The Health Risk Assessment of Exposing Mercury Containing Whitening Creams Sold in Traditional and Night Markets

• Main Authors: Chi-Fang Cheng, 鄭淇方
• Other Authors: Jau-Jang Lu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/94628595374343718978

碩士 === 台南科技大學 === 生活應用科學研究所 === 96 === Mercury compounds have been used for industry, agriculture and medical treatment purposes. Mercury has blanching effect of skin, although it had been forbidden in cosmetics, including whitening cream, by the Department of Health, Executive Yuan in 1983. For a long time, whitening cream has tremendous amount of sale. In 2005, the total market value of care products reached NT＄42.9 billion, while whitening products reached 33% of it to NT＄14.2 billion. The objective of this research was to estimate the mercury contains of whitening creams sold at traditional and night markets, then to investigate the customers' behavior in order to assess the health risk posed by the mercury-based whitening cream, Monte Carlo simulation. Thirty-one samples of whitening cream were purchased from traditional and night markets in Taipei, Changhua, Tainan and Kaohsiung. An Automatic Mercury Analyzer (named MA-2000) of Nippon Instruments Corporation was used to analyze the Hg concentrations in the samples. In addition, questionnaire investigation was carried out in those markets to realize the customers' behavior. Two hundred and seventy-four questionnaires were valid. The questionnaire investigation showed that more than 97.8% of the users are female. More than 29.9% of the users’ ages are between 41 and 50 years old. 31% graduated from college. More than 20.6% are housekeepers and more than 65.7% are married. Description statistics, Mann-Whitney test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to analyze the collected data. Exposure doses were further estimated by combining mercury contents and the questionnaire data. Monte Carlo simulation was employed to assess the potential health risk. There are significant difference in using duration which implies user’s age, profession and marriage status, and in using volume of whitening cream which implies user’s age and marriage status. The results of chemical analyses indicated that three of the thirty-one samples were found to have mercury concentration whose averages were between 3.28 and 24.9 ppm higher than the others, and two of the three samples with higher mercury concentrations have the probabilities of hazard index higher than 1 were 100% and will be harmful to the customers' health. The results can provide references for the concerned administration offices to reinforce the administration of whitening cream's manufacture and sale, and to ensure the customers' health.