Integrazione di monitoraggio ambientale e biologoico e della stima modellistica dell’esposizione per la valutazione del rischio da prodotti chimici degli agricoltori

We disclose preliminary data of an ongoing pilot study in rice and maize cultivations in Lombardy (Italy) which use propanil and terbuthylazine as herbicide treatments. 24 small farms (one worker per farm) volunteered into the study. Pads positioned above and below clothing were employed to measure dermal exposure to agrochemicals during application and urine analysis was employed to measure its absorption through excretion of the main metabolites in pre- and post-application 24-hour urine samples. The study estimated that the workers’ median levels of whole-body exposure to spray-applied propanil was of 0.032 (0.01-1.24) parts-per-million of applied agrochemical. Referring to 24-hour post-application excretion of the main metabolite of propanil, 3,4 dichloroaniline, the median absorbed dose resulted of approx. 0.3 parts-per-million of applied propanil, corresponding to approx. 0.18 microg/kg of body weight of the examined farmers. Compared to the health-based AOEL of 70 microg/kg/die of body weight defined in the authorization warrant, this value allows to assess that these workers are facing a toxicologically unrelevant exposure. BM was able to highlight the accidentally high absorption (100-fold higher) of propanil by one farmer who splashed himself during preparation or application and that also this worker was safely within the AOEL.