title: Improving the risk assessment of lipophilic persistent environmental chemicals in breast milk.
abstract: Lipophilic persistent environmental chemicals (LPECs) have the potential to accumulate within a woman's body lipids over the course of many years prior to pregnancy, to partition into human milk, and to transfer to infants upon breastfeeding. As a result of this accumulation and partitioning, a breastfeeding infant's intake of these LPECs may be much greater than his/her mother's average daily exposure. Because the developmental period sets the stage for lifelong health, it is important to be able to accurately assess chemical exposures in early life. In many cases, current human health risk assessment methods do not account for differences between maternal and infant exposures to LPECs or for lifestage-specific effects of exposure to these chemicals. Because of their persistence and accumulation in body lipids and partitioning into breast milk, LPECs present unique challenges for each component of the human health risk assessment process, including hazard identification, dose-response assessment, and exposure assessment. Specific biological modeling approaches are available to support both dose-response and exposure assessment for lactational exposures to LPECs. Yet, lack of data limits the application of these approaches. The goal of this review is to outline the available approaches and to identify key issues that, if addressed, could improve efforts to apply these approaches to risk assessment of lactational exposure to these chemicals.
authors: Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , Research Triangle Park, NC , USA.
authors: Geniece M
authors: GM
authors: Lehmann
authors: Marc-André
authors: MA
authors: Verner
authors: Bryan
authors: B
authors: Luukinen
authors: Cara
authors: C
authors: Henning
authors: Sue Anne
authors: SA
authors: Assimon
authors: Judy S
authors: JS
authors: LaKind
authors: Eva D
authors: ED
authors: McLanahan
authors: Linda J
authors: LJ
authors: Phillips
authors: Matthew H
authors: MH
authors: Davis
authors: Christina M
authors: CM
authors: Powers
authors: Erin P
authors: EP
authors: Hines
authors: Sami
authors: S
authors: Haddad
authors: Matthew P
authors: MP
authors: Longnecker
authors: Michael T
authors: MT
authors: Poulsen
authors: David G
authors: DG
authors: Farrer
authors: Satori A
authors: SA
authors: Marchitti
authors: Yu-Mei
authors: YM
authors: Tan
authors: Jeffrey C
authors: JC
authors: Swartout
authors: Sharon K
authors: SK
authors: Sagiv
authors: Clement
authors: C
authors: Welsh
authors: Jerry L
authors: JL
authors: Campbell
authors: Warren G
authors: WG
authors: Foster
authors: Raymond S H
authors: RS
authors: Yang
authors: Suzanne E
authors: SE
authors: Fenton
authors: Rogelio
authors: R
authors: Tornero-Velez
authors: Bettina M
authors: BM
authors: Francis
authors: John B
authors: JB
authors: Barnett
authors: Hisham A
authors: HA
authors: El-Masri
authors: Jane Ellen
authors: JE
authors: Simmons
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018811:Maternal Exposure; D008895:Milk, Human / Q000737:chemistry*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D011247:Pregnancy; D051381:Rats; D012107:Research Design; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants
keywords: PBT chemicals; POPs; children; exposure; persistent organic pollutants; research needs; risk assessment; uncertainty