination levels in Western countries maybe also played some role, because public interest to dioxins decreases. When we proposed to Swedes to implement a joint research on dioxin-related problems, they answered us: we do not have the problem of dioxins, we have the program. If we were able to say that ...

It is necessary to intensify pressure on governmental agencies, at least to force them to implement already approved "Dioxin" program. Position of the Government will be of decisive importance for future development of waste management practices in Russia. In order to limit influence of irresponsible "well-wishers" of Western companies, which propose their cheap GIPs, it would be enough to adopt the full set of emissions standards of the European Union.

In order to understand importance of state regulation in the course of issuance of licenses for construction and operations of garbage incineration plants, it is fairly instructive to compare data of the below Table. The Table shows emissions of GIPs in the Netherlands prior to approval of the State Plan for Reduction of Emissions - "Incineration Directive 1989". The data are shown as at 1990, i.e. at the time of initial works for reconstruction of incinerators and pollution control installations (these works started in 1985, after approval of the relevant governmental decision). In 1990, dioxin emissions reached 611 grams (in toxic equivalents I-TEQ) per annum or 79% or gross national emissions. 5 years after enactment of "Incineration Directive 1989", in 1990, 4 plants from 12 operational ones were closed, and remaining plants were modernised to comply with requirements of the Directive. The modernisation expenses amounted to several billion Dutch Guilder. As a result, in 1995, dioxin emissions were reduced more than by 99% and reached only 4.1 grams per annum or 4-7% of gross national emissions. In other words, GIPs ceased to play the role of the major source of dioxins in the Netherlands, and the Government may focus on other "main" sources. the Table clearly shows, that in parallel, all other emissions were also sharply reduced: participates - almost in 20 times; HCl - in 110 times; CO - in 7.5 times; SO2 - in 13 times; NOx - almost in 3 times, etc..

GIPs' emissions in the Netherlands in 1990 and 1995 (in parentheses)

1) Total of: Pb, Zn, As.
2) Total of: Sb, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni, Zn.
Source: Jan G. P. Born Organochlorine Comp. (Dioxin'96) 1996, v. 27, p. 46-49.

Practical results of the sharp decrease of dioxin emissions became immediately visible. According to German data (P. Fu rst, K. Wilmer Dioxin'97 1997, v. 33, p. 116-121), in Germany, where similar GIP modernisation program was implemented, average daily intake of dioxins with food decreased from 127.3 picogram (in toxic equivalents) per capita (or about 2pg/kg/day) in 1989, to 69.6pg per capita daily (about 1pg/kg/day) in 1996, i.e. average daily intakes decreased by 50%. Similarly, dioxin levels in breast milk also decreased: daily intake of dioxins with breast milk decreased from 163 picograms per 1 kilogram of child weight in 1989 (compare with PDD) to 68pf/kg in 1996, i.e. in 2.4 times. These results reflect a major achievement of the European Community in protection of human health and environment from dioxins.

That is the second option for reduction of breast milk contamination - it is necessary to achieve zero emissions of dioxins, as Western "greens" demand, or, at least to achieve "acceptable" emission levels. It is fairly difficult, but, as we see, it is possible.

AN IMPORTANT ADDITION

Concentration of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PCDD/PCDF) in food products (in toxic equivalents I-TEQ)*

*) These data were obtained in Bashkortostan in 1996 and were presented on doctoral thesis of Z.K.Amirova - deputy Director of Bashkir Republican Environmental Centre, and in laboratory of N.A.Kliuev (Institute of Environment And Evolution Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Data from other regions do not show substantial deviations.

**) these data were taken from a fairly instructive monograph of B.N.Filatov, A.E.Danilina, G.M.Mikhailov, M.F.Kiselev - "Dioxin (today's worries and tomorrow's tragedies)", Moscow, 1997.

Note. Permitted daily dose (PDD) in the Russian Federation is set as 10 picograms I-TEQ per 1kg of weight per day. WHO standard of 1998 is set as 1 - 4 picograms I-TEQ per 1kg of weight per day. In Bashkortostan, the major shares of dioxin intake are associated with consumption of meat (41%) and dairy products (32%), consumption of these products is responsible for more than 97% of net dioxin intake. Dioxin contamination was not found in vegetables, grain, cereal products and fruits.

