Overview
The authors measured 19 elements, including lead, cadmium and aluminum, by ICP-OES in 30 powdered follow-on formulas from 15 European brands bought in Tenerife pharmacies. Results are on an as-sold (wet weight) powder basis, overall and for each brand. The printed first author is Alejandro Domínguez; Soraya Paz, listed first in the manifest, is second and corresponding author.
Key numbers
- All 30 samples (Table 2, mg/kg wet weight): lead 0.07 ± 0.02, cadmium 0.01 ± 0.00, aluminum 4.02 ± 2.01.
- Lead by brand ranged from 0.05 to 0.09 mg/kg; cadmium was 0.01 mg/kg in every brand except the soy-based formula (0.02 mg/kg) (Table 4).
- At 150 g of powder per day for a 9 kg infant, lead intake equals 233% of the Spanish tolerable daily intake used by the authors (Table 5).
Methods (brief)
Five grams of powder were dried, treated with nitric acid, ashed at 425 °C and dissolved in dilute nitric acid, then read on a Thermo iCAP 6000 ICP-OES. Skim and non-fat milk powder reference materials (BCR-150, BCR-063R, NIST 1549) gave recoveries above 98%. Quantification limits are given in mg/L of solution (lead and cadmium 0.001 mg/L).
Evidence Fitness
Fifteen brands with two samples each, from one island market, with good reference-material control. Lead and cadmium are close to ICP-OES quantification limits, so the per-brand values have limited resolution. Table 3 has copy errors (the sodium column repeats magnesium, and one potassium value is about eight times the others), which are flagged. Twelve cow-milk-based and two hydrolysed brands bear directly on non-soy infant formula; one brand is soy-based.