Milk Sample Shows it Exceeds FDA Standards
The milk sample of .48 bq equates to 12.96 pCi. The EPA standard is 3.0 pCi. I think your commentary is misleading the public on the dangers of local milk!
Search
The milk sample of .48 bq equates to 12.96 pCi. The EPA standard is 3.0 pCi. I think your commentary is misleading the public on the dangers of local milk!
Highly recommend this article on EPA vs. FDA standards
http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/04/14/why-does-fda-tolerate-mor...
Worse case FDA DIL apparently allows more than 1 person in 4000 or fewer to get cancer or die of cancer.
A least some good news....
Well, even if we go by the EPA limit of 700 pCi/L as stated in the
article, the latest BRAWM number for milk was 1.16 Bq/L (31.32 pCi/L).
So, BRAWM's number is still 22.3 times lower than the EPA limit. That
doesn't make me happy. But, better than 10 times the 3 pCi/L drinking
water limit a lot of folks are comparing to.
I'll admit that I'm a bit puzzled by the authors statement below:
"And that’s not just over a 70-year period. EPA’s annual MCL for iodine-131 is equivalent to 700 picoCuries per liter, according to this EPA document.
That means FDA’s 4,700 picoCurie limit for one liter of milk is almost seven times higher than EPA’s exposure maximum for a year."
Also, the EPA and FDA made a joint statement using the FDA DIL as a
reference. So, right or wrong, they are agreeing on that:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/8aca5fe3d1d30ebc852578630074eaff!OpenDocument
Isn't it still 700 picoCuries per liter regardless of the time period?
I could understand it being declared an annual limit if it just stopped
at "700 picoCuries". Or "700 picoCuries/year". But, it listed a volume.
Which indicates the amount of contamination allowed per liter. Not per
period of time. So, based on the author's statement it should be, "FDA's
4700 picoCurie limit for one liter of milk is almost seven times higher than EPA’s 700 picoCurie limit per liter"
Of course, none of this excuses FDA's allowance for a potential of many
more illnesses.
FDA and EPA have different standards/limits
A few things:
1. The FDA's "Derived Intervention Level" (DIL) is actually 4700 pCi/L
(approx. 170 Bq/L).
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/UCM251056.pdf
2. The EPA's 3 pCi/L limit is for *drinking water*. And is based on
continuous consumption over a 70 year period. Milk is not held to that
standard.
3. I'm not sure where your .48 Bq came from. The BRAWM team's most
recent level was 1.14 Bq/L. Which equates to 30.78 pCi/L. Which is
still 153 times lower than the FDA DIL. And .48 Bq/L would be 363
times lower than the FDA DIL.
Why is milk not held to the
Why is milk not held to the same standard? is the assumption that people don't drink as much milk? That's a pretty big assumption especially when we're talking about children. My 5 year old drinks ONE GALLON a week of milk. That's a lot of milk! That's probably as much if not more than he drinks of water. I wish the FDA/EPA would stop treating us like children and making assumptions behind our back about how much of what type of food we are consuming...
They say it applies to infants as well
Again, I'm assuming that it's because your 5 year old won't be
drinking that amount for 70 years. And, given that the average
person should drink approx. 2 liters of water (fluid) per day/730
liters per year (0.5 gal per day/193 gal per year), even if one
were to continue drinking a gallon of milk a week for 70 years,
it would amount to 52 gal per year. Which is about 25% of the
water intake.
A couple more links:
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm247403.htm
This one states that it applies to infants too:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/iodine/standards_regulations.html
"***Foods destined for general consumption and also for infant milk and drinking water"
I'm not expert. And I certainly understand your concern. I have 13
and 15 year old kids. And *I'M* concerned. But, I'm just pointing
out what the FDA is stating.
I should point out that the FDA was detecting I-131 in milk from the
late '70's to the early 90's. Some as high as .8+ Bq/L. It went non-
detectable in the mid-90's.
Where was the I-131 coming from in the 70s - 80s?
Where do you think the I-131 was coming from in the 70s and 80s?
Leaks? Waste? Testing? etc?
In 1986, it came from
In 1986, it came from Chernobyl and affected live births in other data:
http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/Rad7c.html
Chernobyl was farther away and emitted 40% of <190 tons.
Another Link
If interested, you may want to read the FDA's "Supporting Document for Guidance Levels for Radionuclides in Domestic and Imported Foods". It
gives breakdowns by age:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/FoodContaminantsAdulteration/Chemical...
fda vs epa
there are some conversations being had regarding the differences between the epa's and the fda's intervention levels. it seems to boil down to the fact that the epa is basing it's standards on daily (or at least annual) consumption over a life span of 70 years, while fda is basing it on a single, damaging dose. these conversations are readily found over the internets :)
Just from a purely logical
Just from a purely logical approach, why would there be a measurement of a highly dangerous substance over a 70 year period? This is a whole lifetime. Wouldn't it be wiser to state that you should remove yourself from ingesting this toxic product? By analogy, would the EPA recommend staying in a radon-infested house for 70 years as long as it is under the maximum level? To me, this only makes sense if these destructive agents are taken for a "naturally occurring" granted; and again the arguments that it is like a plane ride, fruit or dental x-ray are used to show their "natural" ubiquity.
Just a guess
Given that there are some dangerous substances that can't totally be avoided (radon and uranium, for example), the EPA may be simply throwning
in the towel and giving the risk assessment based on a lifetime of
exposure. And, for consistency sake, use that as the model across all
substances. Then they can apply alarm trigger points for each. When the
alarm is tripped, they can recommend actions to be taken. Like removing
yourself from the toxic product. I certainly hope they are not allowing
a 1 in 4000 cancer risk as a trigger point.....
Yes heres your data
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/heast/docs/heast2_table_4-d2_0401.pdf
Pg.24
So, for I-131
The link above says there's a 1.34E-10/pCi risk factor for "Food
Ingestion" (page 26). Which they say means milk (see comment j below
from page 71).
"j For radioisotopes of iodine, the values listed for food ingestion represent ingestion of milk"
Please execuse my ignorance. But does this mean that if someone drinks
2 liters of milk per day at 30.78 pCi/L (the 1.14 Bq/L that the BRAWM
team reported for 4/21/2011 milk), that our total dose would be 11234.7
pCi for the year? Which presents a risk factor of 1 in 1.5 million
(11234.7 * 1.34E-10/pCi)?
Am I looking at this right?
Or is it
Or is it 1 in 664,000, which is 1/(11234.7 * 1.34E-10/pCi) or
(1 divided by 0.0000015054498)?