Original Articles
Vijay Kumar Singh and Prabhu N
Abstract
Toxicological investigations are generally carried out to study the effect of a single substance. However, our environment and food include huge number of substances and their exposure to life imparts complex type of effects. This study is framed to investigate the combination effect of cypermethrin with carbamate and piperonyl butoxide (known synergist). The oral LD50 were recorded for each dose after 96 hours by log-dose/probit regression line method. To investigate the level of synergism of different ratio mixtures, potentiation factor and combination index were calculated. The estimated oral LD50 of cypermethrin was 416.98 mg/Kg body weight and Sevin was 1778.35 mg/kg body weight whereas LD50 of piperonyl butoxide was 11480-mg/kg body weight. The increase in magnitude of toxicity of cypermethrin is 1.95 and 5.86 for 1:1 and 1:5 ratios respectively with sevin while it is 1.29 and 3.96 for 1:1 and 1:5 respectively with PB which reveals that sevin potentiates the toxicity of cypermethrin. The study gives clue that mixture of pesticides could be more toxic in both field and house hold conditions.