Safety Assessment to the Long-Term Exposure of Benzenehexachloride by Korean-Cabbage Ingestion. H. Lee, E. Yoon, S. Choi, K. S. Park, and K. P. Won, Korea Food and Drug Administration, 5 Nokbun-dong, Eunpyung-ku, Seoul 122-704, Korea
Benzenehexachloride(BHC) is strongly adsorbed on soils that contain a large amount of organic matter, its half-time varies from a few months to three years, depending on type of soil, climate, depth of application and other factors. Then, BHC has been found in some food such as carrot, potato and Korean-cabbage through it was phased-out since 1979 in Korea. BHC classified as group B2 (probable human carcinogen) from IRIS (U.S.EPA, 1997), was induced liver nodules and hepatocellular carcinomas by diet exposure. This study was conducted to assess safety of BHC to Kor-cabbage food having residue experience regarding long-term exposure. It was investigated detection frequency and concentration of BHC making 44 food an object of safety assessment and Kor-cabbage was selected due to high detection frequency (21%). The Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) of BHC to Kor-cabbage is 0.2ppm in Food Code (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Korea 1997) and detected level for all Kor-cabbage sample were less than MRL(0.2ppm). Kor-cabbage is having very different consumption pattern with cabbage and Chinese-cabbage in Korea. It is mainly used Kor-cabbage as Kimchi, soup and salad, and consumption rate of Kor-cabbage (98.5g/day) 9.2 folds higher than cabbage(10.8g/day) based on Korea Food Balance Sheet(1997). For the safety assessment, it was calculated chronic daily intake(CDI) and excess cancer risk using oral slop factor, 1.8(mg/kg/day)-1, delivered by IRIS(U.S.EPA, 1997). To estimate CDI, residue distribution data of BHC(0.0005-0.009mg/kg, lognormal distribution), consumption rate of Kor-cabbage(98.5g/day), body weight (adult average 61kg; Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, 1997), exposure duration (53years), averaging time(lifetime 73.5years; National Statistical office, Korea 1995), and fraction of contaminated source(0.21; detection frequency) were used. Percentile value of CDI induced by Monte-Carlo simulation are 3.27x10-6mg/kg/day(95th) and induced excess cancer risk to the 95th CDI value is 5.89x10-6. It should be continuously monitored BHC in Kor-cabbage.
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