Olga Wachełko

Aim: Bendiocarb is used against a wide range of insects but has already been withdrawn from the market in some countries. It poses a high risk to birds as they can accidentally ingest it while searching for food, followed by toxic effects. This paper presents the results of toxicological and histopathological studies of 48 cases of intentional birds of prey poisoning with bendiocarb in Eastern Europe, specifically Poland.

Materials and methods: A novel ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS) method for bendiocarb determination in animal liver samples was developed and fully validated. The sample preparation technique was based on one-step precipitation of proteins with cold acetonitrile. The internal standard used was carbaryl-d7. Full time of analysis was less than 10 minutes. The application of the UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS method allowed us to achieve the lowest LOQ (1 ng/g) of bendiocarb in biological samples to date.

Results: Necropsies and histopathological examinations of common ravens (Corvus corax), western marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus), red kites (Milvus milvus), and a white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) revealed multi-organ toxicity manifested as congestion, oedema, or stagnation of blood. An analytical investigation confirmed the presence of bendiocarb in liver in the 1808–7721 ng/g range. Furthermore, the presence of this compound was qualitatively confirmed in the stomach and beak contents and also in the bait located near the deceased animals.

Conclusions: A comprehensive forensic examination is crucial to monitor wildlife fatalities, especially applying a combined analytical and histopathological approach to identify and eliminate highly toxic substances which pose a threat to the ecosystem.

New psychoactive substances (NPS) are nowadays a prevalent group of illicit drugs, one of which are synthetic cathinones. The widespread usage of NPS requires fast, reliable, selective and sensitive analytical methods for their identification as well as differentiation. Colorimetric tests are among the most frequently used methods for screening analysis of NPS in forensic sciences because they are fast, cheap and simple they found application in roadside, borders and airport controls, as well as are used for employees control at workplaces. In this paper we present limitations of colorimetric tests based on the example of one of the Simon test’s variant which was used to analyze synthetic cathinones samples. 163 seized drugs samples were analyzed. Used variant of the Simon test comprises reaction of secondary amines with sodium nitroprusside, sodium carbonate and acetaldehyde resulting in deep blue coloration. Our study indicated that the test gives a very low positive results percentage (3%), as well as many false negative results (88%). No pattern in color changes could be observed regarding samples belonging to one group of compounds in order to identify it even when lacking the expected observation. Another important aspects regarding colorimetric test is the fact that observations are very subjective. although this method is fast and easy to perform, it does not provide unambiguous results and thus, they always should be confirmed with the use of other analytical techniques such as LC-MS/MS or GC-MS/MS.