Parabens and triclosan in shellfish from Shenzhen coastal waters: Bioindication of pollution and human health risks.

This work aimed to determine the concentrations of parabens and triclosan (TCS) in shellfish from coastal waters of Shenzhen, South China. A method of isotope dilution with high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) was used to determine TCS and five paraben analogues, including methyl paraben (MeP), ethyl paraben (EtP), propyl paraben (PrP), butyl paraben (BuP), and benzyl paraben (BeP), in 186 shellfish samples covering eight species. Concentrations of parabens and TCS were 0.13-25.5 ng/g wet weight (ww) and <LOQ-6.51 ng/g ww, respectively, indicating their ubiquitous contamination in Shenzhen coastal waters. MeP was the most predominant paraben, followed by EtP and PrP. These three analogues accounted for more than 95% of the total concentrations of parabens. The "high" estimated daily intakes of parabens and TCS with the 95th percentage concentrations were estimated to be 2.15-26.1 and 0.41-10.3 ng/kg bw/day, respectively, much lower than the acceptable dietary intakes of parabens (1 × 107 ng/kg bw/day) and TCS (200 ng/kg bw/day), indicating no significant human health risks from shellfish consumption in the studied region. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the occurrences of parabens and TCS in shellfish products from Shenzhen coastal waters.