[Food safety viewed from the registration and inspection agencies].

When food safety is mentioned, people would think about food which is in compliance with Food Sanitation Act and standard, and edible food. Because there is difference in terms of food and additives standards between Japan and other countries, a variety of food cannot be imported from foreign countries to Japan. In addition, in 2006, with the introduction of the Positive List, which takes a close-up of pesticide remained in food and anti-biotic, we adopted an effective policy towards imported food which does not reach the national standards. On one hand, in order to ensure food safety, domestic producers, hotels, fast food stores, and restaurants all try to strengthen management on food quality and employees health. However, food poisoning happens frequently. Chemicals and natural poisoning play a part but the major part is played by micro-organism (bacteria). So it become more and more important to develop food safety policies to avoid harm from bad food. Therefore, as an authority with the responsibility of quarantine, inspection and registration, it is important to conduct food inspection and it is even more important to provide comprehensive suggestions.

[Determination of low-level pesticide residues in agricultural products by ion-trap GC/MS/MS].

The objective of this study was to elucidate the utility of ion-trap GC/MS/MS for the analysis of pesticides in extracted matrices from various agricultural products. Identification and quantitative analysis of pesticides in matrices were performed by quadrupole GC/MS and ion-trap GC/MS/MS. Chlorpyrifos was added to the matrix of spinach, soybean in the pod or corn, and aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, alpha-BHC, beta-BHC, gamma-BHC, delta-BHC, p,p'-DDD, p,p'-DDE, o,p'-DDT and p,p'-DDT were added to each matrix of green tea, black tea or oolong tea. Although most of the pesticides in the matrix could not be determined by quadrupole GC/MS-Scan analysis at 0.1 microgram/mL, every pesticide was identified from the mass spectrum using ion-trap GC/MS/MS at the same concentration. The quantitation limit of every pesticide in each matrix by ion-trap GC/MS/MS analysis was higher than that by GC/MS-SIM analysis. The calibration curves obtained by GC/MS/MS were linear in the range of 0.01-0.25 microgram/mL of each pesticide. The recoveries of each pesticide from four kinds of samples spiked at the levels of 0.01 ppm to 0.02 ppm in extracts were 61.2-138.3% with SD values in the range from 1.2 to 15.4%. This study revealed that ion-trap GC/MS/MS was useful for the identification and quantitative analysis of low-level pesticides residues in matrices of agricultural products.