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AgVetLink July 2003 - Special Issue for Registrants

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Updating ACVM Act Registrations

Registrants of pesticide and animal remedy products are reminded that they have until 1 July 2004 to provide updated product data sheets to the ACVM Group.

Unlike the Pesticides or Animal Remedies Acts, under the ACVM Act it is illegal to import, manufacture, sell or use unregistered products. This means that products must be updated in order to remain as legally existing.

The ACVM (Transition Provisions) Regulations 2002 came into force in July 2002. The Regulations deemed all applicable animal remedy licences and pesticide registrations to be ACVM registrations. They imposed a limited registration period with an expiry for all deemed registrations of 1 July 2004.

This provided a period in which the products could continue to be marketed under their existing conditions and approved labels. Therefore, while the products are now registered under the ACVM Act, many of them still look like animal remedy or pesticide products.

To take advantage of the limited registration period provisions of the Regulations, a registrant must not request any changes that would alter the identity of products or change how they are packaged or labelled. If such changes are requested, the ACVM Group considers that the products are no longer the products that were first deemed to have been registered under the ACVM Act, and new registrations will be issued.

All registrants must apply for new registrations before 1 July 2004 or the registrations of their products will lapse. The products concerned will not be able to be imported, manufactured, sold or used.

In effect, the new registrations will be updates of the existing registrations, ensuring that the conditions on registration, product data sheets and label contents are made current and approved.

The purpose for the limited duration registration is to allow time so that registrants have to make changes only once to incorporate both new ACVM conditions and any controls imposed under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996.

To date, updates have been coming in very slowly. With the number still outstanding, the ACVM Group estimates that it would need to update ten per day and the Decision Making Committee would need to consider 50 per week to complete the task by the 1 July 2004 deadline. Because of the number of products, the ACVM Group urges registrants to submit their updated product information as soon as possible.

Contact for enquiries:
Maree Zinzley 
ACVM Group 
New Zealand Food Safety Authority 
PO Box 2835 
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND 
Phone: +64 4 463 2564 
Email: maree.zinzley@nzfsa.govt.nz