Abstract
Taiwan is a small island nation, and many aquaculture sites are located near industrial parks. Anthropogenic activities may contaminate fish ponds. Therefore, we investigated the concentrations of eight metal elements in tilapia tissues (muscle and scale) at two fisheries. We compared the difference in metal content in tilapia at these two fisheries with that in non-contaminated fish at the Fisheries Research Institute. Probabilistic risk analysis was carried out to assess the health risk for people who eat contaminated tilapia. The predicted 95th percentiles of the hazard quotient and excess lifetime cancer risk for residents consuming contaminated tilapia were found to be in the range of 3.1–9.2 and 1.03 × 10−5 ~ 1.85 × 10−5, respectively.
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Acknowledgments
The study was funded by China Medical University (CMU 97-245). The authors deeply appreciate Dr. Liu in Fisheries Research Institute at Chu-Pei for kindly providing the valuable fish samples.
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Ling, MP., Hsu, HT., Shie, RH. et al. Health Risk of Consuming Heavy Metals in Farmed Tilapia in Central Taiwan. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 83, 558–564 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-009-9829-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-009-9829-y