Monitoring of Residual Pesticides in Herbal Drug Materials of Korea and China

The information of the pesticide residues in herbal drug materials (HDMs) is not sufficient to support the scientific risk management so far. Therefore, 30 types of HDMs such as the herba of Artemisia montana were analyzed for 47 different pesticides. Among 292 samples, eight Chinese and one Korean HDMs were contaminated with five pesticides such as methoxychlor, DDT, gamma-BHC, endosulfan, and procymidone (0.044-0.501 mg/kg). The detection rate of pesticides in the tested HDMs was determined as 3.1%. On critical observation of the detected amount of procymidone (0.501 mg/kg) and methoxychlor (0.382 and 0.312 mg/kg), further intensive monitoring of the pesticides might be necessary for HDMs.