Establishment of Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) and Risk Assessment for Ephedrine, Menichlopholan, Anacolin, and Etisazole Hydrochloride

BACKGROUND: Prior to implementing a positive list system (PLS), there is a need to establish acceptable daily intake (ADI) and maximum residue limit (MRL) for veterinary drugs that have been approved a few decades ago in South Korea. On top of that, chronic dietary exposure assessment of veterinary drug residues should be performed to determine whether the use of these veterinary drugs would cause health concerns or not. METHODS AND RESULTS: To establish the ADI, the relevant toxicological data were collected from evaluation reports issued by international organizations. A slightly modified global estimate of chronic dietary exposure (GECDE) model was employed in the exposure assessment owing to the limited residual data. Therefore, only the ADI of ephedrine was established due to insufficient data for the other veterinary drugs. Thus, instead of ADI, the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) value was used for the other drugs. Lastly, the hazard index (HI) was calculated, except for etizazole hydrochloride, due to the potential of mutagenicity. CONCLUSION(S): The HI values of ephedrine, meni-chlopholan, and anacolin were found to be as high as 6.4%, suggesting that chronic dietary exposure to the residues from these uses was unlikely to be a public health concern. Further research for exposure assessment of veterinary drug residues should be performed using up-to-date Korean national health and nutrition examination survey (KNHANES) food consumption data. In addition, all relevant available data sources should be utilized for identifying the potentials of toxicity.