Pesticides in botanical dietary supplements

Current U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) procedures to analyze pesticides in botanical dietary supplements are described. The procedures are from FDA protocols for pesticide analysis in foods, which involve organic solvent extraction (usually with acetonc:water or acetonitrile:water) of the sample, followed by cleanup to remove interfering coextractives, and subsequent analysis primarily by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. In samples collected in 2004, pesticides were found in 44 out of 87 samples of botanical dietary supplements (the majority of these being ginseng products) suspected of containing pesticides. Over 30 different types of organochlorine, organophosphorus, and organonitrogen pesticide residues were present in these samples, with pentachloroaniline, pentachlorobenzene, and quintozene being the most abundant. A majority of these products contained more than one pesticide; one such sample was found to contain as many as 12 organochlorine compounds. Concentrations of pesticide residues ranged from 0.001 (pentachloroaniline and pentachlorophenyl methyl ester) to 5.57 mg/kg (quintozene). The presence and concentration of pesticides found in dietary supplements indicate the need for increased monitoring. However, current and new procedures need to be validated for pesticides in botanical dietary supplements and expanded to include other pesticide classes.