Perchlorate in Dairy Milk. Comparison of Japan versus the United States

Perchlorate has been considered a potential threat to
human health, especially to developing infants and children
due to its ability to inhibit iodide uptake by the sodium
iodide symporter (NIS) of the thyroid. Although the U.S. has
been the prime focus of perchlorate contamination, at
least some of the similar sources of perchlorate exist across
the world, and it has been detected in many types of
foods and beverages worldwide. We present here perchlorate
data from cow's milk samples from Japan (mean 9.4 ±
2.7 μg/L, n = 54), which are higher on average than those
found in U.S. dairy milk samples reported by a 2004 Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) study (5.9 ± 1.8 μg/L, n = 104).