The Trump administration wants the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues to pump the brakes on a proposal to update the methodology used to determine pesticide risks and is seeking more information around the plan, a U.S. delegate told stakeholders on Wednesday.

In 2023, the Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues – an expert panel managed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization set up to advise the Codex Alimentarius Commission – agreed to adapt the methodology it uses to calculate the diet exposure of pesticides.

The international standard-setting body currently bases dietary exposure on International Estimate Daily Intake (IEDI) data, which is based on the average daily per capita consumption of commodities treated with pesticides. The JMPR has devised an alternate system known as the global estimate of chronic dietary exposure (GECDE). The system uses data on individual food consumption from national surveys to take into account exposure among specific populations, like adolescents and toddlers.

The GECDE would be used to determine a “high” level of exposure for populations that consume a large proportion of that commodity relative to other products, as well as a mean level of exposure, according to the 2024 JMPR report. For most pesticides, the report says, the GECDE mean value would be similar to the IEDI range, but it notes that some divergences would occur when countries dietary patterns vary significantly.

The administration will express its concerns at a meeting of the Codex committee next month in Chile.

“I'm going to call attention to concerns raised by the U.S. when this topic was brought up last year,” Aaron Niman, an Environmental Protection Agency official in the office of pesticide programs and the U.S. delegate to the CCPR, told stakeholders on a call Wednesday.

During last year’s CCPR meeting in Chengdu, China, the U.S. said it supported the goal of incorporating susceptible and high-risk demographics into “realistic exposure scenarios,” but it raised concerns about the lack of transparency around the new methodology and the proposed process for the transition.

“We know that a number of other delegations also raised concerns about transparency, the lack of an accessible tool, the fact that it's not well understood beyond a limited number of experts,” Niman said.

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Those previously highlighted issues would serve as a “good starting point for the discussion” in September, Niman added.

Stakeholders need to be able to understand the methodology to assess the recommendations and fathom the likely implications, Niman argued. There also needs to be opportunities for stakeholder feedback as part of any transition process, Niman said.

Niman also pointed out that the U.S. has concerns that the JMPR report did not adequately lay out a dissenting opinion from a pesticide residue expert on the panel.

“This raises further questions about the transparency of JMPR’s evaluation process and whether it is appropriate to implement,” a draft of the U.S. positions for the Sept. 8-13 meeting in Santiago reads.

The JMPR’s proposed timeline was to request input on the transition to the new methodology at the 2025 CCPR meeting. But the U.S. delegation plans to propose an alternative timeline that would see JMPR draft a concept paper and proposed protocol for the 58th CCPR meeting slated for 2027, and a final discussion paper in 2028, for CCPR deliberation in 2029.

“We've proposed a timeline for the type of collaborative work that we think has to happen between CCPR and JMPR to advance recommendations,” Niman said, but he added that he isn’t sure how it will be received by other delegations.  

“What we're trying to propose with this timeline is a more step-wise approach,” Niman added. Under the U.S. proposal, JMPR would take an iterative approach to assessing the methodologies, their degree of conservatism in assessing pesticide residue risks and the impact on risk management.

“The intention behind this timeline is to have a more deliberative process that people can sort of anticipate what the next step is going to be.”

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