Background. A well-documented source of mercury contamination is skin-whitening cream.\r\nThe heavy metal is sometimes added to the cream to block production of melanin. Past\r\nstudies have shown that about one third of skin whitening creams for sale in Phnom Penh\r\ncontained mercury levels considerably higher than both United States and Association of\r\nSoutheast Asian Nations (ASEAN) guidelines. Developing nations such as Cambodia do not\r\nhave the resources for monitoring and enforcement.\r\nObjectives. Evaluate the utility of handheld X-ray fluorescence analyzers for detection of\r\nmercury in skin-whiteners.\r\nMethods. A handheld XRF unit was used to measure the total mercury content of 676 skinwhitening\r\ncreams collected from volunteers from a cross-section of Phnom Penh''s residents.\r\nResults. About 16% of bleaching creams collected contained more than 20 ug/g of mercury. The\r\nhighest concentration was about 35,000 ug/g. A third of the samples that were custom-made or\r\nmodified by beauty shops contained more than 20 ug/g of mercury.\r\nConclusions. The handheld XRF analyzer proved an excellent tool for screening mercury in\r\nskin creams, and could be particularly useful in developing countries because it is relatively\r\ninexpensive, requires no sample preparation or extraction, can be used by staff with little\r\ntechnical background, and can facilitate on-site education.\r\nCompeting Interests. The authors declare no competing financial interests.
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