Omethoate
Omethoate (O,O-dimethyl S-methylcarbamoylmethyl phosphorothioate) is a systemic organophosphorus insecticide and acaricide used to control insects and mites in horticulture and agriculture, as well as in the home garden.
Omethoate review
Status: review in progress
Updates:
- February 2012 — 2011 Human Health Risk Assessment of Omethoate released.
The APVMA has released the 2011 Human Health Risk Assessment of Omethoate. The recommendations from this assessment can be summarised as follows:
- a change to the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) from 0.0003 to 0.0004 mg/kg bw
- the establishment of a new Acute Reference Dose (ARfD) for omethoate of 0.003 mg/kg bw
- changes to the registration and safety directions for some home garden products
- a change in the maximum limit of the impurity O,O,S-TMP from 5 to 20 g/kg ai. The APVMA has considered the OCS recommendation and decided to maintain the impurity level at the current, more conservative level of 5 g/kg.
Assessments for residue and Occupational, health and safety (OHS) for omethoate are continuing.
After all the assessments have been completed the APVMA will release a Preliminary Review Findings report (PRF) which will outline the review findings and the proposed regulatory action to be taken for each registered use. When proposing regulatory action and making decisions, the APVMA considers every use which appears on the label. The public, industry and interested parties will be given the opportunity to comment on the proposed regulatory actions listed in the PRF. The APVMA will consider these comments when making the final decisions for the omethoate review. When the PRF is released or if current assessments find that action is required before the release of the report, the APVMA will widely publish this information. The release of any information will be made on the APVMA website.
Omethoate was nominated for review in 1995 as part of the Existing Chemicals Review Program (ECRP) which was established to systematically review a number of Agvet chemicals which have been on the Australian market for some time. Dimethoate was nominated because of concerns over toxicology, occupational health and safety, residues and trade. This action was based on advice from the Office of Chemical Safety and Environmental Health (OCSEH) (external site) that omethoate may pose an undue hazard to public health. OCS further advised that an assessment of omethoate was required in conjunction with the concurrent review of dimethoate. This is because omethoate is the metabolite of dimethoate and the use of dimethoate on crops may lead to residues of omethoate in treated produce.
APVMA began its review of omethoate in 2004 and released the Dimethoate and Omethoate Review Scope Document (PDF, 53kb) which outlined the information needed to conduct a comprehensive scientific assessment of omethoate and included a call for public submissions.
The APVMA will issue a final report once the assessment of all available data is completed.
Omethoate review archive
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