According to Green Prophet, Tunisia´s toddlers are in a ton of toxic trouble as banned chemicals have been found in their mothers´ breast milk.
Tunisia teems with unregulated industrial polluters that dump waste into waterways, contaminating local water supplies. As a result, Green Prophet reports that over 1,200 tons of obsolete pesticide stocks remain uncontained and pollute surrounding areas and waterways.
The pollution contains dangerous and prohibited Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine and dichlorodiphenytrichloroethane. These compounds are used in insecticides, industrial chemicals or are created as industrial byproducts which enter not only local water supplies, but the domestic food chain. When ingested, POPs in particular impair the endocrine system, hormone production, metabolic processes and the reproductive system, causing genetic damage and cancer.
As a result of this pollution, a recent study sampled the breast milk of 237 women in 12 locations in Tunisia and identified widespread elevated levels of the prohibited chemicals. The study also found that older members of Tunisian rural populations who consumed higher amounts of dairy and meat exhibited elevated levels of contamination.
Green Prophet reports thatthe news gets worse however for Tunisian mothers and their breast-fed babies; the compounds comprising the prohibited chemicals typically have a high resistance to degradation, long half-lives in humans, and have been confirmed to bioaccumulate in fatty tissues such as blood, breast milk, and adipose tissues through dietary intake.
This means that industrial polluters are creating a toxic breast milk crisis in Tunisia that could continue for a generation or more. As a result, without better regulation, Tunisian mothers are left with no choice but to rethink the breast feeding mantra: "breast is best".
