18 - 23 April 2005

CODEX – Committee on Pesticide Residues (7th Session) The Hague, The Netherlands

The summary and conclusions of the 37th Session of the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues are as follows:

MATTERS FOR APPROVAL BY THE 27TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION

The Committee recommended to the Commission:

• Adoption of the draft and draft revised MRLs at Step 8 and proposed draft MRLs at Step 5/8 (Appendix II and Appendix III);
• Adoption of Interim Codex MRLs for safer replacement pesticides (Para. 202 and Appendix V);
• Revocation of certain existing Codex MRLs (Appendix VIII);
• Adoption of the proposed draft Guidelines on the use of mass spectrometry (MS) for identification, confirmation and qualitative determination of residues at Step 5/8 (Para. 228 and Appendix X);
• Adoption of proposed new codes and numbers for commodities with adopted MRLs (Para. 268 and Appendix XI);
• Adoption of the proposed draft MRLs for certain commodities at Step 5 (Appendix VI);
• Adoption of proposed draft MRLs for dried chili pepper, including MRL for mevinphos for spices at Step 5 (Paras 179, 188 and Appendix VII);
• Adoption of the proposed draft Guidelines for the estimation of uncertainty of results at Step 5 (Para. 235 and Appendix XII);
• Adoption of the proposed draft risk analysis principles applied by the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues at Step 5 (Para. 221 and Appendix XIII).

The Committee agreed to ask the Commission to approve the following new work:

• Priority List for the establishment of MRLs for certain pesticides (Paras 240-256 and Appendix XIV);
• Amendment of the MRL elaboration Procedure (Para. 200).

OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST TO THE COMMISSION

The Committee:

• generally agreed with the views and recommendations under the General Considerations of the 2004 JMPR and expressed its concern about the difficult financial situation currently faced by the WHO part of the JMPR work (Paras 10 - 49);
• welcomed the development of more accurate and relevant diets and looked forward to seeing the completed GEMS/Food Consumption Cluster Diets with worked examples at its next session (Para. 61);
• agreed to retain the current policy i.e., when the JMPR notes an Acute Reference Dose exceedance, the MRLs are not advanced to a higher Step of the Codex Procedure (Para. 76);
• decided that when commodities were returned to Step 6 for three times JMPR should be requested to examine residue data from alternative GAPs and to recommend MRLs which have no dietary intake concerns (Para. 81);
• agreed to consider further the revision of the list of methods of analysis for pesticide residues at the next session (paras 184 – 195);
• agreed not to propose new compounds for the Pilot Project and decided to consider the paper on the evaluation the Pilot Project at the next session (Paras 189-202);
• agreed to develop a discussion paper on criteria to clarify when the Committee may advance or hold recommended draft MRLs and to develop other proposals in order to improve the decision-making process in the CCPR (paras 204 – 205);
• agreed to consider further the policy to be followed in the establishment of MRLs for processed foods at its next session (paras 206 – 208); and
• agreed on the priority list of pesticides to be evaluated by JMPR (paras 240 – 251);
• agreed to send the draft revised Criteria for Prioritization Process to the Committee on General Principles for their review with the understanding that the revised version would be forwarded to the Commission for adoption and be included in the Codex Alimentarius Procedural Manual (Paras 252 – 256 and Appendix XV).
• agreed to ask the JMPR
• to review the basis for ARfD for carbaryl (008) (Para. 86);
• to re-evaluate ARfD and ADI for fenitrothion (037) (Para.93);
• to review animal feeding studies for malathion (049) (Para.97);
• to review GAPs that may result in lower MRL recommendations for disulfoton (074), fenamiphosmethyl (086), aldicarb (117) (Paras 104,107, 135);
• to clarify overall intake assessment and a generic processing factor for dried chili peppers (Paras183-188).

MATTERS OF INTEREST TO OTHER CODEX COMMITTEES

CCGP

• in replying to the CCGP on food safety definitions, concluded that it did not disagree with the definitions on food safety and noted that their application to the establishment of MRLs for pesticides would require further consideration (Paras 6 – 7).

CCPFV

• in replying to the request from the CCPFV regarding establishing MRLs for processed commodities, agreed to confirm its present policy concerning the establishment of MRLs for processed commodities on the basis of the recommendations of the JMPR 2003 and consider a discussion paper on the use of processing studies and the establishment of MRLs for processed foods at its next session (Paras 8 – 9)