I demonstrated the above table in response to numerous requests of breast-feeding mothers and pregnant women, who want to have a some sort of tool to control their dioxin intakes. The table may serve as a such tool. You should remember that dioxins accumulate in fat only. Dioxin contents in low-fat meat, fish, milk and cheese are lower than dioxin levels in high-fat products, proportionately to respective fat contents.

For our today's purposes we will use only the third column of the Table - dioxin contents per product unit weight (except fats - in the case of fats, net product weight and fat contents coincide). Let us consider dioxin data for beef - the first raw contains the average dioxin content (0.30), but, naturally, actual figures will fluctuate. If you bought a nice piece of beef at a marketplace, it may contain more fat (i.e. dioxins - 0.52), but if you can afford, you may choose beef filet, containing less fat and less dioxins - 0.10. In a city trade network you may encounter a beef of any quality (therefore, dioxin data in the table fluctuate), but liver always contain high levels of fat and dioxins (0.7 - 4.1).

Let us remember, that PDD in the Russian Federation is set as 10 picograms I-TEQ per 1kg of weight per day. Now, let us estimate our dioxin intake due to meat consumption. If you bought a high quality beef at a marketplace and your portion of meat was 100 grams, you consumed 100 x 0.52 = 5.2 picograms of dioxins. How large is this figure? If your weight is 50kg, then your daily "norm" is: 50 x 10 = 500 picograms/day. So, if you want to get the whole "norm" you have a margin of 494.8 picograms. Continue to eat, but if you live outside Russia, you should better use European PDD (in the United States, PDD is set even stricter), which is 10 times lower than the Russian one. Then, your estimated daily norm will reach only 50 picograms, and, respectively, your safety margin will decrease to 44.8 picograms (not so much).

Let us make dioxin intake estimates for milk, just for exercise. Let us consider milk in packs with fat contents of 3.2%. The reference to milk in packs is associated with rather high dioxin contents in paper packaging (paper may contain from 20 to 500 nanograms of I-TEQ of dioxins (the reason why many world producers switch to chlorine-free paper). Dioxins from paper may migrate to milk and add 10 per cent of extra contamination. So, you took one glass of milk (200g), containing (see the Table) 22 picograms of dioxins (0.11x200). Your daily "norm" reaches 500 (or 50) picograms. If you stay in the Russian Federation, you are assumed to have some safety margin, but if you stay at the West, you have already consumed a half of your daily "norm". 1 litre pack of milk contains 0.11x1000 = 110 picograms I-TEQ of dioxins, i.e. twice higher than Western norm (if we apply our "humane" norm, we may still have some margin - 390 picograms). 1 litre pack of milk supplies you with 12 times more dioxins than air exposure (I use examples from the monograph of B.N.Filatov, the monograph contains relevant references). Then, let us eat a pair of sandwiches with butter (toxicity - 1.0pg/g), assuming that these sandwiches contain only 20g of butter (do not apply too much butter!), therefore, you will get another 20 picograms of dioxins. You already know your "norm". Two sandwiches amount to about a half of the Western norm or to 1/25th of the Russian one. In such a way you may assess total intake of dioxins, accounting for your tastes. The above products give you: meat (100g = 5pg of dioxins) + milk (1 glass = 22pg) + sandwiches (20g of butter = 20pg) = 47pg - i.e. you have already exceeded the Western norm, but you are still within the limits of the Russian one. All estimates of dioxin intakes with food (both in Russia and at the West) demonstrate, that in normal circumstances and in the case of average food-consumption patterns, we usually do not exceed PDDs. However, there is a small detail - we have already discussed it in the course of the lecture on dioxins - PDD is set based on a specific property of dioxins, on their carcinogenic potency. But I must remind you once again the statement of the Chief Toxicologist of the United States and a prominent scientist - Linda Birnbaum insists: there is no safe dose of dioxins, whatever small it might be. She knows dioxins better than anyone else. The reason is associated with the fact than carcinogenic capacity of dioxins is relatively low (comparatively to other potent carcinogens), there are many other substances, which generate far more serious cancer risks. But we do not know other substances, that would affect endocrine and immune systems in a so destructive way, moreover, dioxins produce these effect at concentrations in 10-100-1000 times lower, than cancer-inducing levels. We should bear these facts in mind. If we care of our children, we should not accumulate dioxin "norms", we should avoid dioxin intake by whatever possible means.

