A Review of Environmental Exposure to Persistent Organochlorine Residuals During the Last Fifty Years

Environmental exposure to persistent toxic organochlorines (Pesticides and Polychlorinated biphenyls) is ever changing over time and space, as a result of their agricultural and industrial use and the control measures being adopted. Scientific investigations have revealed the great toxicity of these compounds and their severe impact on human health so that it is quite important to evaluate the risk of human exposure to these toxic compounds by means of a biomarker, such as human milk. The determination of persistent organochlorine compounds in human milk permits the monitoring (time-place) of these toxicants in the human body after its environmental exposure. For this reason, we have reviewed different papers published over the past 50 years in different countries and continents to find out the dynamics of exposure to persistent organochlorine residuals. Scientific progress in analytical methods and toxicological mechanisms, which are changing due to the discovery of certain compounds together with the use and introduction of derived products and the establishment of sanitary measures, has caused a succession of publications on pesticides and PCBs in human milk. These have reflected exposure to these compounds, their great persistence, and the correlation of the levels detected with diverse epidemiological factors (age, profession, number of children, number of them breast fed, residence in rural or urban areas, etc.) with the aim of establishing their association and the effectiveness of protection measures. Our review found that the greatest number of publications on this topic were from European countries, but the trend in these determinations was seen to be similar on the other continents (America, Asia and Africa) with a clear reduction in the levels of organochlorine residuals (Pesticides and PCBs) in human milk. These levels served as biomarkers (timeplace) suggesting that the control and prohibition of their use would minimize their impact on public health.