Dietary intake of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) by German children using duplicate portion sampling

The dietary intake of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) was studied in 14 German children at the age of 1.5 to 5.3 years from the North Sea island Amrum. A total of 98 duplicate samples were collected between April and May 1995. The sampling period for each participant was 7 days. Concentrations of POPs were measured by capillary gas chromatography and electron capture detection. The median daily intake [ng/(kgbw.day)] for the different compounds were as follows: 1.9 for alpha-HCH, 1.2 for beta-HCH, 9.5 for gamma-HCH, 4.6 for HCB, 3.4 for DDT, 11.2 for DDE, 1.1 for PCB 101, 5.1 for, PCB 138, 5.2 for PCB 153 and 2.2 for PCB 180. Compared to acceptable or tolerable daily intake (ADI/TDI) proposed by WHO and other organizations the dietary intake of POPs was low. The median values of the ADI/TDI for the POPs was less than 2.2%. The highest percentage of tolerable intake was found for the sum of PCB and amounted to 20.4%. However, compared with minimal risk levels (ATSDR), the percentage of dietary intake was much higher, especially for gamma-HCH (based on median intake: 95%), for HCB (23.1%) and for PCB (69%).