Rocket Fuel Found in Breast Milk of Women

[Weekes Head]

According to LiveScience.com:

Rocket Fuel Found in Breast Milk of Women in 18 States

By Robert Roy Britt

LiveScience Senior Writer

posted: 24 February 2005

01:43 pm ET

A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.

The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities.

Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk.

The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.

Texas Tech University researchers studied 36 samples of breast milk from women in 18 states and 47 samples cow's milk purchased from stores in 11 states. Every sample of breast milk contained perchlorate, as did all but one sample of dairy milk.

The results are detailed in the online version of Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society. The work was led by Texas Tech biochemist Purnendu Dasgupta.

Perchlorate occurs naturally and is also a primary ingredient in solid rocket fuel and fireworks. In excess, it can interfere with iodide uptake in the thyroid gland, disrupting adult metabolism and childhood development, scientists say.

In fetuses, it can potentially cause mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, and motor skill deficits.

The average perchlorate concentration in breast milk samples was 10.5 micrograms per liter. The dairy milk average was 2.0 micrograms per liter. No definitive national standard exists, although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had suggested a limit of 1.0 micrograms per liter in drinking water.

The study also found that high levels of perchlorate in the breast milk samples were indeed related to low levels of iodide. Low iodide levels can inhibit thyroid function in nursing women. Scientists admit there is limited data, but Dasgupta and colleagues said the levels found in the study are "sufficiently low to be of concern."

They suggest that the recommended daily intake of iodine for pregnant and nursing women may need to be revised upward.

Perchlorate is in the drinking water of at least 11 million U.S. residents, other research has shown. The chemical is present in the Colorado river, which provides water to Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas and is used to irrigate 70 percent of the nation's lettuce crops, according to the Environmental Working Group, which studied the problem in 2003 in cooperation with scientists at Texas Tech.

An overview study of perchlorate released in January by the National Academies' National Research Council (NRC) tried to assess the risk, but scientists continue to argue about how much of the chemical is too much.

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/05...ocket_fuel.html

Edited February 24, 2005 by RoughDraft

[langsgirl]

The defect in this one is bleach - YESSSSSSS!

[sheeps]

The defect in this one is bleach - YESSSSSSS!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...except this scares me.

[Devils731]

This breat milk taste like my mom has been in an onion patch.

[MrsSheeps]

::sigh:: The sad thing is that this is the least of our worries. The EPA listed over 87,000 other potential chemicals found in our environment that could disturb our delicate physiological balance (or disturb other organisms that we eat--PCB-laden fish, for instance), but they lack the funding to properly test them. Plus, they can't just identify them based on similar chemical structures either...

but hey! This country has other stuff to worry about--like those heretics and men who like men... cause long-term effects of chemicals in our environment just isn't that important, eh?

[Zamode]

The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.

In fetuses, it can potentially cause mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, and motor skill deficits.

the levels found in the study are "sufficiently low to be of concern."

Typical, they dispute themselves in the same article.