Occurrence, exposure evaluation and risk assessment in child population for aflatoxin M₁ in dairy products in Brazil

This study aimed to evaluate the risk concerning child population's health because of the occurrence of AFM₁ in UHT milk, powdered milk (PM) and infant formulae (IF). Determination of AFM₁ was performed in 60 samples and evaluation of the mycotoxin exposure was carried out through the determination of the estimated daily intake (EDI), whereas risk characterization was evaluated with the calculation of the risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) and the Margin of Exposure (MOE). AFM₁ ranged from 150 to 1020 ng/kg, and all the positive samples exceeded the limits stablished by European Community. The EDI for AFM₁ ranged according to the age group of the population studied (0-5 years old) from 0.828 to 2.523, 0-2.113 and 0.029-0.833 ng/kg b. w./day in UHT, PM and IF, respectively. The number of HCC cases associated with AFM₁ exposure (0.0015 a 0.0045) was higher than the limit of 0.001 case/100,000. MOE values for AFM₁ were 728 to 239, considerably below the security margin of 10,000. These results point to a potential risk to the health of Brazilian child population exposed to AFM₁ in dairy products.