OBJECTIVE In addition to water contamination, the presence of pesticide residues in food poses a risk to the population, being a serious public health problem in Brazil. With the purpose of getting a better understanding of this scenario, the use of pesticides in tomato crops in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, was studied. METHODS Questionnaires were applied to obtain social and environmenta...

Quantitative measurements of environmental factors greatly improve the quality of epidemiologic studies but can pose challenges because of the presence of upper or lower detection limits or interfering compounds, which do not allow for precise measured values. We consider the regression of an environmental measurement (dependent variable) on several covariates (independent variables). Various s...

A convenient, quick and cost-effective method to detect the presence of allergenic components and pathogens is one of the greatest challenges confronting the food processing industry. Biosensors are emerging as a highly promising tool for rapid diagnosis of pathogens and allergenic components in foods. Detection of contaminants, verification of product contents, product freshness and monitoring...

The usage and acceptability of biological control methods are set to increase in agriculture in the future because of food safety and pesticide residue issues. Biological control implementation in Turkey started with control of cottony cushion scale Icerya purchasi (Homoptera: Margarodidae) through the introduction and release of Rodolia cardinalis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in citrus plantati...

Three patients with aplastic anaemia had a history of substantial previous exposure to organochlorine pesticides. The temporal association between chemical exposure and the onset of first symptoms of anaemia was strongly supportive. Organochlorines have the property of lipid affinity and accumulation in adipose tissue. Objective evidence of clinically important concentrations of tissue pesticid...

In this study, a very sensitive method was validated to determine pesticides residues in fruit jams using micro flow liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (µLC-MS/MS). A slurry of the fruit jams and water was prepared to yield homogeneous samples. Because of the high sensitivity achieved with the µLC-MS/MS equipment and to minimize matrix effects, the QuEChERS extracts were diluted 30-...

India is the second largest producer of vegetables after China, and accounts for 13.4% of world production. Surveys carried out by institutions spread throughout the country indicate that 50-70% of vegetables are contaminated with insecticide residues. Rapid, inexpensive and sensitive methods such as pesticide finger printing technique and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay developed at CFTRI, M...

Analyses of chlorpyriphos, ethion and dicofol in the river Deomoni from Terai region of West Bengal revealed mean pesticide residues of chlorpyriphos, dicofol and ethion in water sample as 0.0091 ± 0.0020ppm, 0.0180 ± 0.0071ppm and 0.0892 ± 0.0375 ppm, respectively, in sediments 0.0513 ± 0.0085ppm, 0.0414 ± 0.0045ppm and 0.1271 ± 0.0122ppm and in fish muscles (Puntius sp.) 5.0371 ± 1.4236 ppm, ...

Dr. Antonio Valverde University of Almería, Spain. Mr. Stewart Reynolds The Food and Environment Research Agency, York, United Kingdom. Dr. Sonja Masselter AGES GmbH, Competence Center for Residues of Plant Protection Products, Innsbruck, Austria. Dr. André de Kok Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Dr. Amadeo R. Fernández-Alba University of Almería, Sp...

If pesticide residues are detected at over the uniform limit (0.01 ppm) in processed foods, the maximum residue limits of pesticides in each ingredient should be considered. For that purpose, analysis of pesticide residues in the ingredients would be required, but in many cases it is difficult to obtain ingredients from the same lot, or the processed foods may have been manufactured overseas. T...