Iranian Journal of

Background and Objectives:

handling of food and money contributes to the incidence of food-related public health incidents.

The objective of this study was to determine the total bacterial count and the presence of food borne

bacterial pathogens on Iranian currency notes, collected from food-related shops.

Materials and Methods: A total of 120 Iranian currency notes, comprising notes in four  denomination (2000, 5000, 10000 and 20000 R) were collected from various food-related shops including, butchery, bakery, confectionary, fast food, ice cream and poultry meat shop. The currency notes were categorized into three groups according to their physical conditions. All currency notes were examined for total bacterial count, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella and Listeria according to the standard techniques.
Results: The average number of total bacterial count in four denomination of currency notes (2000,  5000, 10000 and 20000 R) were 118.49, 106.32, 69.44 and 220.81 CFU/cm2, respectively. The association between total bacterial count and denomination of the currency was not statistically significant. Of the 120 currency notes on which bacteriological analysis was conducted 13.3 %, 32.5% and 10.8 % were contaminated with E. coli, S. aureus and B. cereus, respectively. Salmonella and Listeria were not isolated from samples. Currency notes collected from butchery, bakery, confectionary, fast food, ice cream and poultry meat shop were contaminated with E. coli at the rate of 60, 0, 5, 5, 0 and 10 % with S. aureus at the rate of 55, 30, 10, 25, 40 and 35 % with B. cereus at the rate of 0, 10, 20, 5, 20 and 10 %, respectively. There was not a statistically significant association between physical condition and bacterial contamination of the currency notes. The effect of presence or absence of cashier in food-related shops on bacterial contamination of the currency notes was also evaluated.
Conclusion: Money has got the potential to change through many different hands and could be  exposed to many different environments at a relatively high frequency. Since there is very little information regarding the hygienic history of any forms of currency, great care should be taken when the same person facilitates the handling of money and the preparation and handling of food to avoid cross contamination.

Background and Objective: Organochlorine pesticides are among the endocrine disrupting chemicals believed to produce a wide variety of adverse health outcomes such as cancers. Generally, fatty foods of animal origin are the major sources of human exposure to lipophilic contaminants such as DDTs and their metabolites. The objectives of the present study were to evaluate exposure of general population to DDTs via dietary milk consumption in Iran, and to assess the respective potential risks to health of people in terms of carcinogenic and none-carcinogenic effects.

Materials and Methods: The DDT residue levels were determined by GC/MS analysis in 60 milk samples of full fat pasteurized commercial types (3% fat). The assessment of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks was calculated through international standard methods.

Results: In all of the milk samples, DDT and its metabolites were detected in the range of 0.0015 to 0.28 µg/L with the mean of 0.05±0.03, 0.15±0.08, 0.09±0.05, 0.05±0.02 µg/L for o, p-DDE, p,p-DDE, p,p-DDT, p,p-DDD, respectively. The calculated estimated daily intake (0.00006-0.0002 mg/kg/day) for all categories and all compounds were lower than the Reference doses (RfDs). Consequently, the hazard quotients calculated in these groups for DDTs were less than 1. Hazard index obtained for all compounds in full fat pasteurized milk based on maximum DDT residue concentrations was higher than unity confirming health risk. From the carcinogenic point of view, there is no risk and it was within the acceptable threshold of EPA.

Conclusion: The results of the present study showed that the general population are exposing to DDT and its metabolites constantly. Therefore, it is recommended to biomonitoring and measuring these chemicals in all age groups especially in children.