Isomeric mixtures
New compounds
Antibiotics
Priority list
210. The Chairman of the ad hoc Working Group on Priorities, Dr T. Doust (Australia), presented the report of the Group. The recommendations in the report were considered first.
211. The Committee agreed to that the following procedures should apply when establishing priorities:
212. Recognizing that flexibility will be necessary as urgent issues arise and to ensure that impact on health is an integral component of decisions, the Committee supported the recommendation that CCPR agree to new chemicals and re-evaluations being prioritised on a 50:50 basis, with appropriate flexibility where required and taking into consideration the impact on health.
213. Several delegations supported the use of national reviews by JMPR in its evaluations of pesticides. To increase the capacity and timeliness of the evaluations, the Committee encouraged governments to provide their national toxicological and residues reviews to JMPR before final national decisions have been taken. It was recognized that consultation with the manufacturer would be required in these situations.
214. To gain experience with the use of national reviews, the JMPR Secretariat asked governments to notify them of recent or ongoing national reviews of new compounds on the priority list that could be used for their evaluations. The JMPR Secretariat also informed the Committee that a paper will be prepared that considers working procedures and various options to increase the capacity of JMPR. The Committee looked forward to reviewing this paper and encouraged governments to provide information on their national reviews to the JMPR Secretariat.
215. The Committee considered additional criteria that should be applied when establishing priorities, and agreed that preference should be given to those pesticides:
216. The Committee also agreed that lower priority should be given to pesticides that have received in recent years substantial toxicological and residues reviews short of a full periodic re-evaluation.
217. The Committee requested JMPR to review its requirements for periodic re-evaluation when certain components of the re-evaluation have not changed (e.g. such as analytical methods or the review of metabolism studies). The response of the Joint Meeting to this recommendation will be considered at the next session of the Committee when the report of the 2001 JMPR is reviewed.
218. In some cases purified isomers, which replace isomeric mixtures for which there is no longer support, have been placed on the priority list. The Committee recommended that, when CXLs exist for the isomeric mixture, CCPR, while retaining its flexibility to consider isomeric mixtures on a case-bycase basis, adopt a policy of maintaining the CXLs for the commodities supported by the manufacturer for the isomeric mixture until the MRLs for the purified isomer reach Step 8. If an isomeric mixture of a pesticide is not supported by any manufacturer, deletion of the CXLs will be recommended.
219. Five new compounds were proposed for addition to the priority list: cyprodinil, fludioxonil, and trifloxystrobin (all proposed by Switzerland), dimethenamid-P (Germany), and methoxyfenozide (United States). The JMPR Secretariat stated that its policy is to evaluate both the toxicity and residues of new pesticides the same year, unless informed that complex issues relating to the toxicity of residues are likely to arise. In such situations toxicity will be evaluated before residues, as is generally done with pesticides undergoing periodic re-evaluation.
220. The Committee noted that anilazine and propoxur were not supported for periodic reevaluation. No indication of support was provided for either hexaconazole or paclobutrazol. Esfenvalerate, which is scheduled for evaluation, is a purified isomer of fenvalerate. In this case the purified isomer and the unresolved isomers may coexist in the market, so a commitment for the support of fenvalerate should be sought by the next session.
221. All of the pesticides on the previous list that required assessments of acute toxicity have been scheduled for evaluation.
222. Mexico had requested at the Thirty-second Session of CCPR that gentamicin and oxytetracycline be added to the priority list. However, at that time the Committee deferred the decision on their inclusion. At the present session the delegation of Mexico reiterated its request, stating that it complied with the criteria for inclusion on the priority list, that these agents are very effective and important for control of bacterial diseases on certain commodities, and that residue levels are very low when these substances are used according to GAP. A number of delegations and observers did not support their inclusion on the priority list because they did not consider the use of these antibiotics as pesticides to be appropriate, which could lead to the development of antibiotic resistance in humans. Other delegations stated that, although these antibiotics are not registered for such use in their own countries, these substances should be added to the priority list because the criteria were met; it is not appropriate to take risk management decisions before a risk assessment has been performed. Because of a lack of consensus the Committee decided that it could not make a decision at this time and referred the issue to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, requesting coordination among the other committees involved, including the Codex Committees on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods and on Food Hygiene.
223. The priority list is attached as Appendix IX. It was noted that the schedules for 2003 and beyond will need to be reorganized to accommodate the decision taken at this session to evaluate new and periodic review pesticides on an approximately 50:50 basis, beginning with the 2003 Meeting. The JMPR Secretariat encouraged the submission of dossiers in electronic format, stating that three copies (two paper, two electronic) are needed for the toxicological reviews and two paper and two electronic copies are needed for the residues reviews.
224. The Committee agreed that an ad hoc Working Group on priorities should be convened at its next session under the chairmanship of Dr Doust. Activities will include consideration of the scheduling of pesticides by the 2002 JMPR and beyond, preparation of a document summarizing criteria for the prioritization process (including the criteria added at the present Session), and review of the paper to be prepared by the FAO/WHO Secretariat on the working procedures of JMPR.