So, we are returning to the starting point.

First, and the most important: you should breast-feed your child.

Make whatever possible efforts! Start to think about that 9 month before your childbirth or even earlier!. One of my female relatives was left with an infant girl in her care (the girl's mother died), and she started to lactate, notwithstanding her old age. Now the infant is a nice healthy girl! There are similar facts. Do not give up, your breast milk forms a life-long connection with your child.

Second. Try to reduce toxic loads on your child. Reduce share of animal fat in your diet! Pharmacokynetics of dioxins is still underdeveloped, we have only very limited knowledge on their digestion and excretion mechanisms. Of course, already available research papers are fairly pessimistic - their authors suggest, that the stocks of dioxins, which you have accumulated in your life (give your childbirth early!) are so high, that your child will inevitably enter the risk group (too many poison for a fairly low weight - PDDs increase in several dozens of times). But I would like to refer to the paper of Vim Traag from the Netherlands (by the way, he analysed breast milk samples from Russia, he is a highly professional analyst). I hope that you have adequate sense of humour and you would not feel offended by comparison of a breast-feeding mother with a lactating cow. Cow is also a living thing. When Europe was in the centre of the scandal of meat and milk contamination by dioxins, Vim Traag conducted the following series of tests - he fed cows with feed-stuffs with high dioxin levels and then measured toxicity of their milk.

The chart shows, that initially milk contamination sharply increased, but then, when feed-stuffs with high dioxin contents were withdrawn, milk toxicity decreased. After one month of dioxin-free diet, the cows returned to baseline levels. It is clear, that "milk producing rate" of a breast-feeding mother is lower, than milking capacity of a Dutch cow, but the trend remains the same - if you excrete dioxins swiftly from your body, if you will manage to reduce of dioxin intake, you will be able to reduce contamination of your breast milk (bearing in mind that the period of lactation will take several months). A scientific approach is based on the necessity to obtain universally applicable results - that is the reason why scientists invented statistics and always require averaging of results. But human beings are hard objects for averaging - individual deviations may be so high, that my fellow statisticians invented a trick - they demand discarding of extreme values - i.e. the highest and the lowest ones. But some of you may belong to these "extreme" cases, so maybe it is worth to try to follow a vegetarian diet for a year of two, without wasting your time for scientific discussions?

I like children very much and do not like those adults, who do not bother themselves with even trying to alter their lifestyles a little for the sake of their children.

Note. The most recent sad data (S. Ohta et al. Organohal.Compds. 1999:44:213): these Japanese have demonstrated that the placentary barrier do not protect a foetus from dioxins, i.e. dioxins start to affect a child even prenatally. Moreover, they found that placentary levels of dioxins were even higher than in breast milk. Placenta tissues contain 81.4 picograms of I-TEQ/g of fat, while breast milk contains only 31.4 4 picograms of I-TEQ/g of fat. These figures were observed for primapara cases only. Breast-feeding results in reduction of dioxin levels in placenta to 53.2 4 picograms of I-TEQ/g of fat, and dioxin levels in breast milk to 25.2 4 picograms of I-TEQ/g of fat. Placenta barrier intercepts highly chlorinated dioxins more efficiently, this means that the most toxic ones infiltrate placenta barrier more easily and affect a foetus. Earlier, similar mechanisms were demonstrated for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), that are classified as "dioxins" on the base of their properties. The latter compounds especially intensively impair mental development of a child. Besides that, there are some new data (see the lecture on POPs) on hexachlorobenzene. The compound was also found to act as a dioxin-like one (A. van Birgelen. Environmental Health Persp. 1998:106:11:683). Add the omnipresent DDT to the list of these nasty agents (all of them accumulate in animal fats, like dioxins and PCBs, and migrate to breast milk), and a vegetarian diet would seem to you to be a reasonable investment into health of your child.