Occurrence of aflatoxin M₁ in commercial powdered milk in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

  The contamination of milk with aflatoxin M₁ (AFM₁), a possible carcinogen to humans, is a serious problem. In Thailand, there are few reports on AFM₁ contamination in powdered milk. In this study, we investigated the occurrence of AFM₁ in 79 commercial powdered milk products in Bangkok, Thailand over five years (2010–2014). An in-house immunoaffinity column-HPLC (IAC-HPLC) method was developed. Reconstituted powdered milk (10 mL) was applied to our IAC. The recoveries from 0.005–0.15 ng/mL AFM₁-spiked reconstituted milk were 73.6–86.3% with 5.2–7.4% of RSD. Twelve samples (15%) were contaminated with 0.005–0.135 ng/mL of AFM₁ (average 0.024 ng/mL, overall average 0.004 ng/mL) in reconstituted powdered milk. Our data indicated that the risk of AFM₁ in commercial powdered milk in Bangkok, Thailand was sufficiently low.