Overall Conclusions and Key Messages of the WHO/UNEP-Coordinated Human Milk Studies on Persistent Organic Pollutants

• Authors: MALISCH Rainer; SCHÄCHTELE Alexander; LIPPOLD Ralf; HARDEBUSCH Björn; KRÄTSCHMER Kerstin; VAN LEEUWEN F. X. Rolaf; MOY Gerald; TRITSCHER Angelika; ŠEBKOVÁ Kateřina; KLÁNOVÁ Jana; KALINA Jiří; VAN DEN BERG Martin; VETTER Walter; FÜRST Peter; MANUWEERA Gamini; ALVAREZ Jacqueline
• Year of publication: 2023
• Type: Chapter of a book
• MU Faculty or unit: Faculty of Science
• Description: Building on the two rounds of exposure studies with human milk coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the mid-1980s and 1990s on polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD), and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF), five expanded studies on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were performed between 2000 and 2019. After the adoption of the Stockholm Convention on POPs (the Convention) in 2001, WHO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) collaborated in joint studies starting in 2004. The collaboration aimed at provision of POPs data for human milk as a core matrix under the Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) to assess the effectiveness of the Convention as required under Article 16. Over time, the number of analytes in the studies expanded from the initial 12 POPs targeted by the Convention for elimination or reduction to the 30 POPs covered under the Stockholm Convention and two other POPs proposed for listing as of 2019. Many of these chemicals have numerous congeners, homologous groups, isomeric forms, and transformation products, which significantly extends the number of recommended analytes.