Abstract: Pesticide residues acute dietary risk assessment has attracted Chinese attention only recently. So far, JMPR (Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues) is working on international acute dietary risk assessment while USA, UK, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand are likewisely working on their own national acute dietary risk assessments. Acute dietary risk is a function of acute or short-term toxicity and acute dietary intake. Pesticide acute dietary risk assessment is comprised of (1) acute reference dose (aRfD) setting; (2) acute dietary exposure assessment; and (3) acute risk characterization. aRfD is an estimate of the amount of a substance in food or drinking water, expressed on a milligram per kilogram body weight basis, which can be ingested in a period of 24 hours or less, without appreciable health risk to the consumer on the basis of all the known facts at the time of the evaluation. Acute dietary exposure can be calculated by a point or deterministic method as well as by a probabilistic modeling method. In the deterministic method the intake is estimated with the assumption of large portion consumption of a ‘high residue’ food. In addition, the method also includes a variability factor to allow for the elevated residue in some single unit which may not be seen in composite samples. In the probabilistic method the distribution of dietary consumption and the distribution of possible residues are combined in repeated probabilistic calculations to yield a distribution of possible residue intakes. A common approach to do probabilistic modeling is the Monte Carlo analysis. This requires (1) comprehensive food consumption data by individuals, by time of day, and by eating occasion; and (2) comprehensive residue data such as the supervised trials median residues (STMR), anticipated residues, food residue monitoring data such as market basket study, and food processing data, such as peeling, washing, cooking, and food processing. China should conduct acute dietary risk assessment, before the high or moderately toxic pesticides are to be registered for use. This would involve the establishment of comprehensivefood consumption database, food commodity properties database, and market residue monitoring database. At first, China should adopt the JMPR deterministic method of acute dietary risk assessment. Then China can move forward to develop the probabilistic modeling method of acute dietary risk assessment for future use.

Key words: pesticide residue, acute dietary risk assessment, acute reference dose (aRfD), acute dietary exposure assessment, acute dietary risk characterization, deterministic, probabilistic modeling