Pesticides and the environment

Perkins JH, Patterson BR (1997) Pest pesticides and the environment A historical perspective on the prospects for pesticide reduction. In Pimentel D (ed) Techniques for reducing pesticide use. Wiley, New York, USA, pp 13-33... 

Stevens JT, Greene FE, Stitzel RE, et al. 1973. Effects of anticholinesterase insecticides on mouse and rat liver microsomal mixed function oxidase. In Deichmann W.B., Ed. Pesticides and the environment A continuing controversy. Proceedings of the 8th Inter-American Conference on Toxicology and Occupational Medicine, University of Miami School of Medicine, 489-501. 

PP.253-266, in Pesticides and the Environment A Continuing Controversy. Inter-American Conf. on Toxicol, and Occup. Med., Symposia Specialists, N. Miami (1973) ... 

George, J. L., Symposium on Pesticides and the Environment, Monks Wood Experiment Sta., Abbots Ripton, Huntington, England, 1965 Chem. Eng. News 43, 92 (July 19, 1965). 

Source Stephenson, G. A., and Solomon, K. R. 1993. Pesticides and the Environment. Guelph, Ontario, Canada Department of Environmental Biology. 

Stephenson GA, Solomon KR. Pesticides and the environment. Guelph, Ontario Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, 1993. 

Environmental Chemistry. Requirements for data on pesticides in the environment include both laboratory and field studies. The purpose of these studies is to identify and assess the potential ha2ards associated with each use of a pesticide in the environment in which it is to be used (20). 

Persistence of pesticides in the environment is controlled by retention, degradation, and transport processes and their interaction. Retention refers to the abihty of the soil to bind a pesticide, preventing its movement either within or outside of the soil matrix. Retention primarily refers to the sorption process, but also includes absorption into the soil matrix and soil organisms, both plants and microorganisms. In contrast to degradation that decreases the absolute amount of the pesticide in the environment, sorption processes do not affect the total amount of pesticide present in the soil but can decrease the amount available for transformation or transport. 

Transport processes describe movement of the pesticide from one location to another or from one phase to another. Transport processes include both downward leaching, surface mnoff, volatilization from the soil to the atmosphere, as weU as upward movement by capillary water to the soil surface. Transport processes do not affect the total amount of pesticide in the environment however, they can move the pesticide to sites that have different potentials for degradation. Transport processes also redistribute the pesticide in the environment, possibly contaminating sites away from the site of apphcation such as surface and groundwater and the atmosphere. Transport of pesticides is a function of both retention and transport processes. 

Desorption is the reverse of the sorption process. If the pesticide is removed from solution that is in equdibrium with the sorbed pesticide, pesticide desorbs from the sod surface to reestabUsh the initial equdibrium. Desorption replenishes pesticide in the sod solution as it dissipates by degradation or transport processes. Sorption/desorption therefore is the process that controls the overall fate of a pesticide in the environment. It accomplishes this by controlling the amount of pesticide in solution at any one time that is avadable for plant uptake, degradation or decomposition, volatilization, and leaching. A number of reviews are avadable that describe in detad the sorption process (31—33) desorption, however, has been much less studied. 

Chemicals are ubiquitous as air, carbohydrates, enzymes, lipids, minerals, proteins, vitamins, water, and wood. Naturally occurring chemicals are supplemented by man-made substances. There are about 70000 chemicals in use with another 500-1000 added each year. Their properties have been harnessed to enhance the quality of life, e.g. cosmetics, detergents, energy fuels, explosives, fertilizers, foods and drinks, glass, metals, paints, paper, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, plastics, rubber, solvents, textiles thus chemicals are found in virtually all workplaces. Besides the benefits, chemicals also pose dangers to man and the environment. For example ... 

The OPP seeks to protect public health and the environment from the risks posed by pesticides and to promote safer means of pest control. 

This analysis has demonstrated that pesticide use in the world could be reduced by approximately 50% without any reduction in crop yields (in some cases increased yields) or the food supply. This effort would require applying pesticides only-when-necessary plus using various combinations of the nonchemical control alternatives currently available (34). Although food production costs might Increase slightly (0.5% to 1%), the added costs would be more than offset by the positive benefits to public health and the environment (15). 

FAOAVHO. 1989. Pesticide residues in food. Report of the 1989 Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the WHO Expert Group on Pesticide Residues. Geneva, Switzerland Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization. FAO Plant Production and Protection Paper 100/2, 95-115. 

