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AgVetLink: Number 55, April 2006

International Meetings Update

Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues

Dave Lunn, Programme Manager (Residues-Plants), Export Standards Group, and Warren Hughes, Programme Manager (ACVM and Non-Food Assessment), attended the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) held in Fortaleza, Brazil, between 1 and 8 April 2006.

Topics of interest included how national enforcement agencies would interpret the measurement of uncertainty associated with the residue results from laboratories (e.g. x mg/kg ± y%), and the draft paper outlining criteria for any country or body to object to the advancement of maximum residue limits (MRLs) through CCPR.

The Chair of the Committee led an interesting discussion on the relevancy of CCPR when a number of countries do not recognise Codex MRLs for imported primary produce. A paper by the chair on this topic will be presented at next year’s CCPR. It should be noted that New Zealand does recognise Codex MRLs for imported food.

Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods

The next (16th) Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods (CCRVDF) is to take place in Cancun, Mexico from 8-12 May.

The restructuring of NZFSA in July 2005 has led to a review of the delegations to some of the Codex meetings, and it has been agreed that NZFSA would get better use of John Reeve’s toxicological expertise if he moved to taking responsibility for the contaminants part of the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants – particularly as this Committee is splitting and the contaminants will be dealt with by their own Committee. Accordingly, Neil Kennington, Senior Adviser (Animals), will take over as New Zealand’s second delegate to the CCRVDF, beginning with this upcoming meeting.

Apart from the consideration of new maximum residue limits (MRLs) for colistin, erythromycin, flumequine, ractopamine and triclabendazole, the meeting will consider redrafts of the New Zealand-sponsored paper on draft guidelines for the establishment of a regulatory programme for the control of veterinary drug residues, and the French-sponsored draft risk management methodologies relating to residues of veterinary drugs in foods.

The meeting will also consider draft proposals as to what to do about residues of veterinary drugs without current acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) or Codex MRLs. A working group (which included New Zealand) has drafted these proposals in an attempt to resolve issues arising from the deletion of ADIs and the subsequent removal of Codex MRLs for ‘orphaned’ drugs that do not have toxicology packages that meet current regulatory requirements. These drugs are the ones that are used in third world countries that cannot afford the modern drugs, and even though no issues regarding potential human health risks have arisen from residues, these drugs are no longer acceptable in trade because of the technicality of not having anybody who is prepared to pay for an updated toxicology data package to be produced.

OECD Pesticides Programme

John Reeve, Principal Advisor (Toxicology), was the New Zealand delegate to the OECD Pesticides Programme meetings that were held in Paris from 13-17 February. At these meetings, the main business of relevance to NZFSA is the harmonisation of support data requirements for the registration of pesticides. They also promote the use of work sharing arrangements to make more efficient use of government resources in the assessment of data submitted to regulators. Outcomes of note are:

1. The warm appreciation of New Zealand’s organisation and facilitation of the meetings of the Registration Steering Group and Risk Reduction Steering Group that were held in Wellington in November/December 2005, and acknowledgement of the great success of the meetings (they attracted the largest ever attendance for these groups).

2. New Zealand has become involved in a global work sharing arrangement that involves at least six countries that will assess the data for a new product in 2007, and the drafting of guidelines and guidance documents relating to the production and assessment of residue data submitted in support of pesticide registration.

3. New Zealand is also involved in a working group that is charged with resolving issues surrounding the use of commercially confidential information in work sharing arrangements. Currently, different countries have differing laws relating to the protection of this data.

4. New Zealand has managed to get the OECD interested in reviewing the whole paradigm of current toxicology data requirements with a view to consider new ways of generating robust toxicity data (some of which do not use animals in testing), and to ensure that all data required are actually useful and not duplicating information obtained in other required tests. This has the potential to reduce the amount of data required to be submitted, and this will reduce the regulatory resources that currently have to be put in to assessing this data.