7th Food Safety Congress, İstanbul, Türkiye, 3 - 04 Kasım 2022, cilt.1, ss.27-28
Hypothesis: Pesticides have been widely used to
control plant pests and diseases. Since pesticides may cause adverse effects on
human health, regular monitoring of pesticide residues and dietary risk
assessment are important tasks for the sustainability of international trade.
Recently, European markets are requesting particular specifications such as
pesticide residues below Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) as well as limitations for
multi-residues and indexes for
acute and chronic risk assessments. The goal of this study was to show how acute and
chronic dietary exposure to pesticide residues is assessed for the fresh fruits
and vegetables.
Methods: The fresh fruit and vegetable samples were
randomly collected by official inspectors of Perla Fruit Company for the
exportation to European markets. Probable pesticide residues of the samples were
determined by using GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS. The extraction and cleaning up of
the pesticides were conducted by using QuEChERS method. The validation of the
multi-residue analysis of each pesticide was evaluated according to
SANTE/12682/2019 Guidelines. To evaluate toxicological risks, a Pesticide
Residue Intake Model (PRIMo revision 3) which is recommended by EFSA was used
to assess the acute (short-term) and the chronic (long-term) exposures using
the high concentrations of pesticide residues. The international estimated daily intake (IEDI) and the acute hazard index (aHI) values of each pesticide residue
were calculated using acceptable daily intake (ADI) and the acute reference dose (ARfD) of a pesticide, respectively. The following input values
are also used in calculation of these indexes: Large portion reported (LP); MRL
for each pesticide and crops, conversion factor residue definition enforcement
to residue definition risk assessment (CV),
processing factor (PF) and mean body
weight for the subgroup of the population (BW).
Results: Among the tested 700
active compounds, residues of 10 (cypermethrin, cyprodinil, deltamethrin,
isopyrazam, lambda-cyhalothrin, malathion, spinosad, tau-fluvalinate, tebuconazole
and thiacloprid) were detected above their
MRLs within the 0.3-1.13% of all samples. Three of these insecticides (tau-fluvalinate,
thiacloprid and spinosad) were frequently exceeded the MRLs since their fairly low MRLs
such as 400, 500 and 200 µg kg-1, respectively. Among these 10 pesticides, only aHI
values of tebuconazole and lambda-cyhalothrin exceeded 100% of ARfD for different mean body weight for the subgroup of the
population. Similarly, tebuconazole and lambda-cyhalothrin had the
lowest ARfD values as 30 and 5 µg kg-1, respectively. Although
no chronic hazard was observed for all pesticides, cumulative long-term
exposure to multiple residues of same chemical group such as synthetic
pyretroids (cypermethrin, deltamethrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, tau fluvalinate) raised
the chronic risk.
Discussion: Results showed that
the presence of pesticide residues on tested samples could not be considered as
a great risk to public health. To increase international trade and decrease
health risks of pesticides, following precautions must be taken into
consideration during the agricultural production: limiting the use of compounds
having lower MRLs, or extending their Pre-harvest interval, avoiding from the multiple use of chemicals
within the same group especially too soon to harvest.