• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.134-140
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• 2008

The data on pesticide poisoning death toll during 2000-2005 was obtained from Korean National Statistical Office and analysed to find out any precautionary measures against pesticide poisonings. Pesticide poisoning death toll showed slightly increasing trend with year up to about 3500 in 2005. Most of the pesticide poisoning death cases were intentional self-poisoning accounting for more than 80% of total pesticide poisoning death. The pesticide most often implicated in poisoning death were paraquat dichloride, a non-selective herbicide and organophosphate/carbamate insecticides. The regional distribution of pesticide poisoning death showed urban 21.6% and rural area 78.4%. As for the occupation of the dead, agricultural, forestry and fishery workers accounted for 27.4% and non-agricultural workers was 72.6% of pesticide poisoning death. Therefore, government need to take some precautionary measures to reduce the number of pesticide poisoning cases. It is strongly recommended that pesticide regulatory authorities encourage and train the agricultural workers to use safe storage boxes and enforce strict regulation for the prevention for the prevention of highly toxic pesticides sales to non-agricultural workers.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the characteristics and the prognostic factors of carbamate poisoned patients who visited emergency departments. Methods: From August 2005 to July 2006, we investigated the demographic feature, dose of exposure, time of exposure, alcohol intake, route of exposure, reason of exposure, site of exposure, pre-existing medical condition, time from exposure to emergency department (ED), transfer from other hospitals, vital sign at ED arrival, symptom or sign at ED arrival, and result of care of the patients who visited the ED of thirty-eight hospitals in Korea. According to the result of care, we divided the patients into two groups, the survival and the dead. To evaluated the prognostic factors, we calculated the odds ratio of each factor for the survival. Results: Among the sixty-eight patients, fifty-five patients (80.9%) were survival and thirteen patients (19.1%) were dead. The patients in the dead were older than the patients in the survival. The Glasgow coma scale (GCS) of the patients in the dead was lower than the GCS in the survival. The odds ratio of the GCS at ED arrival for the survival was 1.58 (95% CI; 1.23-2.05). Other factors showed no statistical significances. Conclusion: The GCS at emergency department arrival was the prognosis factor of the carbamate poisoned patients who visited emergency departments. If the carbamate poisoned patients showed altered mentalities, they should be provided intensive care, immediately.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.218-224
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• 2013

Organophosphorus compounds are irreversible inhibitors of cholinesterase enzyme. Exposure causes a progression of toxic signs, including hypersecretion, tremor, convulsion, respiratory distress, epileptiform seizure, brain injuries and death. To protect brain injuries, administration of diazepam as a neuroprotectant is now considered essential for severely exposed nerve agent casualties. However, studies have shown diazepam to provide less than total protection against the neuropathological consequences of nerve agent exposure. In this context, extensive studies have been carried out to find out effective alternative drugs to protect brain from epileptiform seizures induced by organophosphate compounds intoxication. It has been reported that a combination of carbamate and anticholinergic or antiglutamatergic can be a very effective medical countermeasure in dealing with the threat of organophosphorous poisoning. In this study, experimental animals including rats and guinea pigs were implanted with microelectrodes on their brain sculls, and treated with various centrally acting drugs such as physostigmine and procyclidine prior to soman challenge, and then its electroencephalography(ECoG) was monitored to see anticonvulsant effects of the drugs. It was found that seizure activities in ECoG were not always in proportion to clinical signs induced by soman intoxication, and that combinative pretreatment with physostigmine plus procyclidine effectively stopped the seizures induced by organophosphorous poisoning.

• Journal of Apiculture
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.295-302
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• 2017

Avoidance behavior is an important life history strategy to survive hazardous environment. The experiment was conducted to detect the avoidance tendency of the honeybee Apis mellifera against commonly used pesticides in apple production. Choice test given only 50% sucrose solution and pesticide-mixed sucrose solution as food estimated the avoidance in laboratory. Most of the acaricides and fungicides tested were shown avoided. Among insecticides, honeybee showed strong avoidance to cyhexatine, carbosulfan and fenpyroximate but low to diflubenzuron, tebufenpyrad, and acrinathrin. Avoidance behavior to neonicotinoid insecticides showed bifurcated; highly avoided from thiacloprid, acetamiprid while less avoided from imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and dinotefuran. From the field study, abamectin, fenthion, amitraz and acequinocyl showed highly avoided while fungicide of fenarimol, acaricides of acrinathrin and phosphamidon, IGR insecticide of diflubenzuron, neonicotinoid insecticide of imidacloprid, and carbamate insecticide of carbaryl showed less avoidance in the field. These results partly explained high bee poisoning from carbaryl in apple flowering period, and neonicotinoids during season.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2019

