Overview
Abdelkhalek and colleagues bought 75 samples of full cream milk powder, skimmed milk powder and infant milk formula in Mansoura between April and September 2014 and measured lead, chromium and cadmium by flame atomic absorption. Tables 1 to 3 give minimum, maximum and mean ± SE for each product. Many samples exceeded the limits the authors chose for comparison.
Key numbers
- Infant milk formula: lead not detected to 0.12 mg/kg, mean 0.03 ± 0.01 mg/kg; cadmium 0.02 to 0.09 mg/kg, mean 0.04 ± 0.003 mg/kg; chromium 1.06 to 8.54 mg/kg, mean 3.88 ± 0.34 mg/kg (Table 3, p. 73).
- Full cream milk powder: lead mean 0.05 ± 0.01 mg/kg; cadmium mean 0.09 ± 0.02 mg/kg (Table 1, p. 73).
- Skimmed milk powder: cadmium mean 0.03 ± 0.01 mg/kg, yet 21 of 25 samples are reported above 0.05 mg/kg (Tables 2 and 5, p. 73).
Methods (brief)
Wet digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide on a hot plate; high-resolution continuum source AAS in flame mode. No LOD, reference material or recovery reported. The ± values are standard errors.
Evidence Fitness
Direct for milk-based (non-soy) infant formula powder. Milk powder is a base-ingredient proxy for infant-formula-ingredients, so that page is not linked. Flame AAS is marginal for lead and cadmium at these levels, QA is absent, and the skimmed milk powder cadmium mean conflicts with its exceedance count. Brands are not named.