Overview
This Italian-language monitoring report covers raw bovine milk from 75 farms in the Province of Turin, sampled weekly from 2005 to 2008. The milk was tested for metals, PCBs and organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides. For metals the authors state only that every sample was below or near the limits of quantification. No concentrations are printed.
Key numbers
- Metals: all samples “below or close to” the LOQs (Risultati, p. 50); no values printed.
- LOQs: arsenic and cadmium 0.01, chromium 0.05, lead 0.04, mercury 0.100 mg/kg (p. 50).
- Samples for metals by year: 51 (2005), 50 (2006), 51 (2007), 50 (2008) (Materiali e metodi, p. 49).
Methods (brief)
Two grams of milk were digested by microwave pressure digestion with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide. Arsenic, cadmium, chromium and lead were read by Zeeman graphite furnace AAS, iron by flame AAS, and mercury by direct thermal decomposition AAS on 0.1 g. No reference material results are printed.
Evidence Fitness
There are no numeric metal results, so the findings store has no entries for this paper. The paper gives only a qualitative statement that levels were low. It is inconsistent on sample count (202 in the methods, 252 in the summary) and on the analyte list. Arsenic is in the methods even though the summary omits it. Raw milk with fat level not separated would in any case be only a proxy for semi-skimmed-milk and skim-milk, so those pages are not linked. The PDF does not print the DOI.