PESTICIDE RESIDUES IN FOOD - 1983
Sponsored jointly by FAO and WHO
EVALUATIONS 1983
Data and recommendations of the joint meeting
of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues
in Food and the Environment and the
WHO Expert Group on Pesticide Residues
Geneva, 5 - 14 December 1983
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Rome 1985
DIMETHOATE
RESIDUES
Explanation
In 1981, the Meeting discussed the relationship between
dimethoate, omethoate and formothion and made a series of
recommendations aimed at harmonizing maximum residue limits (MRLs) for
these pesticides.1 It agreed to review these compounds at a future
Meeting, with the aim of establishing separate MRLs for dimethoate and
omethoate. When this matter was considered at the 14th and 15th
Sessions of Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues it was recommended
that all three compounds should be reviewed together, in the light of
comments from governments and other interested bodies.
The Meeting had access to several reports submitted previously by
the Government of the Netherlands. A partial review of scientific
literature indexed in computer data bases revealed that there is
extensive literature on the subject. The Meeting was also aware that
dimethoate had been reviewed in the United States and the Netherlands
and considered that the outcome of these reviews should be taken into
consideration.
It was, therefore, agreed that the proposed review of dimethoate
should be postponed until 1984 and that it should also include
omethoate and formothion, with a view to determining whether there is
a systematic relationship between the concentration of the respective
residues when either compound is applied.
1 See Annex 2 for FAO and WHO documentation.