Health pesticides, techniques used

Epidemiologic Techniques Used to Assess Health Effects Related to Occupational Exposure to Pesticides... 

The continued utihzation of many classical pesticidal materials of demonstrated ubiquitousness and persistence and the presence of unknown or unsuspected industrial chemical pollutants other than pesticides in the environment are other areas of concern confronting public health officials and residue chemists alike. Thus, the analytical chemist is faced with a continuing responsibility to develop, evaluate, and improve the confidence of the techniques which are used to identify and quantitatively monitor these chemicals in human, animal, and environmental samples. 

These human health arguments usually assume abnormally high levels of BST are present in milk of treated cows. Yet no study could find a difference between normal milk and milk from BST-treated cows, even when using the same supersensitive techniques of modern analytical chemistry which caused all of the hysteria with pesticides. 

Liquid-liquid extraction with traditional solvents is still used for the isolation of pesticides from water samples. It tends to consume large volumes of high-purity solvents, which may have significant health hazards and disposal costs associated with their use. Furthermore, it is frequently plagued by problems, such as emulsion formation. The SPE technique with various adsorbing materials packed in cartridges or imbedded in membranes and used in the... 

Let us examine the techniques epidemiologists use to assess health effects related to occupational exposure to pesticides. 

---