Overview
Muthukumar and colleagues bought pig muscle and organs at Hyderabad retail markets and measured organochlorine pesticides and lead and cadmium. Lead and cadmium were found in every sample. Mean lead in muscle was just under the Indian limit of 2.5 ppm, and 40.9% of all tissue samples exceeded it.
Key numbers
- Muscle (longissimus dorsi, n = 10): lead 2.129 ± 0.245 ppm, cadmium 0.170 ± 0.015 ppm (Table 2, p. 693).
- Kidney (n = 6): lead 2.540 ± 0.424 ppm, cadmium 0.250 ± 0.031 ppm (Table 2).
- All tissues: overall mean lead 2.329 ppm and cadmium 0.212 ppm; 40.9% of samples above the 2.5 ppm lead limit (Table 2 and p. 694).
Methods (brief)
Five grams of tissue were digested in nitric and perchloric acid (AOAC 1988) and analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. No detection limits, recoveries or reference materials are reported for the metals. Table 2 gives tissue means with a dispersion value that is not identified as SD or SE.
Evidence Fitness
Small samples (10 muscle, 6 of each organ) from one city, and weak metal QA. The muscle lead levels are high for pork and may reflect the method as well as contamination. The muscle sampled is raw longissimus dorsi, the loin muscle that pork chops are cut from, so the paper is direct evidence for pork-chop (raw loin muscle, not a cooked chop). Peer review is unverified beyond the printed received and accepted dates.
Related evidence
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