A screening-level human health risk assessment of dietary intake of pesticide residues in produce as compared to consumer guide recommendations

Abstract

Consumers are confronted with conflicting information regarding the safety of specific foods. For example, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes an annual consumer guide in which they rank the pesticide contamination of 46 popular fruits and vegetables, which includes designating the 12 with the greatest pesticide contamination as the “Dirty Dozen,” to help consumers reduce exposures to toxic pesticides. However, consumer guides like EWG’s only incorporate some hazard assessment principles and do not reflect a dietary risk assessment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to apply risk assessment techniques to EWG’s Dirty Dozen list using a uniform screening-level approach to estimate pesticide exposures for U.S. consumers and to characterize the associated chronic human health risks. The most commonly detected pesticide and its representative residue concentrations were identified for each produce type on the 2022 Dirty Dozen list using the USDA Pesticide Data Program database. Estimates of mean dietary consumption in the U.S. were used to calculate dietary exposure to each pesticide-produce combination for adults and children. Pesticide-specific U.S. EPA dietary health-based guidance values (HBGVs) were then used as benchmarks to evaluate the chronic human health risk of consuming each produce type. Overall, the estimated daily exposure for each pesticide-produce combination was below the corresponding HBGV for all exposure scenarios. The current analysis demonstrates that excessive produce-specific pesticide exposure is unexpected as the amount of produce that would need to be consumed on a chronic basis, even among children, far exceeds typical dietary intake. Future research is necessary to assess acute dietary exposure scenarios and to consider cumulative risk.

Keywords:

• Pesticides
• exposure
• residue
• food
• hazard assessment
• health risk
• dirty dozen
• dietary risk assessment
• population-adjusted dose

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Veronica "Ronnie" Ballantyne for her help with EndNote™ reference management. They would also like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers selected by the editor, whose contributions have been incorporated into this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

At the time this study was conducted, all of the authors were employed by a consulting firm that provides scientific advice to the government, corporations, law firms, and various scientific/professional organizations. This firm has been engaged by companies involved in litigation; however, none of the authors have served as testifying experts in pesticide litigation. The time invested by the authors to write this article was provided by their employer, and no client or defendant in litigation requested that this work be performed or was aware of this research or article. No external funding was received for the research supporting the analysis, nor the time needed to prepare the article. Furthermore, the work product including the conclusions drawn are exclusively those of the authors.

Notes

1 As described in its 2005 cancer guidelines, the U.S. EPA replaced in toto its alphanumerical cancer classification system (Group A, B1, B2, C, D, and E) from its 1986 cancer guidelines with a weight-of-evidence narrative characterization that uses standard hazard descriptors, of which there are five: “Carcinogenic to Humans,” “Likely to Be Carcinogenic to Humans,” “Suggestive Evidence of Carcinogenic Potential,” “Inadequate Information to Assess Carcinogenic Potential,” and “Not Likely to Be Carcinogenic to Humans.” (USEPA 1986; 2005).