Research | Children’s Health Assessing Children’s Dietary Pesticide Exposure: Direct Measurement of Pesticide Residues in 24-Hr Duplicate Food Samples Chensheng Lu,1 Frank J. Schenck,2 Melanie A. Pearson,3 and Jon W. Wong 4 1Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 2U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Southeast Regional Laboratory, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (retired); 3Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; 4U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, College Park, Maryland, USA Background : The data presented here are a response to calls for more direct measurements of pesticide residues in foods consumed by children and provide an opportunity to compare direct measures of pesticide residues in foods representing actual consumption with those reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program. o Bjectiv : We measured pesticide residues in 24-hr duplicate food samples collected from a group of 46 young children participating in the Children’s Pesticide Exposure Study (CPES). Methods : Parents were instructed to collect 24-hr duplicate food samples of all conventional fruits, vegetables, and fruit juices equal to the quantity consumed by their children, similarly prewashed/ prepared, and from the same source or batch. Individual or composite food items were analyzed for organophosphate (OP) and pyrethroid insecticide residues. r esult : We collected a total of 239 24-hr duplicate food samples collected from the 46 CPES chil- dren. We found 14% or 5% of those food samples contained at least one OP or pyrethroid insecti- cide, respectively. We measured a total of 11 OP insecticides, at levels ranging from 1 to 387 ng/g, and three pyrethroid insecticides, at levels ranging from 2 to 1,133 ng/g, in children’s food samples. We found that many of the food items consumed by the CPES children were also on the list of the most contaminated food commodities reported by the Environmental Working Group. c onclusi : The frequent consumption of food commodities with episodic presence of pesticide residues that are suspected to cause developmental and neurological effects in young children sup- ports the need for further mitigation. k ey words : children’s diets, dietary pesticide exposure, organophosphate pesticides, pesticide residue, pesticide risk assessment, pyrethroid insecticides. Environ Health Perspect 118:1625–1630 (2010). doi:10.1289/ehp.1002044 [Online 16 July 2010] In the 1990s, a book published by the National Research Council (NRC) titled Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children (NRC 1993) and the passage of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA 1996) were hailed as two major milestones in the United States in recogniz- ing the need for systematic efforts in reducing pesticide exposure in vulnerable populations, especially infants and children. An important summary statement in the NRC report declared that “dietary intake represents the major source of pesticide exposure for infants and children, and the dietary exposure may account for the increased pesticide-related health risks in chil- dren compared with adults.” After the NRC report, the newly enacted FQPA aimed to fundamentally change U.S. policies in govern- ing the acceptability of pesticide residues in foods and required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assure the public that there is a “reasonable certainty of no harm” from pesticide exposures for pregnant women, infants, children, and other vulnerable groups. Despite many years of effort in implementing the FQPA, monitoring and managing dietary pesticide exposures and risks are still an ongo- ing challenge. A recent report published by the U.S. Office of Inspector General (2006) has stressed the need for data-driven indicators of pesticide dietary exposures/risks. The data presented here are in response to these calls for more direct measurements of pes- ticide residues in foods consumed by children and provide an initial assessment of the effects of the U.S. EPA’s actions on assessing dietary pesticide risks (U.S. Office of the Inspector General 2006). In this study, we measured pes- ticide residues in 24-hr duplicate foods from a group of elementary school–age children par- ticipating in the Children’s Pesticide Exposure Study (CPES). In addition, the CPES data pro- vided an opportunity to compare direct mea- sures of pesticide residues in foods representing actual consumption with measured values reported by the Pesticide Data Program [PDP; U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2009], a national database of pesticide residues found on foods that are ready for distribution in the United States. This comparison allows a unique examination of “real-world” applicabil- ity of the national data set. Materials and Methods Children’s Pesticide Exposure Study. CPES was initially conducted in the suburban Seattle, Washington, area (CPES-WA) from summer 2003 to winter 2004 and was later repeated in Atlanta, Georgia (CPES-GA), in 2006/2007 with the same study protocol. Twenty-three children 3–11 years of age were recruited for Environmental Health Perspectives • volume 118 | number 11 | November 2010 each CPES study from local public elementary schools and Montessori preschools. (One of the children who participated in CPES-GA study was 12 years old at the beginning of study.) Schools did not provide any assistance in recruiting subjects except for granting permis- sion to send home with the children a letter and a fact sheet describing the study. Families that were interested in participating in this study then contacted the research group directly. A screening questionnaire was conducted over the phone to confirm eligibility, which included children exclusively consuming conventional (nonorganic) diets and spending most of their time in one residence, and the willingness of parents or caregivers to provide assistance in collecting specimen samples. Once a participant was enrolled, an in-house appointment was made to go over the study protocol and train the parents/caregivers on how to collect speci- mens and 24-hr duplicate food samples. All parents provided written informed consent, and all children provided written informed consent (if ≥ 10 years of age) or oral assent (< 10 years of age) before data collection began. A ques- tionnaire was also administered by the research staff during this appointment that asked about household pesticide use to account for nondi- etary sources of pesticide exposure. Each CPES child agreed to participate in multiple consecutive days of sampling in four seasons over a 12-month period (four seasons). Address correspondence to C. Lu, 401 Park Dr., Landmark Center West, Boston, MA 02215, USA. Telephone: (617) 998-8811. Fax: (617) 384-8728. E-mail: cslu@hsph.harvard.edu We thank K. Toepel, R. Irish, and P. Sande (University of Washington); M. Givens, C. Holbrook, D. Gregory, M. Holubar, and Hui-Mien Hsiao (Emory University); and K. Zhang (Food and Drug Administration [FDA], Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) for their contributions in the Children’s Pesticide Exposure Study. This work was supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Science to Achieve Results research assistance program (R-832244 and R-829364). The content of this publication has not been for- mally reviewed by the U.S. EPA and FDA, and the views expressed in this document are solely those of the authors. Neither the U.S. EPA nor the FDA endorses any products or commercial services men- tioned in this publication. The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests. Received 10 February 2010; accepted 16 July 2010. 1625