Toxicity-Adjusted Exposures to N-methyl carbamate (NMC) and Organophosphate (OP) Pesticides in Food
This indicator describes trends in dietary exposures (food alone) to two classes of pesticides: N-methyl carbamates (NMC) and organophosphates (OP). The indicator considers exposure from multiple foods and determines a combined toxicity-weighted exposure to these pesticides which have common mechanisms of toxicity. Dietary exposure modeling techniques developed by EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs are used to estimate NMC and OP cumulative exposures to 1- to 2-year-old children in the U.S. population from 1995 to 2015. The estimated exposures in this indicator account for relative toxicities of individual pesticides within each pesticide class, consumption amounts, consumption frequencies, and pesticide residue levels that would lead to the highest potential for exposure (at the per capita 99.9th percentile). Children 1- to 2-years old were chosen as the sentinel demographic subgroup, since children tend to have higher dietary exposures compared to adults due to their higher food intakes relative to their bodyweights. This indicator also describes the total toxicity-adjusted pounds of NMC and OP pesticides applied to food crops from 1998 to 2015.
Consistent with requirements under the Food Quality and Protection Act of 1996, this indicator looks at pesticides that appear to pose the greatest risk to public health. EPA chose NMC and OP pesticides for this indicator because of their documented toxicities and the availability of publicly available, peer-reviewed cumulative risk assessment approaches. Also, these two pesticide groups continue to have important agricultural uses, though EPA has taken measures to restrict or reduce many uses of these pesticides during this timeframe. It is important to note that these indicators describe trends in dietary exposure and pesticide use, but not necessarily trends in dietary risks or health outcomes.
The indicator presents two toxicity-adjusted exposure metrics. The first is based on the dietary exposures from 1995 to 2015 and the second is based on the total pounds of NMC and OP pesticides applied to food crops from 1998 to 2015. Both are reported using the toxicity-adjustment factors for individual pesticides. These metrics are indexed to the year 2006 by dividing the value for a given year by the corresponding value for the year 2006 and multiplying by 100. The indicator uses proprietary data for the toxicity-adjusted pounds applied metric and pulls pesticide residue data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Pesticide Data Program (PDP), food consumption data from a long-running federal dietary intake survey, and toxicity data from EPA’s risk assessments for NMC and OP pesticides for the toxicity-adjusted dietary exposure metric.