Lead in drinking water: a risk to bottle-fed infants; a Health Council report

On April 28th, 1997, the Health Council of the Netherlands Committee on Lead in Drinking Water presented their advisory report to the Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment and the Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport. In the report the Committee concluded that, through intake of drinking water, small infants are at risk of being exposed to concentrations of lead that can be detrimental to health, viz., infants in the first six months of life who are bottle-fed on formula milk made up using water that has passed through lead piping. In order to protect this specific group, the Committee advised to lower the currently effective standard for lead in drinking water from 50 to 10 micrograms/l and to replace all lead piping as soon as possible.