Investigation of chloramphenicol presence in unpacked honey

Honey is an indispensable food with its nutritional and apitherapy properties. Medicines and all other chemicals used in beekeeping and environmental health can pass into honey and negatively affect human health. One of the major residue problems in honey is the presence of antibiotics. In this study, the presence of chloramphenicol, which is prohibited for use in beekeeping and defined as Group 2A by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and has negative effects on human health such as aplastic anemia, leukemia and gray baby syndrome, was investigated in honey sold unpackaged. For this purpose, 105 honey samples selected from markets, supermarkets, delicatessens, natural/local product sales points, and products offered for sale without packaging were collected and analyzed by the UPLC-MS/MS method. As a result, chloramphenicol was detected in four (3.81%) of 105 samples analyzed. It was observed that the other honey samples examined did not pose a risk in terms of food safety because they did not contain chloramphenicol.