Pesticides and food

In response to requests from interested parties, the EPA released detailed results of its CRA, allowing assessment of the distribution of risks across foods, pesticides and food-pesticide combinations. Some key insights emerge from the OP-CRA results ... 

Reference doses for pesticides are used in just this way to establish standards (called tolerances) for pesticide residues in food. Similarly, ADIs, derived for food additives, are used to establish allowable limits on amounts that can be added to foods. Data on rates of food intake are necessary for pesticides and food additives, in the way that water intake rates were used in the example given above. 

The recommendations are generally similar between the various guidelines, with the following notable additional requirements for chemicals pesticides and food ingredients with respect to pharmaceuticals (see Chapters 1-6) (4-6) ... 

TESTING (Physiological). Determination of (lie toxicity of a substance or product by administering it to laboratory animals in controlled dosages, by mouth, skin application, or injection. Materials commonly subjected lo such evaluation are plianuaceuheals, pesticides, and foods. Extensive testing programs are required before such products are approved for human use. 

Since its adoption, the 1938 law has been amended repeatedly, eventually extending the FDA s regulatory powers to pesticides and food additives. In 1958, the Delaney clause was incorporated into the law. This now controversial provision prohibits the approval of any food additive found to induce cancer in humans or animals. 

Another major trend in performance chemicals is towards the development of products - pharmaceuticals, pesticides and food additives, etc. - that are more targeted in their action with less undesirable side-effects. This is also an issue which is addressed by green chemistry. In the case of chiral molecules that exhibit biological activity the desired effect almost always resides in only one of the enantiomers. The other enantiomer constitutes isomeric ballast that does not contribute to the desired activity and may even exhibit undesirable side-effects. Consequently, in the last two decades there has been a marked trend towards the marketing of chiral pharmaceuticals and pesticides as enantiomeri-cally pure compounds. This generated a demand for economical methods for the synthesis of pure enantiomers [127]. 

The use of a pair of identical metallic electrodes to establish the equivalence point in amperometric titrations offers the advantages of simplicity of equipment and elimination of the need to prepare and maintain a reference electrode. This type of system has been incorporated into equipment designed for the routine automatic determination of a single species, usually with a coulometric generated reagent. An example of this type of system is an instrument for the automatic determination of chloride in samples of serum, sweat, tissue extracts, pesticides, and food products. Here, the reagent is silver ion coulometrically generated from a silver anode. The indicator system consists of a pair of twin silver electrodes that are maintained at a potential of perhaps 0.1 V. Before the equivalence point in the titration of chloride ion, there is essentially no current because no easily reduced species is present in the solution. Consequently, electron transfer at the cathode is precluded and that... 

From 2.1 to 4.2 pg of the amplified DNA was digested using Hinf I enzyme according to the instructions of the manufacturer (Roche Diagnostics, Milan, Italy). The method was applied also to the isolates from humans, pesticides and food as reported in Table 8. 

Manzano M, Giusto C, lacumin L, Cantoni C, Comi G (2008) Molecular methods for Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis from humans, pesticides and foods, differentiation. Acta Alim 10 1-9... 

Additionally, Robert N. Proctor has written The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1999). Among the items reported is that Nazi scientists were the first to link smoking and cancer. Other policies and discoveries that predated the rest of the world were healthier workplaces, restrictions against asbestos, pesticides, and food additives, as well as improvements in diet and lifestyles. (Nevertheless, there are reports that Hitler was addicted to sugar and sweets.) This contrasts sharply with the unmentionable atrocities of inhuman medical experiments and the death camps. 

Such substances can affect spermatogenesis and cause testicular atrophy. Among these chemicals are certain metals, solvents, pesticides, and food colors. Some chemicals manifest their toxicity on the testis. These include alkylating agents, naphthenic amines, and steroid hormones. Substances such as methylmethane sulfonate can cause the spermatozoa to become defective or less mobile. Studies on experimental animals indicate that certain componnds can indnce tnmors in testis. A notable example is linnron, a... 

In addition, because of extensive international trading of both pesticides and food commodities treated with pesticides, the majority of people everywhere are affected by these substances. Pesticides represent the most widespread contaminating agents of global significance. The problem of predicting their harmful influence on human health cannot be addressed at this point by a single or even by a few countries. Coordinated action on an international scale is needed if this aim is to be accomplished. 

---