Emerging Perspectives on Contaminants 1 Dr. Debabrata Kanungo - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Emerging Perspectives

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Contaminants

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• Dr. Debabrata Kanungo

Former Additional Director General, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Chairman, Panel for Pesticides and Antibiotic Residues, FSSAI

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EU Definition:

– New chemicals produced to offer improvements in

industry, agriculture, medicine, and common conveniences.

– New reasons for concern for existing contaminants. – New capabilities enabling improved examination of

contaminants.

Emerging Contaminants (ECs)

What are they?

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EMERGING CONTAMINANTS

(Broadly defined by the scientific community) Pollutants Currently not included in routine monitoring programs May be candidates for future regulation, depending on

• research on their toxicity,
• potential health effects,
• occurrence in various environmental

matrices,

• public perception

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EMERGING CONTAMINANTS

WIDE VARIETY OF CHEMICALS ➢Pharmaceuticals ➢Household chemicals ➢Fragrances, ➢Antimicrobials, ➢Surfactants, ➢Fluorescent whitening agents. ➢Endocrine Disrupting Substances(EDS) ➢Impurities

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Emerging Contaminants in Food through Water*

Pesticides Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products Endocrine Disrupting Compounds PFOA

(Perfluorooctanoic acid)

PBDEs

(Poly Brominated Diphenyl Ether)

Prions Nanomaterials

*Not an exhaustive list.

Pathogens

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CAS Registry*

➢ 31 million organic and inorganic substances ➢ Updated daily with ~4000 new substance records

*American Chemical Society’s Chemical Abstracts Service

Estimating the Universe of ECs

Chemicals

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• ECs illustrate the connection of individuals’ activities

with their environment

• A large number of chemicals are getting into the

environment with known and unknown concentrations and effects

• Detection of these chemicals is likely to increase

– Analytical methods are developed

• Numerous reports of intersex fish and other species

have triggered Congressional and public interest

• No evidence of adverse human health effects

So Why the Interest?

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• Term “emerging” has led to a common misconception:
• As if Chemicals recently released into the

environment.

• In reality, these chemicals have likely been entering the

environment as long as they have been in use.

• “Emerging” is the awareness in both the scientific

community and general public

• These chemicals are being released into the

environment through household wastewater,

• Can be detected in water, sediment, soil and biota.

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Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs)

• Pharmaceuticals are emerging contaminants in

the environment

• Environmental persistence of main active

metabolite of the blood lipid regulators (clofibrate erofibrate and theofibrate), clofibric acid, - 21 years (Díaz-Cruz et al., 2003).

• In recent years, because of the continuously

increasing amounts of drugs and advanced ultra- trace detection technologies, considerable human and veterinary drugs have been detected in the environment, especially in water

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• Main pathway through which pharmaceuticals

enter the surface water is human intake, followed by subsequent excretion in municipal wastewater, hospitals, pharmaceutical waste, and land fills

• After long periods of enrichment, high

concentrations of drug residues will threaten human health and the ecosystem

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Veterinary Antibiotics (VAs)

• Large number of antibiotics used in animal food

production

• Inefficiently adsorbed in the animal’s gut,
• 30–90% of these drugs are excreted.
• Considerable percentage of the veterinary

antibiotics spread into the surroundings in bioactive forms,

• May cause long-term adverse effects on the soil,

water, microorganisms, plants, and animals and naturally affect human health through the food chain.

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Esiobu et al. reported a 70% enhancement in resistance to certain antibiotics including streptomycin, penicillin, and tetracycline after using soil manure from animals in a dairy farm.

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Personal Care Products as Exposure Sources for Conventional Contaminants

• Ayurveda and folk remedies- lead and other metals
• Skin lightening creams and disinfectant soaps-

Mercuric iodine in soaps and ammoniated mercury in skin lightening cream

• Dermal products- Phthalates(esp.diethyl & dibutyl),

solvents,dyes,parabens(4-hydroxybenzoic acid alkayl esters),cyclosiloxanes(e.g.octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane,D4)

• Lice and Tick control shampoos-Lindane,permethrin
• Shampoos and soaps-alkylphenolic surfactants
• Impregnated Mosquitoe nets and clothes

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RAMIFICATIONS

• Exposure at therapeutic doses is not the concern.
• Exposure at sub therapeutic/over therapeutic doses may be the

concern

• Aquatic organisms can suffer continual exposure and enter human

food chain.

• Exposure to non-target organisms could be significant.
• Potential exists for subtle effects(e.g.neurobehavioural changes)

even at ppb level.

• Pose may challenges for the outer enevelope of toxicology-

especially the many unknowns associated with effects from simultaneous exposure to multiple chemical stressors over long period of time.

• Potential for additive(cumulative) and interactive(synergistic) effect

from multiple exposure.

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Community Challenge

Voluntary vs. Involuntary

The public sees voluntary risk differently than involuntary risk Voluntary

▪

Ingestion

▪

Bathing

▪

Use

▪

Disposal

Involuntary: finding them in our environment in trace amounts

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Behavior:

– Ingest / use – Excretion – Bathing – Disposal

May make their way into soil and water:

– Wastewater – Biosolids – Irrigation – Effluent

Community Challenge

We All Contribute

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What portion of overall Risk is contributed by unregulated contaminants

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Further Truism in EC Monitoring

• What one finds usually depends on what one aims

to search for

• Only those compounds targeted for monitoring

have the potential for being identified and quantified.

• Those compounds not targeted will elude

detection.

• The spectrum of contaminants identified in a

sample represent but a portion of those present.

• They are of unknown overall risk significance

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Can risk be assessed in a truly holistic manner without knowing the actual exposure universe?

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Einstein on: Environmental Monitoring

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.“ (oft attributed to Albert Einstein) corollary for environmental monitoring Not everything that can be measured is worth measuring, and not everything worth measuring is measurable.

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S o i l + B i o s o l i d s

1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 PLANT HUMAN GROUND WATER HUMAN HUMAN AIR PLANT GARDENER CHILD PLANT A N I M A L PLANT ANIMAL HUMAN

A N I M A L

SOIL BIOTA SOIL BIOTA DUST HUMAN WATER HUMAN HUMAN

14 - Pathway Risk Assessment

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Key Message

Focus on Source Control

Everyone contributes Clear linkages between individual behaviors and the presence of trace constituents We all should strive to minimize the amount of material we introduce into the water environment Think about product choices and source control

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Key Message

Strategic Risk Communication

We need better expertise in communicating complex technical material to citizens

• Process of scientific methods and strategies
• Someone verse in ‘best practice’ SRC:
• Up on the research literature
• Analysis of information needs
• Empirical evaluation of SRC impacts

SRC success is satisfaction of the people involved that they have been adequately informed within the limits of available knowledge, and their needs are met.

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Emergency Regulatory Issues

Food Industry & Regulators should be aware

• Children health early life susceptibility

assessment

• Endocrine Disrupter Substances(EDS)
• Nanomaterial- Risk vs Benefits
• Impurities

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Thank you for your kind attention

• Dr. Debrabata Kanungo

kanungo294@gmail.com

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