Pesticides tobacco

The role of the TSCA is to identify all commercially manufactured chemicals that come in contact with the general population and then to regulate the chemicals, based on their characteristics. All newly created chemicals are reviewed and approved before they can be manufactured in or imported into the United States. Although over a million chemicals are known to exist, less than 100,000 are commercially produced in or imported into the United States. Pesticides, tobacco, drugs, food products, cosmetics, and certain nuclear materials are excluded from the TSCA and are regulated under separate laws. 

Indoor Pollutants. In general, the term indoor air pollution refers to home and nonfactory public buildings such as office buildings and hospitals. Pollution can come from heating and cooking, pesticides, tobacco smoking, radon, gases, and microbes from people and animals. 

Nicotine is an alkaloid derived from the tobacco plant Nicotiana tabacum. It is a liquid at room temperature and acquires a brown appearance with a characteristic odor when exposed to air. It is widely available in tobacco products and in certain pesticides. Tobacco products can contain 0.2-5 percent nicotine and if ingested, particularly by children, can be very toxic. Only a small amount of nicotine found in tobacco is volatilized and absorbed during smoking. However, the nicotine that is absorbed is done so quite rapidly through the alveoli and is detectable in the brain only 8 seconds after the first inhalation. Nicotine is believed to be the major component of tobacco associated with its addictive potential, or its abuse liability. 

The law mandates a 90-day prior notice, known as pre-manufacture notice (PMN), to be submitted to the US EPA before production or import of a new chemical substance for a non-exempt commercial purpose. Any chemical which is not listed on the Inventory of existing chemicals is considered new for the purpose of PMN. Eight product categories are exempt from TSCA s regulatory authorities. These are, pesticides, tobacco, nuclear material. 

There are numerous exclusions and exemptions from the premanufacture notification (PMN) process. Chemicals that are excluded from the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) definition of chemical substances are excluded from the PMN requirements, as well as all TSCA programs. Chemicals that are excluded from the definition of chemical substances include mixtures (but not the constituents of a mixture, each of which is a chemical substance ), pesticides, tobacco, firearms, nuclear materials, food, food additives, drugs, cosmetics, and devices under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. ... 

Pests and Insecticides. The most destmctive pests of the cotton plant are the boU weevil and the boUworm/budworm complex. They are serious threats to the cotton industry in countries around the world. The boU weevil migrated from Mexico around 1892 and spread over the entire cotton belt within 30 years. The domestic cotton crop lost to the weevil is worth 200 million a year. In addition, about 75 million a year is spent for pesticides to control this destmctive pest (8). Unfortunately, some insecticides used to control the weevil kill many beneficial insects. Among the undesired casualties are insects that help to control the boUworm and the tobacco budworm, pests that cause another 200 million loss in cotton. 

Foods, drugs, cosmetics, pesticides, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, or tobacco products packaged for distribution to the general public. 

Compounds Affecting Rq>roduction Compounds that can affect reproductive function include several drugs and occupationally important chemicals such as solvents and pesticides as well as a number of environmentally relevant com-fxrunds. A group of chemical compounds that has received much attention recently is endocrine disrupters, many of which are halogenated hydrocarbons, e.g., PCBs. These are known to induce feminization in fish and other animal species.1.5/ There is intense debate about the significance of these compounds to human health. Tobacco smoke and ethyl alcohol also have major effects on human reproduction, the effects of alcohol being especially important. Table 5.17 lists compounds that may disturb the functions of female and male reproductive functions. 

With the present major emphasis on the preparation and testing of a seemingly endless number of synthetic organic compounds for pesticidal activity and the clamor over their possible adverse effects on public health and our general environment, comparatively few people realize that certain natural insecticides have been used by man for centuries. The ancient Romans apparently utilized false hellebore as a rodenticide and insecticide (13), and preparations of Tripterygium ivilfordii (thunder-god vine) and Derris species have been employed by the Chinese for hundreds of years as insecticides (16). The insecticidal properties of sabadilla (from Schoenocaulon species) were known in the sixteenth century tobacco was in use as... 