Vos JG, Krajnc El, Beekhof PK, et al. 1982. Methods for testing immune effects of toxic chemicals Evaluation of the immunotoxicity of various pesticides in the rat. In Miyamoto J, Kearney PC, eds. Pesticide chemistry Human welfare and the environment. Oxford, England Pergamon Press, 497-504. 

Greig-Smith, P.W., Frampton, G., and Hardy, A.R. (1992). Pesticides, Cereal Farming, and the Environment the Boxworth Experiment. London HMSO. 

Warner, R.P., Peterson, K.K., and Borgman, L. (1966). Behavioural pathology in fish a quantitative study of sublethal pesticide intoxication. In Pesticides in the Environment and Their Effects on Wildlife. N.W. Moore (Ed.) Journal of Applied Ecology 3 (Supplement), 223-248. 

Dick WA, RO Ankumah, G McClung, N Abou-Assaf (1990) Enhanced degradation of S-ethyl A, A -dipropyl-carbamothioate in soil and by an isolated soil microorganism. In Enhanced Bio degradation of Pesticides in the Environment (Eds KD Racke and JR Coats), pp 98-112. American Chemical Society Symposium Series 426, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC. 

An application where toxicity is the issue is pesticides. Commercial agriculture needs effective pesticides, particularly fungicides to deal with a range of plant pathogens. Most currently available actives are highly toxic and a risk to both operator and the environment. 

Established in 1894, AOAC International is an independent association of scientists and organizations in the public and private sectors devoted to promoting methods validation and quality measurements in the analytical sciences. AOAC has a mission to ensure the development, testing, validation, and publication of reliable chemical and biological methods of analysis for foods, drugs, feed-stuffs, fertilizers, pesticides, water, forensic materials and other substances affecting public health and safety and the environment. 

The need to understand the fate of pesticides in the environment has necessitated the development of analytical methods for the determination of residues in environmental media. Adoption of methods utilizing instrumentation such as gas chro-matography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS), liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS), or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has allowed the detection of minute amounts of pesticides and their degradation products in environmental samples. Sample preparation techniques such as solid-phase extraction (SPE), accelerated solvent extraction (ASE), or solid-phase microextraction (SPME) have also been important in the development of more reliable and sensitive analytical methods. 

Even before a method is developed for detecting the presence of a pesticide or pesticides in the environment, the level of sensitivity in the method that will be needed for fate and monitoring studies to adequately portray the behavior of the analytes in the environment must be assessed. For example, in surface water monitoring programs. 

Clive A. Edwards. The Impact of Pesticides on the Environment. In The Pesticide Question, 13-47. David Pimentel and Hugh Lehman, eds. New York Chapman and Hall, 1993. G. Fischer. Presentation Speech to Paul Mueller. Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine, 1942-1962. New York Elsevier, 1964. Source for God-given substance English journal article and Swedish houseflies. 

The growing concerns about the public health and environmental impacts of pesticides have led many in the general public and the government to question whether all the benefits of pesticides, such as the perfect red apple, are worth the associated costs of environmental pollution, human illness and loss of life, bird kills, and the destruction of other beneficial natural organisms. Indeed, some agriculturists have been viewed as primarily concerned with promoting commercial interests rather than protecting public health and the environment. 

The scientific community is indebted to Alexey Yablokov and Lev Fedorov for carefully examining the pesticide impact on public health and the environment. Their studies add to our knowledge and their results suggest ways that public health and environmental pesticide related problems could be avoided. Given the food security needs of the rapidly expanding world human population, a safe and a productive agriculture are vital for the future. 

It was often the case in the USSR that pesticides were used and even produced before, sometimes even without, developing health protocols. This is seen when we analyze Tables 1.6 and 1.7, where a number of pesticides were used for many years, in essence illegally. Health protocols for different environments were never formulated until the pesticide was banned. The negative consequences of using each pesticide in practice were not gauged on laboratory animals, but on their interaction with humans and the environment. 

Richard C. Honeycutt, Ph.D., was born in Newport News, VA, in 1945. He attended Anderson University in Anderson, IN, from 1963 to 1967 and earned an A.B. in Chemistry. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Purdue University in 1971 and served as a Postdoctoral Fellow from 1971 to 1973 at the Smithsonian Institution s Radiation Biology Laboratory. Dr. Honeycutt worked as a Senior Chemist at Rohm and Haas Company from 1973 to 1976 and as a Senior Metabolism Chemist at Ciba Geigy from 1976 to 1989. Currently, he is President of the Hazard Evaluation and Regulatory Affairs Company, Inc., which he founded in 1990, and is an analytical biochemist and field research specialist/consultant engaged in exposure assessment of pesticides to humans and the environment. 

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