Before the curtain falls: endocrine-active pesticides--a German contamination legacy.

The European Parliament recently approved a new EU regulation aimed at eliminating the use of pesticides that have unwanted endocrine-disrupting properties. The test criteria for these chemicals are slated to be finalized by 2013. For this reason, in this review, we have evaluated the meta data of lists and databanks that address pesticides with potentially endocrine-disrupting properties, and have checked which of the 250 active ingredients currently in use in Germany are affected. Azoles, dithio-carbamates/carbamates, and pyrethroids were most frequently rated as endocrine-active ingredients. In Germany, assessments have shown that total environmental pesticide emission is equivalent to approximately 0.1% of total pesticide use.Courtyard drainage and field runoff are regarded to constitute the most important sources of pesticide emission into the aquatic environment. In addition, in several investigations of drinking- and groundwater contamination, various pesticide-active ingredients and their metabolites were confirmed to be contaminants. Water suppliers recorded the following pesticides or their metabolites as being most frequently detected in drinking water: atrazine, desethylatrazine, diuron, simazine, isoproturon,and its dichlobenil metabolite 2,6-dichlorobenzamide. Surface water contamination results mainly from substances that are no longer approved by EU pesticide regulation. The most frequently detected pesticides in streaming waters that are still authorized were bentazone, diuron, glyphosate, isoproturon, MCPA, mecoprop,metamitron, pendimethalin, and tebuconazole. Pesticide residues in comestible goods of herbal origin are periodically detected in all EU member countries. The European Commission recently published results showing that 54% of all monitoring samples were devoid of positive findings. Of samples showing detectable residues, 42% were below, and 4.4% exceeded the EUMRLs. Monitoring data over a 10-year period revealed that the percentage of foodstuff without detectable pesticide residues has continuously decreased from 64 to 51.5%. In Germany, herbal samples mainly contained residues of maneb, iprodion,procymidone and deltamethrin. Notwithstanding these detections, chronic health risk evaluations indicated that there were no violations of ADI values. However,for carbaryl, methomyl, and procymidone, ARfDs were exceeded substantially for intake of grapefruit and bell peppers. As a result, the EU withdrew the methomyl authorization in 2008 and revised procymidone guideline values.