Rationing of Residual Organophosphate Pesticides in Herbal Substances (Review)

Abstract

Introduction. Usage of organophosphate pesticides (OPPs) in agriculture, including farming of medical herbs, is a necessary measure for producing regular harvest. In order to maintain an adequate degree of herbal medicines security a variety of countries developed normative documents that regulate the limits of proportion of pesticides (including OPPs) in herbal substances. These documents contain the recommended methods of residual pesticides analysis as well.Text. The article describes the recently conducted information-analytical research of limits of permissible proportion of OPPs in herbal substances and food production and of methods of extraction and analysis of OPPs mentioned in the State Pharmacopoeia of the Russian Federation XIV, international pharmacopeias, WHO information sources and the normative documents on food production. The authors specify physical-chemical characteristic of OPPs and the main mechanism of impact of this class of pesticides onto a human body. The research demonstrates that HPLC-MS and GC-MS are the most perspective analytical methods of detection of OPPs in herbal substances.Conclusion. In the information-analytical review the authors specify a physical-chemical characteristics of OPPs, describe the mechanism of the toxic impact of this type of pesticides, provide the generalized summary of limits of permissible proportion of OPPs in herbal substances and in food production. The study shows that the rationing of OPPs proportion is harmonized in a majority of issues of modern pharmacopeias. The paper presents modern methods of detection of OPPs in herbal substances and food production. Finally, the authors demonstrate an advantage of the modern approach to rationing of OPPs in herbal substances (specification of presence and proportion of a single pesticide in combination with its toxic metabolites). The key issue is a necessity of developing a sensible and selective methodic of analysis of OPPs in accordance with physical-chemical properties of these types of pesticides in different kinds of herbal substances and phytopreparations.

Keywords

• organophosphate pesticides
• herbal substances
• standardization
• normative documents