The Column - November 2007 - (Page 10)

Q&A The Column www.thecolumn.eu.com November 2007 Food for Thought Dipankar Ghosh PhD, strategic marketing manager for environmental and food safety Thermo Fisher Scientific, spoke to The Column about the analysis of pesticides in food. Why are pesticides being monitored in food? Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about food safety. Laboratory studies have indicated that pesticides can cause serious health problems, such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer and other long-term effects. Some pesticides are also blamed for posing unique health risks specifically to children by altering the way their biological system operates and by blocking the absorption of important food nutrients necessary for healthy growth. However, these effects depend on how toxic the pesticide is and how much of it is consumed. There are several classes of pesticides used in agriculture including fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides and molluscicides. The American Association of Poison Control Center’s (AAPCC’s) National Incidence Report indicates a total number of 102754 pesticide injuries occurred in the US in 2004. This amounts to 4.2% of the total poisoning incidents by pesticides (not just insecticides).1 (See Table 17a of reference 1) Pesticide poisoning is among the most common modes of fatal poisoning globally. In India, organophosphates are easily accessible and are a source of both intentional and unintentional poisonings. With illegal farming practices occurring in many parts of the world (mostly in the developing countries), the presence of pesticides in food is a growing, persistent problem. Illegal farming practices involve either extensive use of these chemicals in quantities much higher than allowed by regulation or use of illegal pesticides such as hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), tetramine, methamidophos, parathion, phorate, sulphotep and carbofuran. In India,2 for example, pesticides are being used excessively to increase food production and address nutritional needs. New pesticides can be registered and used for two years without any health and safety considerations. Furthermore, farmers usually mix and match pesticides producing combination formulations (CBN). These can be registered in India without any mandatory chronic toxicity assessment. The ministry of agriculture (MOA) has introduced the Insecticide Act to regulate the manufacture, sale, import, export and use of pesticides, but the rules of the act are primarily geared towards only the acute health effects of pesticides and not the chronic ones. In addition, setting an 10 Author: Dipankar Ghosh E-mail: analyze@thermo.com http://www.thecolumn.eu.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Column - November 2007

The Column - November 2007
Contents
News
Food for Thought Q&A
Zosimus
Market Trends and Analysis
Meeting Review: 12th Desty Memorial Lecture
Separation and Purification of Chiral Compounds by Two-Dimensional Supercritical Fluid Chromatography
Highly Selective Trace Level Extraction using Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Solid-Phase Extraction

The Column - November 2007