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- Health ministry sets timeframe for keeping animals treated with antibiotics out of food chain
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- India's genome saviours
- CSE volunteer barred from filming public hearing for Ultratech cement plant
- Illegal GM cotton spreads across India 1
- Auroville’s alternative galaxy 2
- Vitamin C could be panacea for drug-resistant TB 1
- In celebration of biodiversity 5
- Chaos in the iron age 4
- Become iron woman, eat veggies
- Environment ministry wants to restore night traffic through Bandipur tiger reserve 52
- A green facade 44
- Diesel: when bad policy makes for toxic hell 38
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- What’s good insulation? 30
- How vulnerable are India's nuclear power plants to disaster 28
- Grand distraction called river interlinking 28
- Eat at your own risk 27
- Green energy takes toll on green cover 26
- Temporary solution, permanent jam 25
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Cover Story
How exposed are we?
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Issue Date: Dec 31, 2003
The Centre for Science and Environment estimates the exposure of Indians to pesticides
Every nation that registers and uses pesticides must do its own homework and ensure that exposure to each pesticide, under no circumstances, exceeds the acceptable daily intake. Keeping toxins within strict limits not injurious to health is the true mandate of safety. Without this, the use of pesticides would be deadly.
But India does not regulate its use of pesticides through ADI -- the safety threshold. Where, then, do we stand? If we were to estimate our exposure to pesticides through food, would it be within the ADI of the pesticides? We wanted to know. We needed to know.
STEP 1: We checked the ADI of key pesticides used in India. JMPR apart, ADI is also fixed by the US' EPA and the Australian government's Department of Health and Aging. Within them, the ADI varied for many key pesticides. So we decided to estimate exposure twice -- using the ADI of JMPR and then using the USEPA threshold. (see table: Differing thresholds)
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STEP 2: We had to have data on what, and how much, Indians were eating. We decided to estimate the daily per capita consumption of various food commodities for India. For this, we used the FAO's Food Balance Sheet (FBS) 2001 data for India (see table: What we eat, and how much). We reckoned we could. JMPR uses the same source to assess dietary intake. Also, this data is the most recent data (the Indian government's published data on dietary patterns is valid only for the 1990s).
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