Reply To The Letter To The Editor By J.g. Dorea 'health Hazard For Infants: Breast-milk Mercury Or Non-breastfeeding? A Dilemma For Mothers Exposed To Mercury Vapours'

摘要

The authors would like to thank Jose Dorea for his competent contribution and especially his additional literature citations (Dorea, 2008). Dorea remarks that the median of the mercury concentration of breast milk samples (1.87 μg/l) was lower than in milk samples from women, occupationally burdened by mercury vapour in lamp industry in China or from small scale gold mining areas in Amazon/ Brazil. The three different study groups in Indonesia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe are characterised by different levels of exposure to mercury vapour (Bose-O'Reilly et al., 2008a). The study group in Tanzania is less exposed, compared to the study group in Indonesia and Zimbabwe (Boese-O'Reilly et al., 2004; Castilhos et al., 2006; Taylor et al., 2005). The reason is that due to less advanced mining technologies miners in Tanzania produce less ore and therefore use less mercury for amalgamation.