Student
Dissertation 1st Batch 
Evidence of Arsenic in breast milk of mothers drinking Arsenic Contaminated water & factors that modify it.
Muhammed Mizanur Rashid Shuvra
Abstract
Research question: The government of Bangladesh has addressed the ground water arsenic calamity as a national disaster considering its deleterious impacts on health of all the categories of people living primarily in the rural area of this country. A study on few Bangladeshi & Andean mothers (n = 10) show that mothers drinking arsenic contaminated water excretes arsenic in their breast milk. Studies from other parts of the world (e.g. Chile) shows that children’s exposure to arsenic increases the risk of postnatal death (RR = 1.26; CI, 1.2-1.3). However, none of the studies on arsenic exposure and out come investigated to see whether any dose-response relationship existed and factors that may modify the out come. Many toxic substances such as lead, mercury and DDT show a dose-response relationship when mothers are exposed to variable quantity of those toxic substances (doses) and excrete them in their breast milk (response); it is therefore presumable that arsenic will also have a dose response relationship. The dose in this study is defined the total amount of arsenic a mother ingests when they drink contaminated arsenic water and the response is the concentration of arsenic in their breast milk.
