The project "Study of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in human milk in Brazil", developed by the Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca [Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health] (Ensp/Fiocruz), is supported by Fiotec. It aims to provide information on the consequences of the POPs for public health and to produce accessible, reliable, and comparable data on the levels of POPs in human milk for the purposes of the Stockholm Convention.

Through the Centro de Estudos em Saúde do Trabalhador e Ecologia Humana [Center for the Study of Occupational Health and Human Ecology] (Cesteh), the Ensp is responsible for the collection and analysis of human milk samples. The objective is to minimize the sources, until the elimination and total ban of such pollutants, which monitoring is due to the high toxicity and capacity to cause adverse effects to human health and to other living organisms, as well as the elevated persistency in the environment. The POPs have an affinity for fat and, therefore, breast milk is understood as one of the indicators of the presence of both of these substances in the environment.

Methodology

In order to guarantee the uniformity of the global comparison between samples, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have developed a guideline for the conduction of the researches, which includes the methodology of sample collection, identification of the donors, selection criteria, among others. The Ensp/Fiocruz has adapted the guideline to the Brazilian reality.

According to project coordinator, Ana Braga, in an interview with the Agência Fiocruz de Notícias [Fiocruz News Agency] (CCS/Fiocruz), a total of 150 individual samples will be collected from 15 different sites, which will be divided into three samples from 50 donors. The samples collected will be sent to the WHO reference laboratory, in Germany.

Also in an interview with CCS/Fiocruz, Cesteh researcher and member of the research, Thomas Krauss, affirmed that it is only possible to attain knowledge, on a national level, about the contamination status or of the distribution of such pollutants through monitoring. "The matrix to be used, breast milk, represents the current exposure of the population in general," he said. Besides knowledge about the levels of exposure, the results may indicate situations that are subject to control, as well as the investigation of problems to the health of the population.

*Includes information from the CCS/Fiocruz