Quantification of human exposure to ethion using saliva

Abstract Ethion and ethion metabolites in saliva and ethion metabolites in urine were monitored in pesticide workers and control subjects. Pesticide worker saliva averaged from 86–4130 ppb ethion and 0.30−7.00 ppm urinary ethion metabolites. Low and inconsistent ethion metabolites were found in pesticide worker saliva, none in control subject saliva, and 1.0 ppb in control subject urine. Pesticide worker urinary ethion metabolites and salivary ethion had an overall correlation of 0.55 at the 0.0001 level. Saliva may be an appropriate substrate to confirm pesticide exposure and to estimate internal pesticide dose in humans.