Survey of PCB and organochlorine pesticide residues in meats and processed meat products collected in Osaka, Japan

Residues of PCB and organochlorine pesticides in meats (beef, pork and poultry) and processed meat products collected in Osaka, Japan were surveyed. For 35 years from 1970 to 2004, the concentrations of PCB, HCH isomers, DDT analogues and dieldrin in all meats appeared to decline with each passing year. The concentration of each isomer of HCH in all meats declined rapidly from the early to the late 1970's and showed a gentle decline thereafter; beta-HCH showed the highest residue rate of the isomers in all the time periods surveyed, except for pork and poultry samples in the early 1980's. The concentrations of DDT analogues in all meats also showed sharp declines from the late 1970's to the early 1980's, followed by a smaller decrease thereafter; the main residues were pp'-DDD, p,p'-DDE and p,p'-DDT, and the residue rate of p,p'-DDE increased over the years. The residue levels of organochlorine pesticides in processed meat products (raw materials: beef, pork, poultry and mixture of ground beef and pork) were surveyed for 15 years (from 1990 to 2004) and there were no significant differences in the values among the materials. The concentrations of each pesticide in processed meat products tended to be lower than those of the corresponding meat samples, respectively.