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Immune effects and exposure to ethylenebisdithiocarbamate pesticides in re-entry workers in the Netherlands

Department of Epidemiology, Maastricht University, The Netherlands lgpm.vanamelsvoort{at}epid.unimaas.nl

DCL Mohren

Department of Epidemiology, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

JJ Slangen

Department of Epidemiology, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

G Swaen

Department of Epidemiology, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

E Corsini

Laboratory of Toxicology, Department of Pharmacological Sciences, University of Milan, Italy

S Fustinoni

Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, Università di Milano and Fondazione, Ospedale Maggiore, Milan, Italy

T Vergieva

National Centre of Public Health Protection, Bulgaria

C Bosetti

Mario Negri Institute, Milan, Italy

J Liesivuori

Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Tampere, Finland

M Tarkowski

Department of Immunotoxicology, Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Lodz, Poland

C Colosio

International Centre for Pesticides and Health Risk Prevention, Milan, Italy

H van Loveren

National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, The Netherlands

Ethylenebisdithiocarbamates are widely used as fungicides in agriculture. Although EBDC’s have a low acute toxicity, they are suspected to have immune effects at low doses. However, little human studies on these effects have been published. In the Netherlands, a study was conducted among pesticide exposed workers aimed at evaluating the short-term and long-term immune effects of exposure and the relation between ethylenebisdithiocarbamate and immune effects. Forty-one re-entry workers and 40 nonexposed controls were medically examined; furthermore, immune parameters were determined in blood, and all participants filled in a questionnaire regarding exposure and outcome parameters. The level of ethylenethiourea in urine was determined as indicator of exposure. No relevant adverse immune effects were found in the pesticide exposed workers compared with the nonexposed controls. Also no exposure response relationship between immune effects and ethylenebisdithiocarbamate in urine was found. This finding might be due to very low exposure levels of the re-entry work but might also be due to a lack of immunotoxicity of ethylenebisdithiocarbamate at normal exposure levels.

Key Words: epidemiology • immune effects • occupational exposure • pesticides

Human & Experimental Toxicology, Vol. 27, No. 9, 693-699 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0960327108100000


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