Purpose: Mortality rate in the health services research field is frequently considered as a proxy for measuring healthcare quality. We compared the mortality rate and hospitalization levels among patients with poisoning. Methods: A population-based study of hospital size and level based on the Korean health insurance and assessment service was conducted to identify the impact of hospital level on patient mortality. Results: We analyzed a total of 16,416 patients, of which 7,607 were from tertiary hospitals, 8,490 were from general hospitals, and 319 were from hospitals. The highest mortality rate of diagnosis regarding poisoning was T60.31 (other herbicides and fungicides, 16%), followed by T60.0 (organophosphate and carbamate insecticides, 12.7%). There was no statistical difference in mortality among hospital levels for gender. Among age groups, tertiary hospitals had lower mortality than general hospitals and hospitals for patients aged more than 70 years (11.9% mortality at tertiary vs 14.2% at general and 23% at hospital; p=0.003, adjusted z score=-6.9), general hospitals had lower mortality than tertiary hospitals and hospitals for patients aged 18 to 29 (0.6% at general vs 2.4% at tertiary and 3.7% at hospital; p=0.01, adjusted z score=-4.3), and hospitals had lower mortality than tertiary hospitals and general hospitals for patients between 50 and 59 years of age (0% at hospital vs 6.4% at general and 8.3% at tertiary; p=0.004). Conclusion: Overall, there was no significant difference between mortality and hospital level among poisoned patients. However, to establish an efficient treatment system for patients with poisoning, further studies will be needed to identify the role of each facility according to hospital level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.866-873
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• 2022

Growth rate and production of the paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin (PST) of a toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium pacificum (LIMS-PS-2611) isolated from the southern sea of Korea, were examined under various temperatures and salinity conditions. The maximum growth rate (0.28 day^-1) was observed under 25℃ and 30 psu. Optimal growth (≥ 70% of maximum growth rate) was obtained between 20~25℃ and 25~35 psu. Among the PSTs of A. pacificum, the principal toxins were C1+2 and GTX5 in N-sulfocarbamoyl toxin group, and minor components were characterized as neoSTXs in the carbamate toxin group. Maximum toxin content was observed under 20℃ and 30 psu, and the toxin content increased with the increase of salinity. Low toxin contents were measured under the temperature and salinity conditions of the maximum growth rate. Therefore, the PSP of bivalve, which occurs at a temperature range of 20-25℃ in June, might have been derived from A. pacificum.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.61-68
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• 1993

This study aimed at evaluating the preventive effect of Glycyrrhizae Radix and Glycine Semen Extract (GGE) against NAC intoxication. NAC is widely used pesticide in many countries and derivative of carbamats and GGE is well-known antidote to some kinds of toxicants which was referenced from oriental medicine text. The results obtained were as follows: 1) After injecting NAC (100,140 mg/kg), determined Ch.E activities decrease 44.77~50.86% for all experimental groups at one hour after exposure, and were gradually recovered in the course of time. 2) In toxicity test of GGE, there were no sign of death or poisoning up to 5000 mg/kg of GGE for p.o. in mice. From this, we suggest that the LD$_{50}$ of GGE would be above 5000 mg/kg. 3) The Ch.E activity in control group was 471.43 $\pm$ 4.85 luff, group I was 215.27 $\pm$ 23.13 IU/l, group II and group III were 304.03 $\pm$ 9.03 IU/l, 433.81 $\pm$ 21.73 IU/l, respectively. Compare to the control group with experimental group I, remarkable difference revealed (p< 0.01), but the Ch.E activities of group II and III were similar to those of control group. This is indicate that GGE possess a potent activity of recovering Ch.E. GGE had a very remarkable preventive effect on NAC toxicity, and it was able to know that Ch.E activity dramatically increased according to GGE dosage increasing. 4) When GGE and NAC were administered by p.o. simultaneously, LD$_{50}$ and confidence intervals of each group were as follows: the control group: 270 mg/kg, 234.99~310.23 mg/kg, group I and II (GGE 500 mg/kg, 1000 mg/kg by p.o.): 310 mg/kg, 271.69~353.71mg/kg, and 325 mg/kg, 285.09~370.50 mg/kg, respectively. In the comparison with the control group, the protective index was 1.1 and 1.2, respectively. From the above result, GGE has reactivation effect to decreasing Ch.E activity induced by exposure to NAC. Furthermore, GGE shows a preventive effect on NAC intoxication.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.241-247
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• 2013

AOAC Mouse Bioassay Analysis (MBA) has been the gold standard for the analysis of paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin (PSP toxin) for more than 50 years. However, this method has inaccurate limit of quantification and cannot be used to determine toxic profiles. An HPLC method (PCOX) was optimized for Korean shellfish to establish an alternative or supplementary method for PSP analysis and was intended to be used for the official monitoring and regulation of food. The recovery rate of the PCOX method was 83.5-112.1% and the limit of quantification for total toxin was about $8.6{\mu}g$/100 g. A long-term comparison study showed a good correlation of the PCOX results with the AOAC MBA results: the correlation factors were 0.9534 and 0.9109 for oyster and mussel matrices, respectively. The PCOX method may be used as an alternative or supplementary method for AOAC MBA to monitor the occurrence of PSP and to analyze PSP toxin profile in oysters and mussels.