Advisory Committee on Pesticides Annual Report 2001

<strong>Advisory</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> on Pesticides Annual Report 2001
c) approval for the professional use of slow-release strips and controllable and
non-controllable cassettes containing dichlorvos in museums be retained
subject to the fulfilment of physicochemical, operator exposure and efficacy
data requirements;
d) approval for the use of slow-release strips in pheromone traps in areas
where food may be stored, prepared or consumed be suspended pending
the provision of information on food residues; and
e) approval for the use of slow release strips in pheromone traps in areas
where food is not present be retained subject to the fulfilment of
physicochemical and efficacy data requirements.
A review of the agricultural uses of dichlorvos was also considered by the
ACP at the same time (see page 42).
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The ACP also noted that dichlorvos was under discussion by the <strong>Committee</strong>
on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the
Environment (CoM), and recognised that their recommendations would
perhaps require modification in accordance with the COM’s findings.
At the July 2001 ACP meeting, the <strong>Committee</strong> considered the implications of
the COM’s possible conclusions, and agreed to advise Ministers as follows:
a) If the COM’s final conclusions were that dichlorvos was an in-vivo
mutagen, and it could not exclude the possibility that the occurrence
of tumours in animal tests of carcinogenicity resulted from a genotoxic
mechanism, there should be immediate revocation of all uses (both
agricultural and non-agricultural).
b) Alternatively, if the COM concluded that dichlorvos was an in-vivo
mutagen, but that the tumours observed in animal tests did not result from
a genotoxic mechanism, or if it could not confirm that dichlorvos was an
in-vivo mutagen, or if it took the view that dichlorvos was not an in-vivo
mutagen, then the ACP’s previous recommendations would be maintained.
The COM concluded, following a second meeting in July 2001, that dichlorvos
should be regarded as an in-vivo mutagen (i.e. capable of inducing mutations
in living animals) at site of contact and that it could not exclude the possibility
of it acting as a genotoxic carcinogen. The COM statement on dichlorvos was
finalised in late July 2001.
Consequently the ACP recommended to Ministers that, as a precautionary
measure, it would be prudent to revoke, with immediate effect, all agricultural