From Pre-marketing Studies and Authorization Dossiers to New Prospects for Pesticide Risk Assessment in Rural Enterprises

The role of pesticides in the modern society has been strengthened by the need for higher yield in food production and the ongoing battle against vector borne diseases in public health. Nevertheless, the toxicity of these chemicals is not fully specific to target organisms, thus posing a potential health threat to humans. In this frame, risk assessment and management are fundamental. In the occupational settings, variability of meteorological conditions, use of different concentrations of variable mixtures, and significant variations in the application times and modalities make this task very complicated, making necessary proposing novel approaches for conducting “in field” preventive activities. The amount of information collected during the process of authorization of a new active ingredient is unique, with a size similar of the one available for human drugs. Therefore, a possible way forward for risk assessment is represented by a better exploitation in the post-marketing phase of the data used for the registration process, combined with the data collected in real-life field studies usable for refining and validate the risk hypothesis generated through modelling. In particular, parameters such as Acceptable Operator Exposure Level (AOEL), acute reference dose (ArD) as well data regarding skin absorption, metabolism and relevant metabolites in animals can find use in the conduction of risk assessment activities in agricultural enterprises, through the creation of new tools for exposure and risk assessment. Such tool are usable even without conducting complicated and expensive measures, and therefore are adequate for the needs of small and medium sized agricultural enterprises.