A comprehensive evaluation of data on the occurrence of pesticides in essential oils over 11 years, altogether 1536 samples of 38 essential oils were included which were analysed for 329 substances, resulting in a total number of 225,268 sets of data. It confirms the earlier observations that the percentage of positive findings is higher for oils produced by cold pressing (1.3 %) than for distilled oils (0.98 %). As compared to the total number of sets of data, the number of 2.423 positive findings (1606 distilled and 817 cold pressed oils) can be considered low (1.1 %). The results comply with the limits for herbal drugs in the European Pharmacopoeia or plant material set in Regulation 396/2005, respectively. It can be concluded that testing of essential oils can be restricted to those cases where either the process of production or actual treatment with pesticides during cultivation of the plant give hint to potential pesticide residues in the essential oil.

全面评估了11年中精油中农药的存在数据，共对38种精油中的1536个样品进行了分析，分析了329种物质，总共有225,268套数据。它证实了较早的观察结果，通过冷压生产的油（1.3％）比蒸馏油（0.98％）的阳性结果百分比更高。与总数据集相比，可以认为有2.423份阳性结果（1606蒸馏油和817冷榨油）低（1.1％）。结果分别符合《欧洲药典》或第396/2005号法规所规定的植物材料中草药的限制。