Dioxins, furans and dioxin-like PCBs: occurrence in food and dietary intake in France.

PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs contamination data in food products consumed in France collected from national monitoring programmes (2001-04) and representing analytical results for almost 800 individual food samples were combined with food consumption data from the French national dietary survey to estimate PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs dietary intakes, expressed as toxic equivalents (WHO-TEQs). The mean PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs intakes were estimated as 1.8 and 2.8 pg WHO-TEQ kg(-1) b.w. day(-1), respectively, for adults (aged 15 years and over) and children (aged 3-14 years). The main contributors to total intake were fish and milk products for both children and adults (48 and 31% for adults and 34 and 43% for children, respectively). DL-PCBs constituted the largest contributor to contamination in most foodstuffs. A life-long intake estimate showed that a non-negligible part of the French population (between 20 and 28%) had an intake above the tolerable monthly intake for dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs of 70 pg WHO-TEQ kg(-1) b.w. month(-1).