It is strange to see in our environment someone who does not have a mobile or console or does not know someone who has. Many make use of the iPhone, iPad, Playstation 3, Wii, Samsung Galaxy or even laptops with some other plastic element.
Most of them are manufactured in China, where the women who live there are suffering the side effects of such production: Chinese women's breast milk has high levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE).
PBDEs (we use the acronym because the name is unmentionable) are used in the plastic housings of electronic devices to reduce their flammability and, although the effects they may have on the human body are not yet known (or do not want to know) Some alarms have jumped for the risk that a population is running, Shenzhen, where there are no less than 5,000 factories of electronic devices and several incinerators.
One of those factories is the well-known Foxconn, which has more than 200,000 workers who produce components for Apple, Sony, Nintendo and Amazon among many other well-known brands.
The levels are not yet extremely high
PBDE levels in the breast milk of women in Shenzhen are not yet alarming, according to researchers from the University of Beijing in a study published in the magazine Journal of Environmental Monitoring, but surveillance must be continuous to prevent possible risks.
The scientists have found an average of 14.8 billionth of a gram of PBDE for every gram of fat in breast milk of the Chinese women of Shenzhen. In Spain the values are around 5.5 billionths of a gram, in Japan they are 1.5, while in Russia they are 0.9.
The risks of PBDEs
According to a study by the University of Columbia, PBDEs start to worry the health authorities of some countries because they accumulate in the fat of living beings and they can cause developmental disorders of children.
The Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition has come to say that "PBDEs cause DNA damage, identifying the liver, the reproductive system and the nervous system as the main target organs".
If they are in breast milk, they are in all humans
PBDEs are, therefore, compounds that are affecting human beings to a greater or lesser extent and that they should, for sure (when the river sounds ...), begin to be more monitored and controlled, since if they are in breast milk they are in all humans.
Many times news like this appears, in which it is said that breast milk is contaminated, leading to think that with it the mothers will contaminate the babies who drink it. This is true, but it is half true. PBDEs are stored in people's fat, so the way to know how much PBDE is in a person or in a group of people is to analyze each individual's fat. As it is not a plan to take samples of fatty tissue from people, so because yes, an easy and economical way to get fat is using a fatty liquid tissue, which does not cost to extract humans: breast milk.
In other words, it is not that the milk of Chinese mothers is contaminated and, poorly breastfed babies who are going to take PBDEs from their mothers, it is that Chinese mothers are contaminated, Chinese parents are also contaminated and Babies, simply by living there, will soon be.
