Food contaminants - dioxins and PCBs like compounds.

Abstract

Dioxins are very persistent unwanted by-products of the manufacture of certain industrial chemicals or are produced during various combustion and incineration processes. From the 1930s until the 1970s, PCBs were produced in many industrial countries, including the United Kingdom. The main purpose of this production was for use in electrical equipment. Dioxins and PCBs are environmental contaminants which find their way in very low concentrations into many food sources. They are particularly found in fatty foods, including milk. Although the industrial sources of dioxins and PCBs are now strictly controlled, both groups of chemicals are very persistent and will remain in the environment for many more years. Dioxin is an unintended byproduct of natural events such as volcanoes and forest fires as well as manmade processes such as manufacturing, incineration, paper and pulp bleaching, and exhaust emissions. It is found throughout the industrialized world in air, water, soil as well as in food. Exposure to dioxin can come through working in industries where dioxin is a byproduct, industrial accidents, through food and human breast milk and in drinking water. Overall, exposure to dioxin sources by skin contact or breathing has very small incidence. Despite the presence of dioxins in human milk, breast-feeding should be encouraged and promoted on the basis of convincing evidence of its benefits to the overall health and development of the infant.