Overview
Şengül and Sakin sampled raw milk three times during lactation from 72 cows on 24 farms in Hatay, half within 15 km of industrial zones, in 2021 and 2022, and measured 11 elements by ICP-MS alongside drinking water and feed. Cadmium and mercury were not detected in any sample. The reported lead and aluminum levels in milk are extremely high, and they were not highest in the industrial areas.
Key numbers
- Lead area means: 1.01 (Iskenderun industrial), 1.16 (Antakya industrial), 1.06 (Iskenderun non-industrial) and 1.47 mg/L (Antakya non-industrial) (Table II).
- Arsenic area means: 56.62, 58.42, 54.96 and 42.96 µg/L in the same areas (Table II).
- Aluminum area means 4.62 to 6.93 mg/L; nickel 262.44 to 345.73 µg/L (Table II).
- Cadmium and mercury not detected in milk, water or feed (Results, p. 4).
Methods (brief)
Milk (1 mL) was microwave-digested with nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide (NMKL 161) and read by ICP-MS per TS EN ISO 21424. No detection limits, reference materials or recoveries are reported. Results are per litre. Daily intake and target hazard quotients were computed for adults.
Evidence Fitness
Large sample count with a clear design, but quality control is not reported and the levels are implausible: lead near 1 mg/L is roughly a thousand times what most raw milk surveys find, against only about 1 µg/L lead in the farms’ water. Several area means also fall outside their own lactation-stage means. Treat the values as unverified. Raw farm milk only, so it is not a measurement of reduced-fat milk.