The Workshop on ‘Fixation of Maximum Residues Levels for Pesticides, Veterinary Drugs and Antibiotics in foods prepared from Animals, Poultry, Fish and Processed foods’ was held on 01.02.2016 and 02.02.2016 at Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. More than 100 experts from India and abroad participated in the workshop.

Dr. S.C. Khurana, Consultant, FSSAI extended a warm welcome to all the participants and requested Shri Kumar Anil, Advisor (Standards), FSSAI to welcome the dignitaries with floral bouquets. He further introduced CEO, FSSAI to the participants and requested him to give welcome address.

Welcome address by CEO, FSSAI

At the outset, Shri Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI welcomed Dr. Leonard Ritter and Dr. Joe Boison, the experts from Canada; Dr. D. Kanungo and all the participants representing Government Organizations, Regulatory Authorities, Industry and Academia. He mentioned that food safety is very challenging issue as it touches upon the lives of all citizens and pointed out that special care should also be taken for non-vegetarian foods which are being consumed by a large segment of the Indian population. Therefore, in this direction, understanding Standards relating to pesticides, veterinary drugs, antibiotics and their residues in food chain is very important. He emphasised the need of having proper framework for ensuring safe food in the country and which should be at par with the global Standards. With this objective and direction, this workshop is being held. He further stated that participants will get an opportunity of learning from the Canadian experts since Canada is a developed country and far ahead in the area of food safety. Finally, he congratulated Shri Kumar Anil, Dr. S.C. Khurana and their team for conducting this event. He wished that deliberations during the workshop will be meaningful and helpful to FSSAI in framing better standards in the area of food safety.

Dr. S.C. Khurana informed the participants that the Chairperson, FSSAI could not attend the workshop due to health related issues. Further, he invited Dr. D. Kanungo, Chair, Scientific Panel on Pesticides and Antibiotics Residues to brief the participants about the workshop.

Dr. D. Kanungo thanked CEO, Shri Kumar Anil, Dr. S.C. Khurana for giving this opportunity to him and Dr. Leonard Ritter and Dr. Joe Boison for coming. He recalled that this idea conceptualised almost three years back and now got implemented in the form of this workshop and echoed the views given by the CEO. He mentioned about the misuse of antibiotics in human and veterinary practices and agriculture leading to resistance which is due to easy accessibility. Unless we have control over residues left in meat and meat products, chicken, milk etc. we cannot control the therapeutic use of veterinary drugs and antibiotics in meat and chicken. He further mentioned about the export of various food commodities viz. meat & meat products, egg & egg products, milk & milk products and stressed upon the need to have safe food along with good Standards for food products to compete in international market and facilitate the export trade. He also emphasized the need to have Standards for processed food products viz. tomato ketchup, tomato juice, orange juice etc. He stated to get the help of Canadian experts in this regard through their experience. He further briefed the participants about the workshop that how it would be proceeded as per the agenda.

Thereafter, Shri Kumar Anil gave vote of thanks to Chairperson and CEO, FSSAI for providing support in conducting this workshop, Dr. D. Kanungo for his guidance, Dr. Leonard Ritter and Dr. Joe Boison for coming all the way from Canada and agreeing to share their experiences in this area, Dr. S.C. Khurana and team for their support, Dr. Paturkar, BVC Mumbai; Dr. J. Padmaja, NIN, Hyderabad; Dr. Aditya Jain, NDDB, Anand; and Dr. S.N. Panda, CIFT, Kochi who were to make presentations in this workshop.

The following points were referred as way forward:

  • Use of more realistic residue/exposure values from supervised trials; use of median rather than max residues;
  •  Recognition of new innovations to refine estimates of residues, including concepts such as “edible portion”, “processing factor” and regional consumption;
  • Generation of data to support national consumption rather than international default values;
  • Probabilistic, rather than deterministic, exposure assessment providing a distributional analysis of exposure to residues;
  • Specific population subset assessments;
  • Application of more biologically relevant uncertainty (safety) factors;
  • Derivation of a more reliable “NOAEL”

Thereafter, Dr. Joe Boison, Senior Research Scientist, Centre for Veterinary Drug Residues, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Member-JECFA of FAO/WHO made a presentation on ‘Evaluating MRLs for Veterinary Drugs and Pesticide Residues’ delineating the purpose and nature of Codex Standards, derivation of MRLs for pesticides and veterinary drugs, role of Good Agricultural Practices in the use of pesticides (GAP) and Good Practices in the use of veterinary drugs (GVP), antimicrobials, risk analysis- procedure followed by the Codex, components, types of methods of analysis and general criteria for their selection, evaluation of residue data involving identity of compound, conditions for use, dosage, pharmacokinetics and metabolism of substances in both laboratory and food producing animals, identification of marker residue and target tissues, Tissue Residue Depletion Studies which provide the necessary data/information on residue depletion in foodproducing animals upon which MRL recommendations will be based, Radiolabelled Residue Depletion Studies which provides key information on the total residues found in various tissues and excreta and data on concentrations of the marker residue especially in the four tissues namely fat, kidney, liver and muscle, and milk when the product is used in dairy animals or eggs if the product is used in egglaying poultry, calculations for determination of dietary intake using marker residue (MR): total residue (TR) ratio, marker-to-total residue conversion factors, Residue Depletion Studies with Unlabelled Drug and bioavailability of bound residues, residue evaluation process followed by JECFA, Appraisal where the key facts which have been established from the evaluation of the dossier, with the assessments on the quality and completeness of the studies summarized, exposure assessment- chronic and acute, calculations for determination of Daily intakeTheoretical Maximum Daily Intake (TMDI) and Estimated Daily Intake (EDI). Further EDI was pointed out as new estimate of exposure.

Link for the Presentations held during Workshop may be seen as follows:

1. Principles of Toxicological Hazard and Risk Assessment by Professor Len Ritter

2. Evaluating MRLs for Veterinary Drugs and Pesticide Residues by Dr. Joe Boison

3. Dietary Exposure Calculations by Dr. Joe Boison

4. Modalities of Fixation of MRLs for Pesticide Residues in Processed Foods by Dr. J Padmaja

5. Modalities for fixation of MRLs in Fish including Risk Assessment by Dr. S. K Panda

6. Modalities And Protocol For Fixation Of MRLs In Milk And Milk Products Including Risk Assessment by Dr. Aditya Jain

7. Incidence of Antibiotic and Pesticide residues in Poultry Products and Protocol for fixation of MRLs by Dr. A.M Paturkar