Abstract
Global regulations of biocides have been continuously enhanced for protecting human health and the environment from potentially harmful biocidal products. Such regulations consider the combined toxicity caused by mixture components in a biocidal product of which approval and authorization are to be enhanced. Although the combined exposure scenarios of components in mixtures are firstly needed to conduct the mixture risk assessment, systematic combined exposure scenarios are still lacking. In this study, combined inhalation exposure scenarios of biocides in household chemical and biocidal products marketed in South Korea were investigated based on the European Union (EU) and Korean chemical product databases and various data sources integration. The information of 1058 biocidal products and 675 household chemical products that are likely to cause inhalation exposure with two or more biocides was collected, and mixture combination patterns were investigated. Binary mixtures occupied 72% in biocidal products. The most frequently appearing binary mixture was phthalthrin and d-phenothrin. Based on the frequency of use, we suggested a priority list of biocide mixture combinations which need to be firstly evaluated for identifying their combined toxicity for the mixture risk assessment. This study highlights that the derived combined inhalation exposure scenarios can support and facilitate further studies on priority settings for mixture risk assessment and management of potentially inhalable biocides.
Highlights
Since the unintended fatal lung disease in South Korea was officially reported on August 2011 by Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) [1], some humidifier disinfectants containing biocides that can cause the pulmonary fibrosis have triggered 7009 reported victims and 1586 deaths based on applicants for the victim relief, as of November 2020 [2]
Global regulations of biocides have been continuously enhanced for protecting human health and the environment from potentially harmful biocidal products. e.g., European Union (EU) Biocidal Product Regulation (BPR) [3] and Korean Household Chemical Products and Biocides Safety Act (Chemical Product Safety Act, known as K-BPR) came into force in 2013 and 2019 to effectively improve the safety management of biocidal products [4]
The EU BPR Database was used to investigate biocidal products marketed in South Korea by assuming that EU biocidal products could be imported into South Korea
Summary
Since the unintended fatal lung disease in South Korea was officially reported on August 2011 by Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) [1], some humidifier disinfectants containing biocides that can cause the pulmonary fibrosis have triggered 7009 reported victims and 1586 deaths based on applicants for the victim relief, as of November 2020 [2]. This intolerable tragedy substantially showed that the risk assessment covering various uses of chemicals is essential to the chemical product safety management. Making prioritization of mixture combinations would be the first step for mixture risk assessment [10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
