Monitoring breast milk contamination to detect hazards from waste disposal.

Human milk is a repository for certain classes of long-lived, fat-soluble environmental contaminant chemicals. Some members of this class, such as the chlorinated pesticides and the chlorinated biphenyls, can be expected to be present at chemical waste disposal sites. Analysis of samples of breast milk obtained from women near such a site could provide documentation that exposure has taken place. However, background contamination is present and must be dealt with by the collection of comparison samples. Sample collection can be difficult because of the low level of chemicals being sought, and thus the possibility of sample contamination. The diagnostic and public health consequences of contaminated breast milk are not clear at this time, and thus chemical analysis of milk should be carried out in a research setting. Despite these difficulties, breast milk monitoring has been a successful tool in certain investigations of the spread of environmental chemicals.