Environmental Protection Agency pesticide exposures

USEPA, Evaluation of Dislodgeable Residue Collection Methods for Pesticide Applications on Turf, Report No. 600/R-97/107, US Environmental Protection Agency, National Exposure Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA, 1997. 

US EPA, Assigning Values to Non-detected/Non-quantified Pesticide Residues in Human Health Food Exposure Assessments, Guidance Document Office of Pesticide Programs, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC (March 23,2000). Also available on the World Wide Web http //www.epa.gov/pesticides/trac/science/trac3b012.pdf. 

Based on the patch method to assess worker or re-entry exposure, researchers have developed a database, which may be used to estimate exposure. Each patch from an individual in a study can be entered into the database separately, the residue data from patches from various body areas can be summed to yield a whole-body exposure number, and the data may be sorted as to worker tasks, equipment used, protective clothing worn, formulation types and other parameters. This is the basis for the currently used Pesticide Handlers Data Base (PHED), which was developed through a joint effort in the 1980s of CropLife America [formerly known as American Crop Protection Association (ACPA) and National Agricultural Chemicals Association (NACA)], the Environmental Protection Agency (ERA) and Health Canada. " The PHED is discussed in detail in another article in this book. 

Pesticide Assessment Guidelines, Subdivision U, Applicator Exposure Monitoring, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., 1986. 

The purpose of this chapter is not to discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of using plasma cholinesterase inhibition as an adverse effect in quantitative risk assessments for chlorpyrifos or other organophosphate pesticides. A number of regulatory agencies consider the inhibition of plasma cholinesterase to be an indicator of exposure, not of toxicity. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, at this point, continues to use this effect as the basis for calculating the reference doses for chlorpyrifos, and it is thus used here for assessing risks. 

Pesticides Handlers Exposure Database (PHED) software, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Health and Welfare Canada, National Agricultural Chemicals Association (U.S.) software originally issued February 1992 with subsequent upgrades. 

Analytical chemistry is a critical component of worker safety, re-entry, and other related studies intended to assess the risk to humans during and subsequent to pesticide applications. The analytical aspect takes on added significance when such studies are intended for submission to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and/or other regulatory authorities and are thus required to be conducted according to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) Standards, or their equivalent. This presentation will address test, control, and reference substance characterization, use-dilution (tank mix) verification, and specimen (exposure matrix sample) analyses from the perspective of GLP Standards requirements. 

EPA. 1990. Uptake of lead from formula and food by infants Reanalysis of the Ryu et al. data. Draft final report. US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances Exposure Evaluation Division, Office of Toxic Substances. 

EPA released the first case study of cumulative risks from 24 OPs in food for scientific review in mid-2000. Public comments were solicited and several scientific panel (SAP) meetings were held on various aspects of EPA s quantitative methods. In December 2001 a preliminary OP-CRA (cumulative risk assessment) was released, this time encompassing 30 OPs, additional foods, more residue data and all major routes of exposure. Public comments were solicited again and another series of SAP meetings were held. The revised final OP-CRA was issued in June 2002 after more than 20 SAP meetings and four rounds of public comment (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2002). It is the most sophisticated and data-rich pesticide risk assessment ever carried out. 

Whalan J.E. and H.M. Pettigrew. 1997. Inhalation risk assessments and the combining of margins of exposure. Washington, DC U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pesticide Programs. 

This response is absolute nonsense. Sweden had banned the herbicide amitrole and several bis-dithiocarbamate fungicides because of flawed scientific evaluations that misinterpreted thyroid tumors in rodents, known to lack relevance for humans, as indicators of a human risk associated with normal usage. In contrast to Sweden s action, IARC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleared all of them of suspicions of causing cancer at current exposure levels,45 and the EU has approved amitrole for general use. Sweden s Minister of the Environment, Kj ell Lars-son, has declared that Sweden will fight all the way to the European Court of Justice to stop reintroduction of these horribly dangerous pesticides. 

Over 25 years ago Carman and coworkers recognized the adverse potential of fieldworker exposure to pesticide residues ( ). Subsequent fieldworker acute organophosphate intoxications and resulting political pressure led to regulations by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. These regulations and the worker reentry situation have been the subject of reviews (, 3). 

Appendix B provides brief case studies of two pesticides, glyphosate and permethrin, for which a pre-existing risk assessment can help to put biomonitoring results into perspective. In both cases, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has evaluated risks for a wide array of exposure scenarios as part of the reregistration process, and there are biomonitoring data whose interpretation could benefit from these risk assessments. 

OFFICE OF PESTICIDE PROGRAMS (1998). Guidance for Submission of Probabilistic Exposure Assessments to the Office of Pesticides Programs Health Effects Division. US Environmental Protection Agency. 

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