Risk communication pesticides

Table 8 1 An example of participants that could be involved in the risk communication process for pesticides...

Peterson RKD. 2000. Public perceptions of agricultural biotechnology and pesticides recent understandings and implications for risk communication. Am Entomol 46 8-16. 

Basic professional development courses offered by SCHC are MSDS and Label Preparation Workshops Science, Toxicology and Industrial Hygiene for Hazard Communication and Hazard Determination Risk Assessment. Regulatory courses include Canadian Mexican Hazard Communication Pesticide Consumer Product Labeling Component Disclosure Requirements European Union Hazard Communication Transportation Classification Labeling HMIS/NEPA Labeling and International Chemical Control Laws. 

Risk communicators should be aware that risks that people can choose to avoid (e.g., skiing) give a sense of control and that risks that are familiar (e.g., Salmonella from potato salad or disease from smoking) or have been around a long time (e.g., food-borne disease) are easily tolerated and often minimized. Risks that are poorly tolerated are involuntary risks, such as exposure to small amounts of pesticide residues in food and those risks that have unknown effects (e.g., biotechnology-produced tomatoes) or long-delayed effects (which are possible with prion exposure). 

Rother, H. (2005). Risk perception, risk communication, and the effectiveness of pesticide labels in communicating hazards to South African farm workers. Michigan, United States, Michigan State University. 3189735 457 57 p. 

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2002) Guidance Document on Risk Communication for Chemicals Risk Management, Environment Directorate Joint Meeting of the Chemicals Committee and the Working Party on Chemicals, Pesticides and Biotechnology, ENV/JM/MONO (2002)18,25-Jul-2002. 

Ecotoxicology is primarily concerned with effects of chemicals on populations, communities, and ecosystems, but the trouble is that field studies are expensive and difficult to perform and can only be employed to a limited extent. In the main, environmental risk assessment of pesticides and certain other chemicals has to be... 

Kapustka, L.A., Williams, B.A., and Fairbrother, A. (1996). Evaluating risk predictions at population and community levels in pesticide registration. Environmental Toxicology Chemistry 15, 427-431. 

EPA research investments since 1995 in pesticide exposure and risk assessment methods have helped pioneer novel approaches to quantify risk levels. A team at the University of Washington s School of Public Health and Community Medicine found that 2-5 year olds consuming predominantly organic foods over a 3-day period had 8.5-fold lower mean levels of OP insecticide metabolites in their urine than children eating mosdy conventional (unlabeled) foods (Curl et al., 2003). The study was carefully designed to minimize potentially... 

It has been demonstrated that pesticides are frequently encountered in foods, although typically at levels not considered to cause concern from the regulatory community. When placed into perspective with other food safety risks, the dietary risks from exposure to pesticides are considered to be far lower than the... 

Probabilistic techniqnes are relatively new in the pesticides arena and are prone to criticism and debate. It is therefore especially important to clearly communicate the approach taken, and to explain to decision makers how the risk estimates were quantified. 

Brock, T.C.M. and Ratte, H.T. (2002) Ecological risk assessment for pesticides discussion paper for the CLASSIC workshop, in Community-Level Aquatic Systems Studies - Interpretation Studies CLASSIC, (eds J.M. Giddings,... 

Most industrially developed nations have government agencies that assess risk to human health and the environment resulting from the manufacture and use of chemical substances. Industry, consultants, academics, and the research community also undertake such assessments. For example, in the U.S., the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) devotes considerable resources to risk analyses in its review of commercial substances that are or will be released to the environment. Canada has a similar system, and so do most nations in the European Union and Japan. As the number of potentially hazardous substances introduced into commerce grows, maximizing the efficiency of these assessments becomes increasingly important. 

Castorina, R., A. Bradman, T.E. McKone, D.B. Barr, M.E. Harnley, and B. Eskenazi. 2003. Cumulative organophosphate pesticide exposure and risk assessment among pregnant women living in an agricultural community A case study from the CHAMACOS cohort. Environ. Health Perspect. 111(13) 1640-1648. 

From the selection of specific population groups as identified above, it was clear that the risks from being exposed to OCPs can vary for different groups of individuals in the community. In 1996 a variation of a HI of 3.3 for dieldrin for a hypothetical group of high intake seafood consumers to a small fraction for the other pesticides was estimated. Many persons... 

The Community-Level Aquatic Systems Studies Interpretation Studies (CLASSIC) guidance document, which deals with the interpretation of results of microcosm and mesocosm tests in the risk assessment procedure of pesticides, recommends that regulatory model ecosystem experiments be conducted in spring to midsummer (Giddings et al. 2002). On the basis of the limited number of model ecosystem experiments described above, it seems that threshold concentrations for effects observed in early-season studies are reasonably predictive for threshold concentrations later in the season. Above these threshold concentrations, however, the intensity and duration of the responses (direct and indirect effects) may vary during different periods of the year. Consequently, the extrapolation of NOECcommunity values from one season to another seems to be possible with lower uncertainty than hazard estimates of higher concentrations in which both direct and indirect effects are involved. 

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