Decreasing urinary organophosphate pesticide metabolites among pregnant women and their offspring in Jerusalem: Impact of regulatory restrictions on agricultural organophosphate pesticides use?

INTRODUCTION

Maternal urinary levels of dialkyl phosphate (DAP) metabolites of organophosphate pesticides (OP) during pregnancy are associated with adverse outcomes in the offspring. Between 2012 and 2014, eighteen active OP ingredients were restricted or banned in Israel for agricultural use.

AIM

We aimed to study trends of urinary DAP metabolites among pregnant women and their offspring in the era of the new regulations.

METHODS

Pregnant women were recruited at 11-18 weeks of gestation and provided spot urine samples (n = 273). Soon after birth, neonatal urine samples were collected (n = 107). All urine specimens analyzed for DAP metabolites. Trends in DAP metabolites were tested using Mann-Kendall trend statistic (M-K S) and linear regression models were constructed to estimate the association between calendar period and DAP levels between September 2012 and March 2016.

RESULTS

Over the study period, median maternal ∑DAP levels decreased from 248 nmol/L to 148 nmol/L. Time of recruitment was associated with a statistically significant decrease in DAP metabolites, which remained significant after multivariate adjustment. Overall, the results for the analysis of before and after June 2014 showed a significant decrease in ∑DAP of -0.198 log10 nmol/L (95%CI: -0.311,-0.084) which corresponds with a decrease of 36.6% in ∑DAP. A similar trend was found for DAP metabolites in neonatal urine. Compared to other studies, pregnant women in Jerusalem had higher ∑DAP levels, even at the end of the study period.

CONCLUSION

We observed significant reductions in maternal and neonatal DAP urinary levels during the period of 2012-2016. Regulations restricting agricultural use of OP seem to be effective in reducing population exposure to OP, in an era when residential use of OP is banned.