Captan fungicide exposures of strawberry harvesters using THPI as a urinary biomarker

Clothing affords harvesters considerable protection against the elements and can retain substantial amounts of pesticide residue from treated crops. Normal work clothing of female harvesters was supplemented with rubber latex gloves and facial scarves to determine whether those measures reduced exposure. Captan fungicide exposures in female strawberry harvesters were assessed by determining urine clearance rates of tetrahydrophalimide (THPI). Clean rubber gloves were supplied to the 41 harvesters for the 3 days of the study period in October 1995. The workers were divided into two groups consisting of either bare-handed or gloved workers, and 24-h urine specimens were collected each day. Female harvesters who worked bare-handed cleared 5.3 mu g captan equivalents as THPI with a range of 0.4 to 13.8 mu g/person/day. Harvesters who worked wearing rubber latex gloves cleared only 2.0 mu g captan equivalents with a range of 0.9 to 4.3 mu g/person/day. In this case clean rubber latex gloves reduced absorbed dose by 38%, compared to the dose absorbed by bare-handed workers. These results additionally indicate that when a pesticide is avidly retained by rubber latex gloves and not readily absorbed dermally as captan, estimates of absorbed dose based on passive dosimetry data may be less reliable than exposure estimates derived from urine biomonitoring.