Drug contamination

Food safety, have to face the possible contamination produced during the whole process, including those from enviromnental contamination or used directly related to the food production (pesticides, veterinary drugs, contamination associated with cooking, processing, packaging, and conservation, among others). 

Daughton CG (2011) Illicit drugs contaminants in the environment and utility in forensic epidemiology. In Reviews of environmental contamination and toxicology, USEPA Ed. Las Vegas, NV, pp 59-110... 

The HPLC-receptorgram assay combined the advantages of HPLC separation with the multiresidue detection of the Charm II tests. The procedure was tested for identification and quantitation of the most common veterinary drugs at regulatory levels or lower. It was validated for 40 individual drugs from seven antibiotic families 10 /3-lactams, 13 sulphonamides, 8 tetracyclines, 4 macrolides, 3 amphenicols, and other miscellaneous antimicrobials. This procedure combined a simple aqueous extraction and SPE with HPLC fractionation of individual drugs. Final identification and quantitation was achieved with the Charm II test. A drug contaminant could be identified in less then 3 hours (50). 

Weber WW, Grossman M, Thom JV, Sax J, Chan JJ, Duffy M. Drug contamination with diethylstilbestrol. Outbreak of precocious puberty due to contaminated iso-nicoeinic acid hydrazide (INH). N Engl J Med 1963 268 411-5. 

It is not surprising, however, that contaminants deposited in hair from aqueous solutions are not as readily removed by normal hygienic practices as those deposited by vapors. For one, normal shampooing and showering involves only short contact times with the aqueous wash medium, i.e., in the vicinity of 5 min. Such contact times are too short for the effective removal of drug contaminants deposited from aqueous solutions. It is precisely because of this situation that we use protracted contact times of at least 30 min in our laboratory wash procedures. 

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