Risk Assessment of Chemical Mixtures: From Scientific Evidence to Environmental Regulation

Two studies published recently looked into the health risks of organophospate and neonicotinoid plant protection products (PPP), upon the European honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) in Egypt. Using the concentrations reported in those studies a hazard assessment for consumption of Egyptian honey from the Nile delta was performed for both spring and summer pesticide exposure to humans. A total of 28 compounds including metabolites were assessed for adult Egyptians based on a best and worst case scenario. Even for the worst case scenario, exposure to these two classes of pesticides from honey was 15-fold less than hazard index (HI) value of effect and people exposed are unlikely to suffer adverse health outcomes. WP016 Incorporating the Joint Toxicity of Co-applied Pesticides Into the Ecological Risk Assessment Process J.B. Belden, Oklahoma State University / Integrative Biology; R. Brain, Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. / Department of Environmental Risk Characterization Pesticides are frequently formulated as mixtures of active ingredients. Although traditionally ecological risk assessments (ERA) have focused on individual active ingredients, there is an ongoing effort in many jurisdictions to more formally include assessment of mixtures. The overall goal of this project was to describe an approach for conducting ERA of jointly applied pesticides. We suggest that standard testing of formulation mixtures is not warranted due to the low probability of synergy occurring at a high enough magnitude to be measurable above experimental variability. Thus, empirical testing should focus on formulations where there is a greater likelihood of synergy due to known toxicological interactions of the pesticide class or a priori knowledge of synergy, such as intellectual property claims. Additionally, empirical testing should focus on species that are above levels of concern and limit testing on species where it is unlikely that synergy would significantly change the outcome of the ERA. If empirical testing is warranted, we suggest that results be compared to the concentration addition model (CA). If the empirical data deviates from the model by a factor of greater than five, then synergy is considered likely and the ERA is based on the empirical data. Otherwise, the ERA may use CA to calculate risk quotients or be based on the most toxic active ingredient. To evaluate the approach, we reviewed formulation mixtures where data were available. Only 3 of 24 mixture studies were found to deviate from CA by more than 5. The majority of the studies had a single component that dominated toxicity suggesting that the ERA for these formulations will not be meaningfully different if based on the most toxic active ingredient. Overall, this approach balances risk assessment conservatism and reduces testing that would likely not result in improvement of the ERA.