AgroPages-Brazil ANVISA scandals knocks toxicology manager‏-Agricultural news

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Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) has faced significant trouble and scrutiny in the last few months. The consequence came out recently with the dismissal of Ana Maria Vekic, General Manager of Toxicology.

There is an understanding in the market that the change in the command occurs mainly because of the pressure made by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) for more speed in the reevaluation of important active ingredients such as carbofuran, lactofen, abamectin, glyphosate and tiram. The Attorneyship obtained a court order determining a deadline of 90 days for the conclusion of the trial - which will end on September 23. The result is unknown because the deadline is considered short for the analysis for the most used herbicide in the world.

Another factor that contributed to the change in command was the data leak scandal - secret of the compositions of eleven pesticides were made public in the online system "Agrofit". These information have been entrusted to ANVISA, but ended up being published in the database "Agrofit", open to the public. The database is maintained by the Ministry of Agriculture.

"There are several factors to fire the manager. I think the pressure from MPF has influenced the most." analyzes Tulio Teixeira, executive-director at the Brazilian Association of Generic Agrochemicals (AENDA).

A consultant, specializing in registration of agrochemicals, commented the leaving of Ana Maria Vekic. "This lady was feared by the companies. The delay of procedures has been limiting the companies' competition. Today there are a lot of procedures on the line. Some take seven years to be released under the risk that, when are authorized, the product already has a substitute or limited efficacy. This is also the existence reason of numerous outsourced offices that support over 100 companies to resolve limitations and complexity of these procedures".