Atmospheric concentrations of methyl parathion following application of the pesticide to tobacco fields were studied by Jackson and Lewis (1978). They found that levels of methyl parathion decreased rapidly following application of either the emulsifiable concentrate or the microencapsulated form. Air concentrations for the emulsifiable concentrate ranged from 7,408 ng/m immediately following application to 13 ng/m 9 days later. The corresponding measurements for the microencapsulated form were 3,783 and 16 ng/m. ... 

Endosulfan is a manufactured pesticide. It is used to control a number of insects on food crops such as grains, tea, fruits, and vegetables and on nonfood crops such as tobacco and cotton. It is also used as a wood preservative. 

The most important routes of exposure to endosulfan for the general population are ingestion of food and the use of tobacco products with endosulfan residues remaining after treatment. Farmers, pesticide applicators, and individuals living in the vicinity of hazardous waste disposal sites contaminated with endosulfan may receive additional exposure through dermal contact and inhalation. 

The requirements regarding commodities which are difficult to analyze are also not very clear. The listed crops do not cause difficulties in each kind of determination [e.g., brassica or bulb vegetables in gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS)]. On the other hand, different species of the same crop may have different interference peaks, which may or may not affect quantitation. Presumably, the easiest approach is to perform additional validations, even if the final extracts are not difficult to analyze. In the author s experience, validations should generally include hops and tobacco, if the pesticide is used in these crops. 

Acrylonitrile has been used, in a mixture with carbon tetrachloride, as a fumigant for flour milling and bankers food processing equipment and for stored tobacco. However, most pesticide products containing acrylonitrile have been voluntarily withdrawn by the manufacturers (IARC 1979). 

Chopra NM. 1972. Breakdown of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in tobacco smokes A short review. 

Endrin was introduced in the United States in 1951 as an avicide, rodenticide and insecticide. Its principal use to control the cotton bollworm and tobacco budworm peaked in the early 1970s. In 1979, the EPA canceled some uses of endrin and indicated its intent to cancel all uses of endrin (EPA 1979f USDA 1995). By 1986, all uses were voluntarily canceled (Bishop 1984, 1985, 1986 EPA 1993e USDA 1995), except for its use as a toxicant on bird perches, which was canceled in 1991 (USDA 1995). Endrin also was a contaminant in dieldrin (Verschueren 1983) however, all uses of this pesticide have been canceled since the mid-1980s (EPA 1992b). Consequently, there are no longer any significant releases of endrin to the environment in the United States. 

Mirex and chlordecone are no longer made or used in the United States. Mirex and chlordecone were most commonly used in the 1960s and 1970s. Mirex was used as a pesticide to control fire ants mostly in the southeastern part of the United States. It was also used extensively as a flame retardant additive under the trade name Dechlorane in plastics, rubber, paint, paper, and electrical goods from 1959 to 1972 because it does burn easily. Chlordecone was used to control insects that attacked bananas, citrus trees with no fruits, tobacco, and ornamental shrubs. It was also used in household products such as ant and roach traps. Chlordecone is also known by its trade name Kepone . All registered products containing mirex and chlordecone were canceled in the United States between 1977 and 1978. 

Inorganic arsenic salts are also present in pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, paints, and tobacco plants. If transmitted to water, they accumulate in fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and algae (Johansen et ah, 2000). Transformed into organic salts, they reach the gastrointestinal tract via food and are delivered to liver, spleen, kidneys, and lungs. Arsenic is deposited in skin, nails, and hair. 

Carsel, R.F., Nixon, W.B., and Ballantine, L.G. Comparison of pesticide root zone model predictions with observed concentrations for the tobacco pesticide metalaxyl in unsaturated zone soils. Environ. Toxicol Chem., 5(4) 345-353,1986. 

For complex mixtures that are readily available for testing as a whole (such as drinking water, diesel exhaust, welding fumes, tobacco smoke, pesticide mixmres, food products) three possible approaches are suggested ... 

P7 Over the past decade, electron monochromator-mass spectrometry (EM-MS) has been shown to be a selective and sensitive technique for the analysis of a wide variety of electrophilic compounds in complex matrixes. Here, for the hrst time, three different dinitroaniline pesticides, flumetralin, pendimethalin, and trifluralin, have been shown to be present in both mainstream and sidestream tobacco smoke using an EM-MS system. (From Dane et ah, 2006)... 

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